On Intentionality, Seeking Nourishment, and Reducing Your Reading Goal

How I am using my Goodreads writing goal to read more intentionally in 2024

Some of my 2023 reads

It’s the time of year where everyone posts their Spotify Wrapped and Goodreads Year In Books photos. It’s when people begin setting goals and finding ways to make improvements for the next year. I love this — I am a goal-oriented person. (Have you read my post about All the Gold Stars? Goals are my love language.)

I surpassed my 2023 reading goal in November, and once I did, something remarkable happened: I slowed down. I picked up a book in my second language (more on that below), which requires me to read at about half my normal speed or slower. I finally tackled Babel, an involved book that I knew would take some time to read but that I knew I would love (I did).

The psychological influences of my reading goal are evident: once I hit my goal and the pressure was off, I opted for the more meaningful reads. Upon realizing this, and while taking my sweet time with my second language book, I have decided that in 2024, rather than up my goal by a few books like I do most years, I am going to lower my reading goal. And — importantly — I am going to try not to surpass it.

In 2024, I want to read with more intention. I want to read more involved, wandering stories that feed my soul, like A Little Life. This was the book that made the biggest impression on me in 2023. It’s also 832 pages. I want to take my time with books like this. I want to spend more time writing thoughts and connections in the margins rather than just underlining. In 2024, I want more A Little Lifes.

I also intend to reawaken the Italian speaking part of my brain, which has lain dormant for many years.¹ I have dreams of doing what Jhumpa Lahiri did and altogether abandoning reading in English so I can devote everything to absorbing Italian. (She also picked up her family and moved everyone to Rome. But alas, I’m not Jhumpa Lahiri and writing off the consumption of any English is unreasonable.) Instead of doing something on such a grand scale, I hope to read a few books in Italian² next year.

Because I know how ambition works for me, the way to set myself up for successful nourishment and intentionality in 2024 is by lowering my reading goal. Does it sound crazy to be so beholden to a reading goal that I want to lower it because it’s the only way I might read with more intention, with more pleasure, with more reflection? Sure, it is kind of nuts. But I know I’m not the only one attached to her reading goal. A quick look at Goodreads tells me that a cool 7.7 million people created reading goals this year, with the average number of books pledged being 43. That’s a lot of books being consumed.

I’ve seen dozens of curated lists featuring short books to read in December so you can meet your reading goal. It feels good to achieve your goal, and many people will opt for a couple quick reads just to hit that number (I have done this in the past). It makes sense — goals are drivers of ambition. Goals are meant to hold you accountable. So if you don’t meet your goal, it doesn’t feel great.

I don’t yet know how I will determine what to read and what to hold off on. I currently have no identifiable pattern to my decision making. Sometimes I read a book because a publisher sent it to me. Sometimes I choose a book because I read something about it online. Other times it’s because it’s a new release or it won an award or it’s just something I’m interested in.

I saw on Instagram that Sara Hildreth, author of the

FictionMatters Newsletter

, intends to come up with a better method of prioritization in the New Year. I think I will have to do something like that, too, rather than just reading anything that’s lent to me or that I requested from the library on a whim, which I read solely because it became available and it has a due date.

Maybe you are a machine like

Rebecca F. Kuang

(who’s writing a novel, working toward her Ph.D. at Yale, and who read immensely this year) — in which case something as small and inconsequential as a Goodreads goal doesn’t matter. If that’s the case, that’s great and I am sincerely happy for you. For the rest of us mortals who are setting our 2024 Goodreads goals, I encourage you to really think about that number you are striving to hit. If your aim is to read as many books as you can, by all means, go wild. I am an advocate for reading widely and I support that. But if you want to spend next year reading deeper and seeking more nourishment, what if you gave your future self a leg-up by reducing your goal? It’s something to think about, even if it does feel good to check book 30 (or 45 or 60) off your reading list.

Are you one of the 7.7 million people with a Goodreads reading goal? How do you prioritize which books you read? What will you be setting your 2024 Goodreads goal to? Please share in the comments below!

What I’m reading: Still working on The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell and Jaded by Ela Lee. I’ve added In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri and The Christmas Café by Eliza Evans into the mix, too.

What I’m listening to: Vladimir by Julia May Jonas.

What are you reading?

Love,

PS: I have published two articles that I did not email to you, because when you signed up for Words on Words, you were promised Thursday morning articles. If you’re interested, here’s what’s new:

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1. I studied Italian in undergrad and grad school.

2. Are any of my readers Italian speakers? I would be thrilled to receive some recommendations for intermediate reading if so. I'm working on Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Altre Parole right now, which is a parallel text with Italian on the left page and English on the right. It’s the perfect difficulty level for me and I appreciate not having to leave the book to reference a dictionary or translator.