2023, the year that brought the “Deinfluencer” influencer trend, a trend which ostensibly began with actual trending posts encouraging people to consume less or avoid certain overhyped (over compensated) products, quickly morphed into yet another marketing strategy of cheeky talking points (“don’t buy this, it will make your skin too clear”) or straight up pivoting to selling other products, seems to have spilled over into the book world making 2024 the year of rejecting reading goals.
It’s traditional in bookish communities to kick off the new year by setting intentions for the reading year ahead. Label them what you will, but setting a quantitative reading goal, pledging to read more from your own shelves, identifying titles to be read in 2024, even pledging to read less in the year ahead, these are all reading goals.
This year I noticed a trend with many book influencers pledging to read less in 2024 and/or rejecting the concept of reading goals completely, confoundingly this was often followed by a whole list of “goals” for the year ahead.
Look, I am totally a fan of relieving unnecessary pressure from any and all possible areas of your life. If eschewing goals makes you happy, be happy.
Also, if you’re a casual reader, like most readers are, (nearly half of American adults did not read a single book in 2023. If you read 2 books you’re already in the top half of U.S. readers.) you might not be interested in setting any goals or intentions for your reading life, and that’s completely reasonable!
However, most readers in bookish spaces of the internet are not casual readers, they are in the top fraction of 1% of all readers (if you read more than 50 books last year, congrats! You’re a 1%er! At least when it comes to reading.) We are steeped in books, our TBRs are never-ending, we are juggling front- and backlist books, advanced reading copies and new release days. We are not typical readers and I think it’s reasonable, if not recommended, to approach reading with intention; to challenge ourselves in an enjoyable way, or just to identify what is most important to our reading lives.
Knowing yourself as a reader brings benefits to your reading life. Knowing yourself involves reflection: knowing what you like, what you’d like to explore, where you can afford to be challenged, what will help you to feel accomplished, and how much leniency to give yourself to mood read, or browse bookstore shelves, or scoop up hyped new releases.
When you read hundreds of books a year and are aware of thousands of new and upcoming releases I think approaching your reading life intentionally, setting some goals, is not just recommended, but important. We only have so much reading time to go around and so many, many books to be read! Reading intentionally helps you know what to prioritize and where to allocate your limited time.
That Bookish Life 