Definitely pickier about which books to read, and quicker to stop reading books that don’t work. It’s what literary agents do. I’m not an agent, just a writer, so maybe it’s age. Thanks for the post, Joel.
Wonderful, as always, Joel. These are the very best books I have read in my thirty-three years. They span genres and topics, but each is worth its weight in gold: https://www.tomwhitenoise.com/bookshelf
Depends on the year, but last year 47, this year if I hit 30 I’ll be surprised.
Last year though was a lot of fluff, which is fine, this year has been much more in depth, more note taking, more reflection.
I think it comes and goes in cycles. Some times in my life I like to crack out 5 Pop novels in 1 month. At other times it’s about spending a month with one big tome of a biography on Churchill.
Think of which books you would recommend to someone else as keys to development of insight, understanding, and knowledge. Would it be a list of 1000 books? Unlikely. 100 books would be a long list. Re-reading those 100 books is a better use of your time than racing through another 1000 books.
On re-reading, I read various Shakespeare plays in junior high school and high school. Some of them I have not read since. All I gained from reading them once was a little bit of cultural literacy, as I can now understand some (not all) references to the plays and characters. Reading without re-reading is of small benefit.
In the last couple of years, I've read 90-100 books a year, with the ratio of new books to re-reads being about 3:2. At 60 new books per year for, say, 35 to 40 more years, I could possibly read 2,100-2,400 more books.
In my childhood and youth, I was a voracious reader, consuming every book I could find by authors I liked. I often re-read books - at one point I was rereading my favourite Dickens novels at least once a year. I have never counted how many books I read in those years - 2000 is a low estimate. I read the complete or nearly complete works of so many English classic novelists, that I wondered if I was going to run out of good books. There have also been years where I barely read at all, managing only a couple of new books in the year. Whatever the number, my life has been enriched in ways that cannot be counted.
I try to read an average of 60 books a year. It is a marginal activity but I make every effort to dedicate time to it, for my sanity! And I am a lot choosier about the books I read now.
I read between 100-120 books a year, not including picture books, but yes including all sorts of chapter children’s books (some of which are admittedly quite short). 25%, if not more, are re-reads; I’m with Lewis on that one.
How depressing. I'm a book a week man. So, at age 63, if I'm lucky, I might have 30 years left. Let's call that 1,560 books. Then, I guess we should assume the last five years of that thirty will be spent with drool down my chin and a vacant look. (We all can't be like my Aunt Jo, still reading biographies of Cicero at age 98.) Better make that 1,300 titles left to read.
On the other hand, think of the lamentation of having read everything and still having years of life but no new books.
Definitely pickier about which books to read, and quicker to stop reading books that don’t work. It’s what literary agents do. I’m not an agent, just a writer, so maybe it’s age. Thanks for the post, Joel.
Wonderful, as always, Joel. These are the very best books I have read in my thirty-three years. They span genres and topics, but each is worth its weight in gold: https://www.tomwhitenoise.com/bookshelf
Depends on the year, but last year 47, this year if I hit 30 I’ll be surprised.
Last year though was a lot of fluff, which is fine, this year has been much more in depth, more note taking, more reflection.
I think it comes and goes in cycles. Some times in my life I like to crack out 5 Pop novels in 1 month. At other times it’s about spending a month with one big tome of a biography on Churchill.
Think of which books you would recommend to someone else as keys to development of insight, understanding, and knowledge. Would it be a list of 1000 books? Unlikely. 100 books would be a long list. Re-reading those 100 books is a better use of your time than racing through another 1000 books.
On re-reading, I read various Shakespeare plays in junior high school and high school. Some of them I have not read since. All I gained from reading them once was a little bit of cultural literacy, as I can now understand some (not all) references to the plays and characters. Reading without re-reading is of small benefit.
In the last couple of years, I've read 90-100 books a year, with the ratio of new books to re-reads being about 3:2. At 60 new books per year for, say, 35 to 40 more years, I could possibly read 2,100-2,400 more books.
In my childhood and youth, I was a voracious reader, consuming every book I could find by authors I liked. I often re-read books - at one point I was rereading my favourite Dickens novels at least once a year. I have never counted how many books I read in those years - 2000 is a low estimate. I read the complete or nearly complete works of so many English classic novelists, that I wondered if I was going to run out of good books. There have also been years where I barely read at all, managing only a couple of new books in the year. Whatever the number, my life has been enriched in ways that cannot be counted.
I try to read an average of 60 books a year. It is a marginal activity but I make every effort to dedicate time to it, for my sanity! And I am a lot choosier about the books I read now.
I read between 100-120 books a year, not including picture books, but yes including all sorts of chapter children’s books (some of which are admittedly quite short). 25%, if not more, are re-reads; I’m with Lewis on that one.
How depressing. I'm a book a week man. So, at age 63, if I'm lucky, I might have 30 years left. Let's call that 1,560 books. Then, I guess we should assume the last five years of that thirty will be spent with drool down my chin and a vacant look. (We all can't be like my Aunt Jo, still reading biographies of Cicero at age 98.) Better make that 1,300 titles left to read.
Remember Death 💀⏳ 🔔 ⚖️