on killing the goodreads-reading-challenge cop in your head
& other thoughts on reading, performance, and growth
I started using goodreads in earnest in 2015 when I was working at my college bookstore and trying to keep track of every book coming through the door that I wanted to help shape the early threads of my 19 year old intellectual persona. If I go into my “want-to-read” tag (currently sitting at 2,576 titles), I can see some of the earliest books I filed away here, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, Ulysses by James Joyce, Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, etc. etc., titles that I deemed necessary pillars of a literary foundation, but have still never made it around to (whoops)! Goodreads (for me) has become vaguely a social media platform, largely an archival tool, and unfortunately somewhat of an albatross in the last eight years, and so I’m seeking to drastically change my relationship to it as part of changing my relationship to reading. Let’s get started!
This weekend, I cracked open the new issue of The Baffler, and after reading the first (excellent) article in the issue by Melinda Cooper (on family companies and “managing family wealth for dynastic power”), I was inspired to dig further into some of these economic concepts that of course come up in conversation/the news/deeper research, things like venture capital, hedge funds, private equity, tax shelters, capital gains tax rates, you know, things that only exist to help rich people further gamify the economy behind closed doors (or in plain sight, but in such an opaque and convoluted way that we don’t know what’s happening right in front of us half the time). I was pulling up articles and essays and podcast episodes and clicking through hyperlinks to further reading, and it felt so liberating!
I have a lot to say about the deep impulse that grew in all of us raised on the internet to have to share everything we’re consuming to almost affirm and prove that we’re engaged and valid, but the first couple of things that come to mind are 1) the long-gone days (personally) of sharing articles on Faceb**k that I didn’t actually read, just to be a part of the conversation (I deleted my account in 2016 after receiving death threats post-being arrested at a BLM/anti-trump protest), and 2) feeling the need to share every article I was actually reading as a link on twitter in some public display, again, of proving that I was engaging in media and therefore worthy of participating in the discourse (I deleted my twitter account in October of 2021 and I’d highly recommend it).
Now back to how goodreads plays into all of this: in the past few years, when I’ve felt a pull in any one direction of wanting to learn more about something I’ve always defaulted to looking into books I could read on the subject and adding them to my want-to-read “shelf”, instead of reading journalism or listening to a podcast, or just reaching out to friends to ask if they have any insight or recommendations on the subject. Because goodreads operates around the Reading Challenge, and keeps you in the know on whether you’re behind, on, or ahead of schedule, there (for me) has always been this sort of incentive to only engage in a full-length book, because that is the only form legitimate enough to count towards your year-end goal. I end up deferring learning about a lot of things in the moment because of this.
Other ways the goodreads challenge has shaped my reading habits include, but are probably not limited to:
putting off reading longer/more challenging books that I’ll need to sit with for more time in favor of shorter books I can add to the tally
spacing out reading shorter books, especially books of poetry for want to not delegitimize reaching my goal in the projected eyes of others using the platform
publicizing a largely private activity, and the way that being “on display” in any way can warp your relationship to anything
In a lot of ways goodreads is an incredibly vulnerable social media platform, because it’s acting simultaneously as a personal archive and a public log. Because of the urge to reach that goal, most people seem (from observation) to feel incentivized to share things they’re reading that they probably (maybe) wouldn’t normally share on a large scale, things like books they’re reading at the recommendation of their therapist (usually noted hastily in reading updates or in reviews), romance novels taken as a break from academia, books about pregnancy and parenting marked as “to-read” potentially before that conversation is being had with friends and family, the list goes on. While I’ve largely left social media (with the exceptions of goodreads, pinterest, and my very small very private new instagram account for crafting, and now I guess this? does this count?), I still struggle in a lot of ways with engaging in the attention economy, and over the span of 2022 I spent a lot of time thinking about my relationship to goodreads specifically and some things I want to change moving forward.
