“To read is to fly.” – A. C. Grayling
While New Year’s resolutions have never played an important role in my life (I can’t remember the last time I made one), I do think resolutions are essential. Life is defined by the decisions we make and I’ve come to view life as a series of adjustments. As we increase in age and wisdom, we begin to recognize opportunities in our life to grow and improve. And any decision to embrace that opportunity could best be labeled as a resolution (I’ve just never understood why we’d wait until January 1st to make the change).
On a related note, I like reading. Each time I read a new book, I am stretched as a person. I am forced to embrace a new thought and evaluate my life against it. I am taken to new places and enjoy conversations with new people. I am inspired, entertained, and invested into. I become a better person because of it… I just wish I did more of it.
That’s why I’ve taken this occasion of a new year to purposely resolve to read more books. For most of my life, I’ve averaged reading about one book per month. But for the next 52 weeks, I have resolved to read 52. After giving it some thought over the past few weeks, I have made the decision to read one book per week in2012 for a number of reasons:
1. It’ll make me a better writer. As one who enjoys spreading thoughts and inspiring others through the written word, writing is important to me. And reading always increases our capacity to write.
2. It’ll make me a better leader. Life requires relationship. Each of us interact with others on a daily basis. And our lives are either giving life to others or draining it from them. I want my life to give life to others and inspire them to live better. There is a growing passion in my heart to continue taking this message of “finding more life by owning less” to more and more people. I’m not entirely sure what that looks like down the road, but there’s a 100% chance leadership qualities will be required.
3. It’ll increase my worldview. Reading opens our heart to new ideas, new cultures, and new worldviews. Good art always does.
4. It’ll increase my breadth of knowledge. There is a world of inspiration to be discovered in books. There is also a world of knowledge to be found in books. I live my life trying to see the good in people believing that we can learn something from everybody… and since some have had the opportunity to write it down for us, it would make sense to take full advantage of their efforts.
5. It’ll increase my reading speed. Just like any skill in life, we improve with practice. While not a slow reader, I have never considered myself particularly fast either. No doubt, reading 52 books in 52 weeks will be a stretch for me. It will require my attention and practice and will likely increase my skill and pace in reading – at times, by necessity.
6. It’ll be a good example for my kids. My kids are young (elementary school) and still learning to read. I want them to embrace the practice with joy. I want them to become lifelong readers. And I want them to recognize their father as one who does the same.
7. It’ll increase my ability to dream big. While I have enjoyed reading all genres of books, I have always found special joy in biographies. Reading the stories of those who sacrificed much, inspires me to do the same. Reading the stories of those who loved unselfishly, inspires me to do the same. And reading the stories of those who accomplished much, inspires me to dream big and do the same.
8. It’ll stretch my self-discipline. No doubt, at times, this resolution will require discipline. The best ones always do.
9. It’ll stretch my creativity. New thoughts always stretch our minds to rediscover life in new ways. We begin to see the world differently. And we find new creative solutions because of it.
10. Books lead to greater relationships with the people around us. Books provide great opportunity to improve our existing relationships. Not only do they provide new conversation starters, they offer a new depth to our conversations as well. They encourage us to further pursue their claims within the world and people around us. As a result, they give us opportunity to not just grow in ourselves… but grow in our relationships with others as well.
11. It’ll help me better discern good ideas from bad ideas. One thing’s for sure, there are a lot of different approaches to life and the problems we face. Reading books provides opportunity to better discern what has worked in the past and what has not.
12. There are so many great books left to be read. There are books written to provide wisdom, inspiration, knowledge, and laughter. There is a wealth of life hidden inside of them… all we need to do is take the time to pick them up and read.
Thus far, I am on pace. I have recently completed Every Body Matters and Seven Days in Utopia. I am currently rereading Death by Suburb. And I have another book lined up to read after that. I hesitated a bit writing this post… but I desire the accountability. Putting resolutions out in a public forum encourages our discipline and resolve. It further calls us to pursue our goals as others have the opportunity to track our progress. And that encouragement will be valuable to me throughout.
Lastly, I wanted to encourage you. No doubt, if you read blogs, you are likely a reader already. But if not, there’s no better time to start than today. And while 52 books is a challenge that I believe fits into my life at this exact moment in time, you may find greater encouragement in reading 26 or 12. But either way, I’d love to have you join me in some way.
