21 for 2021 : Read 12 Books

One of my goals for this year is to read 12 books. It was also on the list last year (and the year before), but by the time I ran out of steam in March, I had only made it to five and a half. To get this off to a solid start, I’m re-reading my favourite book for the fiftieth time, Bridget Jones’ Diary. An incredibly relatable story about a woman who sets a lot of goals and achieves almost none of them.

I don’t think I’ve been able to call myself a ‘reader’ since 2011. The last book I could comfortably say I couldn’t put down was ‘The Hunger Games’ ten years ago. I bought myself an e-reader last January as part of the annual new year, new me grand scheme, and I can’t say it didn’t work. I made it through almost half my goal in a quarter of the year. But then I got the flu, stopped all the habits I had been building in an effort to survive and evidently decided restarting in April was insane and I should just wait until next Jan.

Well, now it is next Jan, and I again, am attempting to read 12 books in 12 months. And to not get the flu. My biggest reasoning for wanting to start reading again is to replace some of the time I spend staring at screens. I mean, my kobo is a screen, but a less mentally damaging one. I’d also like to get into some non-fiction and develop in-depth knowledge of a few things rather than knowing a little bit about everything like I get from skimming the articles with the best clickbait headlines on twitter/reddit.

I need fiction in my life for the sake of my concentration. I found last year after a 5-6 year hiatus of not reading a single book, that I had a lot of trouble reading every single word. I would get to the end of the page with the gist, but a little further along I would scan something that doesn’t fit with what I thought the gist was and have to go back and re-read. It could take 4 or 5 skims to actually understand what happened. The first few chapters training myself back in took a long time. And afterwards I had a much better understanding of how ‘fake news’ happens.

So 12 books, round ~~two~~ three. Le’go.

Last Updated: 17/08/21