In 2024 I intentionally made reading one of my primary hobbies. I often talk to people who are impressed by the amount I read (30+ books the last 2 years). Having a young child has put all of my hobbies into a very constrained box; everything has to be justified. So in this post I’ll justify how I manage this hobby and what I think of its particular virtues.
The primary way I manage reading is to maintain one very long recommendation list. Any time I get a recommendation that I might want to read some day I put it on the list. When it’s done I take it off the list. “Any time I get a recommendation” is pretty key. Everyone who reads loves talking about the books they’ve just read (I’m in a Slack channel at work that’s basically everyone bragging about their “just reads” :-)). If something seems marginally interesting at all, I put it on the list.
When it’s time to find a new book, I put it on hold at the library. Generally I get 2-3 at a time because once I’m done with a book, it’s time to read the next one. Usually I just pull from the list in no particular order. I try to not read too much from the same author or the same genre in a row - whenever I break this rule I tend to regret this (looking at you, Book of the New Sun).
Running the whole system off this list leads to funny situations where I can’t remember how I got a recommendation and so need to ask people if they recommended me a book.
OK, so why is reading “worked” for me over the last few years?
It’s cheap. My local library has had almost every book I’m interested in reading. I have ordered 1-2 books from Amazon over the last few years to either read them or complete them when I didn’t finish them in time.
Easily interrupted. I can usually do 5-10 pages while my daughter’s watching TV in the morning. If I have to run off to do something, the book will be still there when I get back in the same state.
Pretty good quality-to-time ratio. One of my pet peeves with television dramas now is how much filler there is. At their best, books can deliver stories that transcend anything that can be at TV; at their worst, the quality tends to be about the same. Most books take me around 10 hours to finish; at the end of a book it’s usually done (I don’t tend to read a lot of series) or has at least gotten its characters to a satisfying completion of the plot events.
Books can be incredibly niche. It’s hard to imagine anything as unfilmable as Perdido Street Station showing up on TV; the main antagonist are psychic moths that drink the dream essence from people. It’s fun to inhabit a very specific world for a period of time. Of course books are subject to commercial pressures too, but it seems a safe bet that binding a bunch of words on paper together will always be cheaper than telling a story through video.
Reading isn’t my only hobby. I set my “reading goal” every year at 30 books. This is a relatively low target. In 2026 I’ve finished 5 books in January and February; if I maintain this pace I’ll be done by early June. I set it low so I can do other things: walking, video games, math, cooking. When your to-be-read list feels like a burden and I’m not enjoying it, it’s time to do something else. Keeping the goal low lets me take little breaks.
OK, some recommendations from my reading over the last three years (mainly fantasy). All wonderful worlds to inhabit that I enjoyed from start to finish.