One of the only few areas I’m qualified to do a “recapping” for 2022 is reading, as usual. I made some “resolutions” earlier this year to try to change things up a little from before and approach reading with more intention. Essentially, I managed to evade book ratings altogether (not giving ratings to books I read and not minding ratings when choosing books to read) and to labor through some well-established “classics” (though not as many as I would have wanted). What I failed from my very short list of resolutions was the task of “rereading” books that I had previously liked. The shiny appeal of new, unexplored books surely overwhelmed any drop of motivation I had for sitting patiently through a book I had already consumed in the past. A failure that wasn’t so bad in the end because I had no qualms about the overall quality of the selections I made this year for my reading. New and shiny have turned out fine after all (cue crab song from Moana). This “recap” of my 2022 reading captures nothing of the actual contents or statistics of what I read this year, but I simply want to jot down some thoughts on my approaches to books.
On ratings. Halfway through the year I asked my friends who may once in a while browse through my book reviews if they would prefer seeing a numerical rating attached to the book. Surprisingly (at least for me) a lot said yes. I was more or less content with my no-rating policy, but I did indeed miss the simplicity of just slapping a number over a book to basically let everyone know “I liked this, try it” or “I did not like this, RUN AWAY”. I don’t really have a clear scale for what gets what rating, but consistency would deprive me of moments such as when I see a past rating I’ve given and think, “Oh why did I give 3 stars when I still actively dislike it?” or “This masterpiece only got a 4??” As much as I want to boycott Goodreads, I do enjoy going through my “library” on the website once in a while and adjusting the star ratings I have assigned to books. It’s a ritual that I would like to pick up again in 2023. So welcome back to my life, star ratings.
On book lengths. The intellectual snob in me idolizes long books. I guess there is apparent consensus about long books being relatively hard to read, though I have repeatedly come across books that defy this “rule”. Most of the philosophical works I read are light volumes that contain in them no light materials at all. Some large novels are actually quite immersive and a breeze to go through (when I’m deeply into the story). I have to say my putting long books on a pedestal is rather embarrassing. I get that there is value in stimulating the reader’s intellect and challenging their intellectual comfort zone. But being pretentious about book lengths and “chasing” accomplishments in consuming page numbers (and not the actual contents) is the antithesis of quality reading, or fun reading. This year, I have read everything from single volumes of six or seven hundreds pages to “books” that are just one or a few essays/short stories. And guess what, the little numbers at the page corner dictate nothing about how much I enjoy or learn from the actual texts.
On fiction vs nonfiction. Not much to say here, except that I like striking a balance between the two. Sometimes if I read many fictional works back to back, I get a strong craving for nonfiction, and vice versa. I still get surprised when I see that two thirds of the books I read are nonfiction (and only one third fiction) because somehow I’m under the impression that I spend an equal amount of time reading either. My conclusion is that it takes longer for me to get “into” fiction, but then it usually takes less time to get “through” compared to nonfiction, except for the truly dense or heavy novels. Whatever ratio I have for now works, so I’ll keep on alternating between fiction and nonfiction as I do now (with less genre burnout I hope).
On public book reviews and book contents on social media. I have a profile on instagram for sharing book reviews, which has been sitting stale without any updates for some time now. Why? I don’t know. Just a general dread of putting thoughts out in public, perhaps. Initially I wanted to spare some time and effort to write a book review for every book I read in the year, but then as I fell off of a routine for both reading and writing, I no longer have the motivation to churn out reflections on what I read. I thought about reviewing only a selection of books, or not dedicating the same amount of thoughtfulness into every review (just as I don’t peruse every book to the same extent – it depends wholly on the nature of the book or how much I enjoy it). I could switch up the tone, the length, the amount of attention to details I adopt while writing these reviews. And maybe this will finally push back my dry spell of book reviews and writing altogether.