I recently read an article—NPR, I think—about “superreaders: individuals who read up to 300 books per year. On one hand, sounds like a good thing. In an era where reading is on the decline, any form of book consumption is a positive. On the other hand, that very concept of consumption gives me pause. In their interviews, not one of the “superreaders” mentions the titles of any books, nor any narrative, characters, or ideas contained within. They offered various hints for squeezing every possible reading moment into the day. In one case, a woman who only “read” audiobooks (no time to sit down and read) put them on 3x normal speed so she could “read” them faster. Tell me how listening to a book at super speed while cooking dinner or folding the laundry would remotely register long term in the brain. The super readers were also obsessed with logging the books read. Maybe that’s the only way they’ll be able to recall their literary consumables, or maybe if a book falls on the eyes (or ears) and no one documents it, it hasn’t been read? And if people are reading for quantity, wouldn’t they be tempted to choose shorter, simpler books?

Must everything be commodified—recorded, graphed, rated? Exercise broken down into steps; food broken down into calories? The era of big data is reaching the point of absurdity.

Here’s my system. I read every night before going to sleep. One thing I’ve never understood about people who have “no time to read” that everyone, no matter how busy they are, has that liminal time of day—they climb into bed, they relax before falling asleep?? Wouldn’t anyone have “time to read” then? , Generally speaking, I read about one book per week in this manner. On vacations, especially those that involve long plane trips, I might read 3-6 books in a week. I’d estimate that I read 50-60 books per year (plus my subscriptions to The New Yorker, Harpers, and The Sun) but I’ve never counted.

When my children were little they always participated in the summer reading club at the library, where they would color a square for each book read, receiving prizes along the way and a TShirt at the end of their little path of books. It was motivating for them, and I suppose if this approach motivates adults as well, why complain? But I’m still scratching my head in puzzlement.