Ok, so I wasn’t able to sleep last night, and ended up finishing off two short books. One that I’d read half off during the day + the previous day, and one that I started late last night.
That book reading prompted me to check them off a read in GoodReads, which prompted me to check my reading challenge for last year. For quite a few years now, I’d made it my goal to read a book per month…. But in reality that rarely happens, since I’m mostly just reading webnovels instead of ‘proper’ books.
Well, guess how many books I finished reading last year. None. ZERO. Kosong. Part of me was feeling a bit wtf for sure. Like what do you mean? I look at my kindle on mobile and on Apple Books and I see a few books that I’d ‘recently’ finished reading. Yup. They were marked as read in my 2023 reading challenge. Wtf. Where did all the time go?
It felt like the year just slipped by in the blink of an eye. I accomplished nothing at work. I ate and got fatter. I read zero books.
Ok, I did have a crapton of interns. And I did read a crapton of webnovels, which I didn’t count in my reading challenge. Mostly I just assumed they aren’t on GoodReads. I don’t know, I don’t bother checking. Art was my only saving grace I guess. I did a lot of art. Tons and tons of quick sketches… And my skills and confidence has definitely improved.
But back to the books. I am really quick picky about what I read… And I tend to read more non-fiction or (auto)biography. Romance is a big no, whether webnovel or not. I love fantasy (of the high/low variety typically). But absolutely not if it moves at the pace of a snail… I end up reading lots of books marked as for kids or young adults… Who cares? I like a fast paced, action packed story.
The non-fiction books are enjoyable too, but I just can’t chow through them like I do fiction books. They tend to be longer for one, and I also take more time to think about the facts etc. And just read through it slower. And of course, I only pick topics that I’m interested in. I started a few of such books last year but have yet to finish it… Opps. It’s a tad more of a technical read sometimes… Or rather, it just uses more brain cells, which I clearly had few of last year. I’ve also abandoned a few books in said category because the authors seems to be either, droning on and on about stuff forever, just hopping around historical timelines too much, or just wrote in a very uninteresting and uninspiring manner….
So that’s me on about books… I hope to spend a little more time reading actual books and not just webnovels (and translated webnovels at that…) this year. At least I’m already 2 up from last year lol. Of course, since they were really short autobiographies, it feels like I’m cheating a little. But hey, a book is a book, and they were entertaining books at that. I’m by no means a fast reader. Average at best, and definitely as slow as a snail if you were to compare to folks in say a book club. On one hand, it would be nice if I could read faster. That would mean more efficiency right? But I’m not exactly willing to put in the effort for it. I read my books at night, before bed. Or in the office when I’m slacking…. Or on the commute. I read for leisure… So enjoyment comes first. (Of course I have to read different materials for work too, but that’s a completely different matter.)
Alright. I will end this here. It’s been a long time since I typed so much. Or well, since my previous blog posts. And gosh. My right forearm hurts like shit. The RSI is real. T.T