I’d also welcome any book recommendation in the comment section below.
A book a week is ambitious, but doable. All your reasons for challenging yourself in this way are sound ones.
The novel I’m reading right now is the most amazing I’ve read in quite some time. Possession, by A.S. Byatt. It’s a literary mystery and moves back and forth between the Victorian era to the 80s. It won the Man Booker Prize back in 1990. I highly recommend it.
Reading is awesome. I read a bunch more before I started blogging but I still read 1 or 3 a month. I blog about it once a month to try and keep me accountable :) I finished ‘Hand Wash Cold’ by Karen Maezen Miller a few weeks ago that was really good.
Now I am reading ‘The Element’ by Ken Robinson, he is a great combination of brilliant and funny that makes a great read all about finding your passion.
I won’t be joining you on this project, but I can see how it will benefit you. I look forward to hearing what you’re reading and also to your comments about each book. Telling us how it’s going is important, I think.
I’m sure you’ll find some of them useless, boring and contrary to your belief systems, and I especially look forward to hearing which those are.
Gip
Great inspiration thanks. I think read that you read a book every week and bit blew my mind! I love to read but I am a very slow and sleepy reader (I always fall asleep at night). I have read 2 books this year already and am just about to start my third. I’ve read the great Gatsby, Breakfast at Tiffanys and I am starting the angels game by Carlos Ruiz Zafron of The Shadow Of The Wind fame. I think that you should post your reads every week to keep us motivated.
Josh, I have been reading books for 60 years and agree there is no substitute for reading books. I will take some exception, however with your fifth point. I agree it is possible to increase your reading speed, but I’m not convinced that is something you want to do. We are always rushing through life. We need to slow down, and reading is an excellent place to do it. I’m reading Eknath Easwaran’s “Passage Meditation,” and I agree totally with him when he discusses why ‘speed reading’ is not a desirable thing to do. Again, Josh … good list, but you might want to reconsider #5.
Those reading books will always guide those watching TV.
You may like this website: goodreads.com
It is a great place to start a challenge, track your reads, and find recommendations.
I used to read a lot, which fell by the wayside when I had kids (& they were really young). As they moved out of toddler stage & I had a little more time, I started reading more… a few books one year, a dozen the next, slowly ramping up. Last year, I managed 62. Not sure I’ll meet that number again (because some books are better read slowly, over a long period), yet I like striving always to read & learn. Enjoy your reading journey!
Books to recommend? Here are 30 random favorites of mine (hope that’s not too many to recommend, lol!):
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
A Red Herring without Mustard by Alan Bradley
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
C by Tom McCarthy
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
All the Names by Jose Saramago
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
Fatu-Hiva: Back to Nature by Thor Heyerdahl
Sleeping in Flame by Jonathan Carroll
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Guinea Pig Diaries by A.J. Jacobs
The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Dancer by Colum McCann
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
I’ve been reading more since January 1st. I’m not sure I consciously set out to read a book or two a week, but all of a sudden I wanted to read. Here it is mid January and I’ve read a half dozen books already. Probably I’ll slow down when teaching really gets back in to full swing. I hope not. I’ve loved immersing myself in the reading.
Keep us all informed of your progress and reading suggestions.
Hey Joshua,
seems like an awesome resolution. Personally, I think reading “many” books is overrated. One can spend monts reading a single book if it has valuable content and one reads it in depth (which most of the time requires reading the book multiple times). Think that a couple of centuries ago a personal library of 200 books was an incredibly rich library. And with the right books, it still is.
Sometimes I feel a person only needs 20-30 books in their entire life (which is usually the number I read per year), assuming these are books of great value and that one re-reads them often. A small library formed mostly of books by authors like Seneca, Epicurus, Lao Tzu, Montaigne, HD Thoreau, Marcus Aurelius, etc should be enough for a life time. What do you think?
Wow! I am completely in awe! I set a goal to read 50 books this year, but hadn’t taken the time to think about the fact that that’s almost a book a week. I’m inspired to hear about your goal and to hear about the books you read. Will you be posting about them?