Every January, thousands of readers log on to Goodreads, Instagram or TikTok and make the same declaration: this is the year I read 50 books. Or 75. Or 100. Screenshots of spreadsheets circulate, templates for tracking pages and percentages are downloaded, friends publicly pledge to “do better” than they did last year.
Why? They aren't, can't be, reading for pleasure. Not if this is what's driving them.
The appeal is obvious: in a distracted age, reading can easily become crowded out by work, screens and fatigue. Literacy rates in the UK are stagnating: in 2024, around 50% of UK adults read regularly for pleasure, down from 58% in 2015.
What they are describing doesn't seem too pleasurable to me. I love Goodreads for its options to recommend books, and see what others are reading, not for any competitive reducing of reading to a numbers game!
As the UK launches its National Year of Reading, a steady drumbeat of commentary has framed the decline of book culture as a civilisational crisis. Columnists have painted lurid pictures of a post-literate society, in which the shrinking cultural centrality of books represents a slow unravelling of the habits that once underpinned modern public life. In this context, reading targets promise discipline and a sense of progress.
The death of great authors like the sadly missed Dan Simmons at the weekend isn’t helping!
But do yearly reading goals actually help us read better, or do they risk hollowing out the very activity they claim to protect?
The latter, I fear. What say you, Reader?
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