I devour books. Have ever since childhood, as evinced by ivid memories of struggling to lift burgeoning bags to and fro the library. These days I tend most often towards science fiction and fantasy, but with a smattering of economics and sociology books thrown in. Typically I go through a book or two a week, and that has only increased with the forced isolation of this year.

An unfortunate side effect of this sheer volume is that I have unintentionally reread books multiple times. I tend to get a few chapters in before I start to realize that the plotline sounds awfully familiar. That feeling only grows until I admit that I goofed again.

I started tracking every book I read at the start of 2020. After all, a database is much less fallible than my own memory. I’ve been logging my activity on Goodreads, which tracks when you finish a book and displays it back to you as a few graphs.

My competitive nature immediately seized on those metrics. Reading 15 books in a month only makes me want to get 16 next time. And ditto for page counts. Which has some unfortunate side effects.

I used to be pretty quick to discard book that I’m genuinely not enjoying. But now I find myself loathe to do so. To lose out on those precious pages that won’t be tracked. So I’ve been pushing through things, reading more books that I don’t enjoy. I’ve also been reading lighter books. Because books that don’t require much reflection are easier to get through.

Basically I’m screwing myself. Turning a fun and useful hobby into a forced pursuit of empty metrics. And the graphs I got so wrapped up in aren’t even that gamified. Little bit scary.