Why Numbers-of-Books-Read is a Poor Reading Goal

I joined Bluesky a month or so ago and one of the things that has caught my attention is that it seems a lot of folks who post there are posting the books they’ve read, are reading, or plan to read. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I have been known to do that myself.

What caught my eye, though, was the number of people who boast about the number of books they’ve read or, as the new year begins, have set goals for how many books they will read this year. Can I just say I think that’s the stupidest thing you can possibly do?

Oh, it sounds great to say that you’ve read 70 books this year. But of what quality? I could probably read a couple of hundred if they’re short and lack depth. Beach reads come to mind here. But if you’re truly a “reader” and want to brag about it, read something of high quality with depth. Read something that you have to think about, something that challenges your vocabulary or your world view.

Why I Read

I read for two reasons: Either to learn something new or for pleasure. For the first reason, I want to add to my knowledge base, widen my worldview, or broaden my understanding of the world around me. These things help me to better understand, interpret, and interact with the world. They provide a foundation for making decisions and can help provide context for what is happening. They contribute to my critical thinking skills, allowing me to utilize what I’ve learned in order to identify and consider alternatives. I spend a lot of my time reading materials that contribute to my knowledge base.

I read a lot of technical material, as well as more ‘academic’ stuff, like philosophy. I also tend to read a lot of the classics. While most of the classics fall into the second reason (below), I include them here, as well, because they contribute to my experience of the world around me through their exploration of the human condition.

The second reason, reading for pleasure, is just that – reading for the enjoyment of the story line. Reading to fill my time with something worthwhile rather than simply filling my time with mindless TV or doom-scrolling on the computer. Reading for pleasure, though, can also contribute to my understanding of the world around me. As I mentioned a moment ago, the classics, in particular, provide insight into the human condition and can remind me that there are other ways of experiencing the world.

Both of these approaches to reading, though, require time. Time to comprehend what I’m reading, time to digest what I’ve read, and time to integrate my reading into my existing views. When I’m reading to learn, I want to take the time to actually understand what I’m reading because my goal is to learn. When I reading for pleasure, I want to take the time to actually enjoy the experience. I want to be able to visualize the story, to step into the character’s skin to experience the story as they do.

And I don’t think setting reading goals, particularly in the number of books read, allows for that kind of time or experience. The goal, rather than the knowledge or experience, becomes the focus.

Why Setting a Reading Goal is Stupid

Remember back when you were in school and your teacher would assign reading that had to be completed by a given date? Did you find pleasure in the reading or did you see it as drudgery? The requirement that you a: needed to complete the book in a given time frame, and b: had to write some kind of summary or report of the book took all the joy out of reading. I am firmly convinced that one of the reasons so many people eschew reading is because they associate reading books with the ‘work’ of school. Those assigned readings took the joy out of reading. They killed the interest in the story. And that’s the exact opposite of what the assigned material is intended to do.

So, the first reason I think reading goals are stupid is that they turn what should be a pleasurable, enlightening, and interesting experience into work. There’s a “should” in that process: I should be reading rather than doing something else. I should have completed x number of books by now. I should finished this book even though it’s boring and simply not of my liking.

My wife was a Media Specialist at both the Middle School and High School levels. Her school, like many others, used some type of reading incentive software such as Accelerated Reader, Beanstalk, Reading Plus and the like. These programs encourage reading by offering some type of reward for completing books. Libraries often initiate reading programs with similar goals and similar rewards. The rewards might be trinkets of some kind, a coupon for pizza, or candy, and so on. My wife, however, noted that often students, when required to read, would choose the shortest, easiest to read books. Why? Because they could reap the promised reward with minimum effort. They weren’t encouraged to read for pleasure or to challenge themselves. They were simply encouraged to complete the task to get the reward.

I’ve often heard the phrase that it’s the journey not the destination that matters. Those students focused only on the destination and took the shortest route to get there. So, while the reading incentive programs aimed to encourage students to read, they took the joy out of reading. The destination, rather than the journey, became the goal. When you set a goal to read X number of books per year you’re doing the same thing.

Consider this: Let’s say you set a goal of reading 50 books this year. That’s one a week. Would you, then, choose to read War and Peace, Anna Karenina, or Don Quixote? Each of those books is over a 1000 pages long (War and Peace comes in at around 1600!) Or would you choose to read shorter books in the range of 300 - 400 pages – or less? And, if you chose to read those longer tomes, would you take the time to truly appreciate the writing and the story or would you simply power through it in order to check the book off your list?

If you’ve set a reading goal, I’m betting on the latter.

Where is the pleasure in that process? I would rather read 10 or 15 books that I truly took the time to enjoy and understand than 40 or 50 that I just powered through in order to say I completed them.

But, Reading is Reading

Now, having said all that, reading is reading. All reading is good. I think that’s particularly true where kids are involved. Encouraging reading, regardless of the quality of the work, is still reading. And we want to encourage students to read.

I’ve heard people complain that kids like to read comic books or manga and that that isn’t reading. Yes, it is. And, if it gets the kid to read, then it’s worth it. Once they find that reading a story can be entertaining and interesting they may move on to more substantive material. And likely will. But if we discourage them from reading the stuff they like, there’s no way we’ll ever get them to read the more challenging stuff.

So, while I think that reading goals – particularly as defined by the number of books read – is stupid, I absolutely and strongly encourage people to read as much as possible.

Oh, and if you’ve just got to set a goal, let it be the number of words or the number of pages read. That allows you to read those longer works while still meeting your goals.