Panasonic Youth rob sanheim writes about software, business, ruby, music, stuff and things

How many books do you read a year?

My wife had a resolution for 2005 of “read 50 books”. With one month left she is about half way done. Even though she won’t make her resolution, I’m still pretty impressed with how much reading she is able to get done while balancing full time work and school. If I had kept tracking of my reading for the last year I’m guessing it would be around twenty books or so, especially because some of the technical books I’ve read just take a long time to get through.

For next year I’d like to set fifty as my goal. I don’t thint thats too unreasonable, as a book a week is very reasonable if you can allocate maybe an hour a day to reading. If I can balance reading technical and non-tech books at the same time, it shouldn’t be too bad to try and do a technical book every month and non-nerd book every week and a half or so.

So, how many books do you read a year?

(related thread from metafilter: How much time do you spend reading for pleasure?)

zero.

i need to read more, how do you do it? i’m drawn to the tv after work and find it VERY HARD to pickup a computer book after I’ve been coding all day…..how do you do it?!!

Its not easy, especially after long days of coding/meetings/whatever. Here’s how I do it:

* we have tv, but don’t get cable or local stations - no temptation to veg out on tv I really don’t wanna watch
* keep a book handy for downtimes - ie stuck in your car waiting on something, on a treadmill at the gym, whatever
* set aside an easy goal for every day to get started - “I will read 15 pages every day” - and then get in the habit of that and the positive feedback loop will follow. then slowly up the pages.

Lemme know how it goes!

170 in 2005. I kept count this year after seeing a friend do so in her Livejournal. In some ways I’m pleased with that total and in other ways I’m horrified it is so few. I don’t get a lot of reading time - about 45 minutes a day - but I’m lucky enough to be a fast reader. I find it helps to use odd moments - like while I’m beating a cake or waiting for someone.

Avon: 170 is pretty impressive! You must be quite fast, I hope the comprehension keeps up with the speed. =)

I just started keeping a a list of my book reading this year 2007. I have only read 27 books I know it is a small amount but atleast it’s a start.

im actually only 11, but i read a lot. in class, my teacher makes us record every book we read. so far im on my 93, and im trying for 100. many people dont believe me, and i bet if your reading this you wont. i was just looking for contests and that stuff, but i found this. compared to some of these adults, im guessing that 93 during the school yr. must be a lot