I’ve talked with my therapist at length on and off for over a year about wanting to make discussing media and sharing what I’m reading and watching with other people easier. I think for a lot of reasons (not necessarily easy to get into here) I’ve felt very protective of what I’m consuming and threatened in a lot of ways by the idea of criticism and discussion both on a person-to-person basis and on the level of not engaging with literary or film criticism (unless it comes in a book, because that counts towards my reading goal and is therefore legitimate!) He suggested (yes, my therapist is a man, isn’t that insane) that I start a book club, so I did. My little book club starts this month with a handful of friends and we will be reading one book per month together and meeting up at the end of the month to eat snacks and discuss. I’m really excited about this, and really excited to build deeper relationships with people and deeper perspectives on what we’re reading through give and take (growth!)
I want to read more classics and non-fiction and things that I’ve been putting off out of fear that really taking my time with them and sitting with them will take too much time and energy away from being able to tear through 8 mediocre contemporary novels in the same time.
I want to do more this year with my hands besides hold a book. 2022 was a difficult mental health year for me and reading was a lot of the time an escape and a way to feel like I was accomplishing something even if I was just sitting alone in a room. I have a lot of craft goals (I want to build a loom and start weaving for example) and I want to find a better balance in taking care of myself in more ways besides quiet time with a book.
I want to read more journalism and articles and essays, and actually read the magazines and journals I subscribe to.
I want to read the books that have been sitting by my bed for months instead of overloading myself with library books so I can feel like I’m “keeping up” with new books coming out. A lot of this is also coming from an adjustment to working as a bookseller again. It’s difficult to not feel overwhelmed by all of the books I see on goodreads that I want to order into the shop, and then narrow it down even further to the books I’ll end up buying for myself, and while I love the library and encourage everyone to use it, I certainly went overboard this year and constantly kept my library stack too high, continuously juggling due dates and putting off the books I’ve been wanting to read for months.
In 2022 I read 100 books, and that’s a number I never thought I would reach so I am proud of that, but I also feel relief having hit that goal because I feel like now that I’ve done it once I don’t have to do it again. I am thankful that I don’t feel the need to beat that this year, I feel able to take a step back and reevaluate my habits. I am hoping to expand my list of default activities beyond reading. In some ways it feels silly to expose even this little slice of how much I think about reading and my relationship to reading, but to be fair I overthink everything and reading is a big part of the way I live my life so why not?
There’s probably more for me to say here but I’ll just conclude with saying I am still using goodreads, I love an archive and I find it to be an incredibly useful tool. I’m setting a goal of 26 this year which feels like something I’ll be able to reach without too much effort, and I’m hoping to not check in on my progress too often. I’d like to stop using the goodreads app on my phone as a compulsive scrolling activity multiple times a day, and I’d like to actually write longer and more thoughtful reviews about what I’m reading. Ultimately I just want my relationship to reading to feel less policed by keeping up with the reading challenge, and more a part of my larger, social life. I am constantly seeking solutions to the way the internet isolates and compartmentalizes us and part of our lives, and I would like to break those barriers whenever I am lucid enough to identify them. Etc. etc. etc. xoxo
I will throw in ONE book recommendation here and ONE music recommendation as well for fun:
I recently read Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker after waiting 8 months for it from the library (sometimes you have to use the library when things are out of print especially) and I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. I described it the other day as the depth of character of Elena Ferrante, the precision of language of Joan Didion, and the warm malaise of My Year of Rest and Relaxation so if that sounds enticing to you I would like to say please read it! Sometimes an author is just so good at describing the complex interiority of the narrator that it makes you ACHE, this is one of those.
Basically all I’ve been listening to the last 6 months is MJ Lenderman. In 2022 he put out the perfect record Boat Songs, full of infectious riffs, and simple little lines that just bury themselves in your brain, what a fuckin record! (When do I not have the line “they gave this hurricane your given name” stuck in my head?) I want to also shoutout the self-titled from 2019 though, because I am a slut for a slow burn 8-minute song and that one is just chock full of ‘em. If the cross section of Jason Molina, Alex G, and real down home country ditties rings your bell please listen!
Not a book or a record but yesterday I watched Daniel fall asleep at 6pm with his phone in his hand open to r/mycology slowly sinking as his eyes sealed shut and I just love him very very much. Sweeties are for observing and appreciating.
Okay that is it for today, if you know anything about how private equity works please hit my line I want to understand the shadow economy so I can blow it up! much love <3