I had gotten out of the habit of reading for pleasure after college because I felt incredibly burned out on it. That had started to bother me because I used to read as one of my main hobbies, so last year I set the goal of reading 1 book. I did that, and read a couple others.
This year I set a goal of 5 books and was able to do that by March, but then I ended up with about 9 in flight books and wasn’t making much progress with them. I felt like I had them hanging over my head and it was stressing me out, so I’m now working on the goal of finishing them by the end of the month.
Its been really nice to realize that I still do love reading and that I still can finish a book even with all the stuff going on in life, its just a matter of sitting down and reading. I credit a silly goal with helping me remember that.
I'm on book 7 of the Toradora light novel series. I liked the anime, but the level of verbal abuse between the characters in the novels really makes me wonder why they're friends. I'm not finding it enjoyable to read about people insulting each other.
Just picked up the earthsea books (with pictures!) by Le Guin and am having a blast diving back in. I hadn’t read this in a long time, having a great time.
In my experience, external motivation kills internal motivation. I don’t want to be supposed to read this or that amount - I accept any pace and any pauses.
As of challenges promoting something you may not have considered, I do like the idea, though I don’t believe I’ve ever participated in those, except for some self-imposed ones and the one with Ulysses, which I’m not sure whether to qualify as a challenge.
Not for me, I read when I feel like it. I don’t want it to feel like work or an obligation. Sometimes I’ll go months without a book, other times I’m inhaling them like oxygen (went through about 10 books on trans topics in about a week using ebooks from the library awhile back). After suffering Hegel in my philosophy days, everything feels like light reading in comparison lol. As I’ve gotten older, I find I have more of an attention span for informative non-fiction versus reading fiction for pleasure. I scratch my fiction itch with TV/films and video games.
The Libby app connects with a lot of libraries. There are a few others that are library specific such as cloudreaders, hoopla, and kanopy. If you have a library card, try checking your library’s website for a digital collection or elibrary. Depending on where you live you may have access to more library cards as well. I have one for the county library that uses Libby and one for the public library that uses cloudreaders.
I’ll add that if you can’t find it on libgen, or if you’re looking for comics and manga ie things that might not be on there, FMHY is a great thing to google ;) includes audiobooks if you’d prefer that to reading. Includes direct downloads as well as torrents.
That said, depending on what you want to learn, there may be a youtube video on it. There’s tons on youtube for certain subjects like video editing or coding if that’s what you’re interested in.
Edit to add: if you’d rather buy a physical copy, ebay and AbeBooks are great sources.
Since I’m seeing Libby mentioned a lot: for those in the US, check the libraries in the large cities in your state, too. Sometimes they have digital-only cards available for statewide residents. You can have several library cards on Libby so you have lots of options!
Also check your area for Little Free Libraries, which are free “take a book, leave a book” boxes!
Yes, and there are libraries with cards for non-residents, too! That's what I use on Libby. These are typically not free, but some are low-cost. If you don't have a library card already, this is a great way to get one without having to drive somewhere. For example, according to this list, Fairfax VA charges $27 per year for access to a catalogue of "over 50,000 ebooks and 21,000 audiobooks".
Literature
Oldest