Since 2021, I’ve made it a goal to read twelve books in the calendar year. It’s been a relative success every year, though I haven’t made it easy on myself — often remembering this goal in October, and needing to rush through the works — and I find myself rereading the same books over and over.

This year, I’ve decided to improve the goal by doubling it (making it harder to ignore through the year) and by dedicating at least 20 minutes per day to reading (as much as I love to read, it’s one of those things that’s just so easy to put off, right?).

I am going to read 25 books in 2025, and should this project be a success, hope to do 26 in 2026, 27 in 2027, and so on and so forth!

So far I’ve read two books this year — both ones I haven’t read before, since that’s an additional, informal goal of mine. This puts me well ahead of where I need to be at the end of January. I think the self-requirement of reading for a set time each day is really helping in this regard (because, of course, I end up reading about double that time as I get into each work).

I started the year with Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami; I’ve been meaning to read it for ages and even started it at the end of 2023. I just remember being so livid at the main character that I had to put it down. Revisiting the first half of the work offered me another chance to get to know Toru, and I’m glad I did.

It’s a very well-written work – poetic in its prose. This is my third Murakami work so I am tired already of how he writes women, but I think Midori and Naoko are some of his better female characters (if only because they’re so young I can excuse their superficiality as something they can grow out of). The ending was strange and I’m still not sure what to make of the relationship between Reiko and reality, but overall, it was a good read.

My next on the list was St. Petersburg by Andrei Biely. Wow. What a read! The edition I own has an abstract painting on the cover and that’s exactly the feeling of reading this — like with every look I’m noticing a new stroke of color, and that I keep seeing shapes that seem to make up a something but goodness if I cannot figure out what I’m really looking at.

A good read and one I actually want to ensure I revisit later in the year. I think knowing how it ends and the general contours of the piece will help me appreciate the surrealist experience more.

If I were to rate these two books, I would give Norwegian Wood a 3.5 out of 5 (good but not great, moving but not mind-blowing) and St. Petersburg a 3.7 (my lack of knowledge of Russia in that period probably did me dirty in understanding it).

My third book of the year: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Again, one I started in the past but put away after getting distracted by the dopamine machine in my pocket. I sort of have a feeling I’ve passed by what will be the most exciting part of the book to me (the escape from Greece was amazing) but I’m only halfway through so I’m not giving up hope yet! I look forward to following up with more in another post. (NB: I have since finished Middlesex and have started both Emma by Jane Austen and Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell).

Anyway — books are amazing — reading this year is more important now than ever. More to come.

(This is my first blog post on this new, refreshed website! How exciting!)