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苏小柒baby 2016-12-12

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I Read 52 Books This Year. Here's What I Learned.

For the first time in my life, Istuck to a New Year'sresolution.

yulkapopkova

I am truly terrible at keeping NewYear’s resolutions. My New Year’squests to diet and exercise usuallycrash and burn in about a month. Lastyear’s pledge to limit my sugar intakelasted only three days. So this year, Iresolved to take a different tack with myNew Year’s resolution: Rather thanmaking vague promises to eat right orwork out, I turned to books as mymethod of self-betterment.

In the words of failed journalist RoryGilmore , “ I live in two worlds . One is aworld of books.”

While I acknowledge the irony ofquoting a television character here, thepoint still stands. From a young age, Ihave surrounded myself with books. No, I wasn’t reading Proust at age 16like Rory Gilmore. But I did write mycollege admissions essay on NevilleLongbottom, so that has to count forsomething.

Abigail Williams As you can tell, I clearly had a lotof friends.

Like many educated men and women ofmy generation, I went to college andpromptly forgot how to read. Of course,I was handling books constantly ― asan English major, many of my coursesassigned hundreds of pages of readingper week. The sheer volume ofassignments thrown my way turned meinto an expert skimmer. I picked mybattles. I knew which passages to honein on, highlight, and analyze for class. By the time I graduated, I had “read”hundreds of books and articles. But Ionly remembered a few in detail.

So as I sat in a seedy Atlanta bar lastNew Year’s Eve, beer in hand, pizzagrease dripping down my chin, Iresolved to get back to my roots in2016. I challenged myself to read 52books just for pleasure over the courseof the year ― one book a week.

For the first time in my life, I stuck to aNew Year’s resolution. As of December9, 2016, I read 52 books this calendaryear . Here’s what I learned:

1. Books are a mirror.

Books will only reflect what you’recapable of seeing, but the act ofreading still has true transformativevalue. The best books I read this yearheld a mirror up to my flaws. Theyshowed me imperfect, selfish, brokencharacters and I connected with manyof them. This self-awareness translatedboth personally and professionally ―and, indeed, research shows that employees with higher self-awarenesslead to better team performance , fromdecision quality to conflictmanagement.

2. Reading made me moreempathetic.

Studies show that reading literaryfiction as an adult is linked to enhancedTheory of Mind , i.e. empathy andemotional intelligence . I found thatreading intricate, complex humannarratives made me more sensitive toother people’s feelings andexperiences. In a year when tensionand hatred touched so many lives, thatlesson in empathy was critical.

3. Don’t knock it till you try it.

This may come as a surprise to you all,but I’m not a sporty girl. I can’t sitthrough a football game, but afterreading The Blind Side I can walk youthrough the evolution of the left tackleposition. I cheered with the rest of thecountry when the Chicago Cubs wonthe World Series, but their win meant somuch more because Moneyball taughtme the game Theo Epstein was playing. On a separate note, I did actually readauthors other than Michael Lewis thisyear.

4. Reading shouldn’t always be anescape.

I think we can all agree that 2016 was adumpster fire of a year. Many peopleuse reading as an escape, but readingdid not take me away from the hatred,the anger or the heartbreak that spilledover this year. But books did give me amethod of coping . They showed mecharacters in crisis who modeled graceand strength that I could take back withme to the real world.

5. My resolution to read was moreachievable than any I’ve tried.

Focusing on something like reading is aclear win. First, it turns your goal intosomething tangible rather than vaguenotions like “eat healthier.” Second, youcan easily track your progress ― I usedtools like Excel spreadsheets to notemy pace and hold myself accountable. And it requires you to carve out regulartime to work on your resolution. I tookmy hour-long subway commute andturned it into daily reading time. Breaking a seemingly insurmountablegoal down into small bite-sized intervalsis key ― indeed, research suggeststhat planning out when and how toachieve your goal is effective in helpingyou stick to it.

With that said, volume isn’t everythingwhen it comes to reading. Depth ofunderstanding is often more importantthan breadth of knowledge. If youspend an entire year reading andanalyzing The Brothers Karamazov , forinstance, then you’re a braver womanthan I and you should consider that ayear well spent.

If you’re interested in reading more in2017, feel free to get some inspirationfrom my 2016 reading list below. Icobbled this list together from bookrecommendation lists , New York Timesbestsellers , friends’ bookshelves andmy mom’s and grandma’s suggestions― both of whom read far more than Idid in 2016. (If you, too, would like toknow what my Beema is reading, shootme an email).