Reading Progress — 11nov25

Well, golly. It appears that I got ahead of myself.

After putting down my phone and picking up a book or my ebook device in early September, I set for myself what I thought to be a modest reading goal to pull me away from doomscrolling and videogaming: twenty books to read in the last quarter of 2025. That’s roughly a book and a half a week. Nothing strenuous, but nothing to sneeze at. There are plenty of folks out there who might (might!) get in twenty books the entire year on a good year. I should know, I lapsed into being one of those kinds of readers until recently. Others might achieve that goal after a decade. Or more.

So I was pretty pleased to see yesterday to see that I reached my goal ahead of schedule with about six weeks to spare — although one of those books was a longer novella-zation of a movie and not really, as I had hoped, something new. But I figure it makes up for a whole book when you include a few false starts: Dies the Fire was abandoned after fifty or so pages because, ugh!; the same for Rebecca (not because it was bad, but it doesn’t suit my mood), and; HEX (which was definitely not what I was in the mood to read — too silly).

My current list of finished books is posted here, if you are curious or want to get my general impressions. My progress is being tracked on Goodreads as well, for those who like stats and numbers and all kinds of groovy stuff.

Good thing I have plenty on the radar to read. Lock and loaded, as they say.

First, the books in hand include: The Huttite Trilogy by The Witcher author Sapkowski; finishing off the last of the Black Company novels in the collected works; Les Liaisons Dangereuses (reread); and, Freedom and Necessity, by Brust and Bull.

Because I like to read the occasional graphic novel, I decided to pick up a newer color Kindle and received a 3-month subscription to Kindle Unlimited as part of the package, which I plan to use to augment my reading variety by electing to read with fresh eyes The Lord of The Rings Trilogy, of which the last time I read it was back when I was in my early teens and it left me unimpressed at the time. I also have access to some classics without playing games loading up Gutenberg titles on Kindle like Treasure Island (another reread on my list from my youth) and maybe a number of other Gothic and Victorian horror writers that I have never gotten around to reading (or have forgotten since youth). There are a few titles that I’ve been meaning to read on the service, but just haven’t gotten to reading, so I should take advantage of the books being free to read. I’ll have to look, but I am seriously hankering for some Mickey Spillane era hard-boiled detective stories or the equivalent.

I think my personal goal will be to eclipse 10,000 pages by the end of the year, a number that had much more meaning than number of books. At roughly 300-500 words/page, that translates to about a 1/3 – 1/2 million words. Not bad, but I will try to reach higher next year, I think. Maybe a cool million?

How has this impacted my other habits? I suppose that’s the real question, isn’t it?

I am forgetting my phone around the house. I set it down now and forget where I left it. This is a good thing. I check the contents and the internet far less frequently. As a result, I find my tolerance for low-quality distractions has evaporated. I get grumpy by what I am expected to consume with a smile on my face, and it compels me to leave my phone behind more often. I’m losing my taste and tolerance for the shovelware people are assaulting our senses with across all kinds of media. Enshittification of everything from news media to entertainment to interpersonal relationships is much more pervasive than you realize until you pull away from the constant feedback loop, blink a few times and take a deep breath. The bar is set low and, good golly, there is a race to dive under that bar.

Similarly, videogames have lost their appeal for me. I’ve been slipping away for a while now but, after going on a break, I find myself disinterested in tapping that dopamine high that comes from the reward of “beating” a game or parts of it. Even an upcoming title, an IP near and dear to my heart, has lost its appeal. I feel burnout, not excitement.

Does my new habits make me a rainbow-farting unicorn? No, honestly. I’m feeling overworked, underappreciated, and in dire need of a long winter’s nap that lasts until sometime in March. Hopefully a nap free from chronic pain.

Yeah. Right.

Yawn. Perhaps I can curl up with a good book in front of the fireplace tonight.