My Garfunkel Library

2010

For a new year's resolution in 2009, I recorded the title and author of every book I read. It led to the following observations:

  1. No book was without merit but not all were genuinely satisfying

  2. I spend too much time fulfilling obligations: books lent by friends, books bought on a whim, review copies, books related to school projects, etc. I want to be free to read what I want to read.

  3. My reading is sometimes a passive, default activity.

  4. I used to assume that one book would lead to a specific other. In 2009, however, my reading pattern was highly scattered: Book B is almost always unrelated to Book A. There is no natural emergence and certainly no design to what I read next. It's like I'm constantly clearing a backlog or indulging whatever pushes to the front of the queue.

I should use my limited reading time more deliberately.

As an experiment, I set myself a "prescribed reading list" for 2010: all my reading planned in advance for one year. It includes books for certain pleasure, books to fill cultural gaps, and two vacant slots to allow for drift.

Books for certain pleasure:

Books I'm slightly ashamed not to have read by now:

The "two" vacant slots: