on reading better

My resolution for 2026 is to read less.

I've spent the past three years reading at least 75 books a year. It's a neat conversational shortcut when I explain to people why I deleted my Instagram and what I've been doing with my time instead. For what it's worth, there has been a direct correlation between me not using Instagram and reading more books. I replaced countless hours of idle time I would have spent doomscrolling reading whatever book du jour I have on hand and I'm probably overall better off for it. But now three years on, simply reading a lot is getting old. 

What am I trying to prove anyway? I can read 100 books a year. Even if you think my triple-digit reading year was a pandemic and/or grad school fluke (7 of the books I read cover to cover that year were for one Michaelmas term class alone), I read 91 books in a year where I was working a job that does not require me to read books. I know some people are able to hit some impressive book counts by going deep in one or two genres, but that's never been me. I want you to know that I read this much even though I read inefficiently by eschewing genre fluency: while the majority of books I read can be categorized as contemporary fiction, I try to read some sci-fi, fantasy, historical fiction, mystery, and romance in any given year, and at least 20% of my reading is nonfiction, essays, and memoirs. I read foreign books in translation and do my best to pick at least a few books from older decades or even centuries, and I am proud—arrogant, even—about the fact that I push myself to read with more diversity and at a greater volume and faster pace than the vast majority of people would desire to do. 

So it should probably come as no surprise that I have not been reading happily.

I have liked a majority of the books I finish, and I've gotten better over the years at not falling for the sunk cost fallacy and quitting books I actively dislike. But every time I finish a book I didn't really like but forced myself through anyway so I can count it toward my annual book goal, I start questioning why I'm doing this to myself. Am I really out here completing books just to feel a sense of achievement? In my attempt to escape the panopticon of performing for one social media platform, I have somehow managed to turn yet another hobby into a source of self-consciousness; this is why we (or rather I) can't have nice things.

The incident that really set me off a couple weeks ago on this crisis over my reading habits was actually more about books I liked but didn't love: there have been so many books over the years that were just fine but have left no impression on me whatsoever after the fact, to the point where my Kindle loan syncs or I check my Goodreads and it hits me that I have already read that book two years ago. Not every book is worth remembering, but I think I've gone too far in the opposite direction where I'm not really processing the books I really loved in ways that they deserved, and I want to do a better job of sitting with the books I read more at the cost of reading fewer books overall. 

I want to read with more intention this year, so here's what that means to me:

1. Read books I've been putting off

I am mostly thinking of Middlemarch, a book I have owned for six years now and barely made a dent in because I am always prioritizing library loans and because the size and scope of it intimidates me. Other books in this category tend to be classics I haven't gotten around to yet for one reason or another: Jane Austen (Emma, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey), Crime and Punishment, The Remains of the Day, Madame Bovary, maybe even 《红楼梦》—I read the last one in college in translation, so the original Chinese would be new to me and also a real challenge. 

2. Read books that interest me

This seems like it should be a no-brainer criteria, but I need to be more judicious in selecting books in the first place based on what I actually like or am intrigued by, rather than what other people think. I give too many books a shot because I read relatively quickly but this actually hurts me in the long run: I'm more likely to enter a reading slump after reading a book I don't like, while the ones I do motivate me to want to chase the same high of finding more books that do it for me. I want to be relentlessly discerning in what I'm spending my time on, even—especially—if it means I read slower and abandon even more books.

3. Reread books

I rarely reread books, so the ones I do deign to reread are ones that were important to me the first time around. Rereading old favorites feels like I'm revisiting past versions of myself. One of my favorite reads of 2025 was also my favorite read of 2014—I loved The Secret History as much as I did the first time, and it was such a different experience having read it over a decade later on the other side of university and studying classics. I've been thinking about my classics education more lately, maybe because I'm also rereading The Odyssey with Berkeley's Arts & Humanities department book club. I first read The Odyssey in freshman year of high school half my life ago, and the story itself is older than anything else I've ever read. I'm interested in discovering new ways of interacting with the same texts to better understand how my favorite books have changed for me even when the words remain the same.

4. Build discipline in reflecting on what I read

I was pretty consistent about taking notes on what I read in 2022 but abandoned this effort in 2023 around the time my reading pace really started picking up.  I check out nearly all of the books I read from the library as ebooks, so not having easy access to the books I've read makes it that much harder to revisit books in the first place. I wish I kept it up these past few years because it helps me process my thoughts on what I'm reading so I can react properly to what I'm reading and have something to look back on someday in the future.

5. Read less, and do something new

It's great that I converted some phone screen time into reading. Maybe it's time to convert reading time into doing other things now too.

So here's to reading less than 75 books this year. 

xoxo, vivian