If you’ve been anywhere in any bookish space in the last few years, you’ve heard the constant arguments on how much reading is too much. All one needs to do is scroll a few minutes on a short-form content app of your choice or YouTube search to find bookish creators’ videos covering why you should read slower. Many argue that reading has become a consumerist activity more than ever with the advent of BookTok (claims that are older than TikTok, mind you– BookTube watchers have heard this for ages).
Asking why people are buying so many books that they’ll never read is a welcome critique. I don’t care how many Pinterest quotes there are about how every unread book ages like a fine wine until you read it, we all know you’re never going to read those 17 books you hauled when you were in your dystopian love triangle phase seven years ago. When people have alternatives available, and many of the hugely-platformed white book content creators often do, they absolutely should utilize their local libraries, book swaps, and the like. But what’s getting under my skin is the recent criticism of people who are able to read a large amount of books in the span of a year. Slow reading is fantastic if that works for you, but not everyone who tears through numerous books in a year is doing it to “look cool on Goodreads”.
Like many in the United States, I grew up privileged to have a household that offered many books for me to read. This love of literature, combined with a string of many wonderful English teachers (who made sure we only read three books a quarter for class, I might add), led me to where I am now, finishing a degree in English literature and creative writing. But going from the world of close-reading and pretty annotations on Shakespeare’s soliloquies to the fast-paced college quarter system meant I had to become a fast reader. My first ever undergraduate English class required me to read four or five full texts in the span of 10 weeks, not including the various papers and movies we also needed to watch for the class. Baptism by fire aside, this was the class where I learned it was crucial, if not absolutely necessary, to learn how to read fast-– I kept up with the critical readings as best as I could but floundered with the rest. My apologies to Octavia E. Butler, I do intend to read Parable of the Sower this year, four years late though it may be.
My ability to read quickly grew in 2021, following that fateful English class. I read 62 books that year, followed by 144 in 2022 and 146 in 2023. And before you ask, yes, I do retain everything I read, and my preferred audiobook speed is 1.85x. Ultimately, reading is something that I incorporate into my everyday life. For some it is an escape, but for me it is simply an enjoyable hobby. I dedicate a lot of my free time to reading. I listen to audiobooks while I fall asleep and don’t even mind that much when I have to scroll back through 60% of the book to remember where I left off. More often than not I have to cram anywhere from 3-5 novels in my reading schedule for critical reading for classes. And, now that I have an internship where I’m left alone to digitize photos all day, it’s just me, an audiobook, and the moody Epson scanner I’ve lovingly started calling R2-D2.
Some people read a lot, and that’s okay. Maybe they have a long commute, a job where they can listen to audiobooks while they work, or they read a lot of short books. Maybe books are a coping mechanism, or it’s the only activity that they can manage in the day that brings them joy. There are so many reasons why someone can, and will, read a lot of books in a year. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Not only that, but it doesn’t take away from those who read slow either. If you’ve pushed yourself to read fast and consume as much as possible and find that that doesn’t work for you, that’s fantastic. You can read only one book or 100, but what matters is that you’re reading. Your reading goal is meant for you and you alone – ultimately you’re competing against no one but yourself.
It can be obnoxious watching people read 500 books a year and most of it is manga, audiobooks, or whatever hot topic of the reading world that has been rehashed a billion times. If someone is openly admitting to skimming, then yes, outrage can be warranted, sure. But if someone is simply reading more books in a year than you, there’s no reason to feel upset. If you’re reading, you’re winning, and no matter if you’re a slow, medium, or fast reader, please just leave everyone else alone.