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By: Sven Trautwein
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Whoever only reads novellas in December for statistical reasons has lost the essence of reading somewhere. A column about the quiet happiness of lingering.
Berlin – Easter is approaching. The holidays are coming – and with them, at least theoretically, a bit of time. Time to take a deep breath. Maybe even time for a book.
Theoretically.
Practically, social media tells me I would need to read 123 more books to keep up. And as I process this, I continue to scroll. Happy Easter. Somewhere on the internet, someone asks, ‘How do you manage to read so many books?’ And then the internet replies. One person is currently reading six books simultaneously – two audiobooks, an e-book, a manga. Someone else listens to literature while jogging. At 1.5 times the speed, of course.
Sometimes I drink coffee while reading. That’s my contribution to efficiency.
Books are like calories
It all started with Goodreads. The platform for book lovers eventually introduced the ‘Reading Challenge’: How many books can you read this year? An innocent question. With devastating consequences. Suddenly there was this counting, ticking off, a slight dizziness in October, when you’re still twenty-three books away from your year-end goal. People have been reading strategically since. Short novels as point boosters. Someone explained to me that they now only read novellas in Advent. Because of the statistics.
I looked at him like a man who counts calories on vacation.
The answer is actually simple: Five Agatha Christie books can be read faster than a single Thomas Mann. Someone who takes three months to read ‘War and Peace’ has probably experienced more than someone who has inhaled twelve short novels in the same time. But that doesn’t factor into any algorithm. There’s no trophy for that. No leaderboard.
Reading Books: Where’s the Joy?
And that may be the real Easter question – not how many books, but why at all. Easter is traditionally a festival of new beginnings, deceleration, pausing. Easter is the time when Norwegians love crime novels. Yet now the internet sends us reading lists. Now we compare. Now we wonder: Where is the joy?
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A book is not a task. It’s an invitation – to linger, to pause, to reread a sentence because it simply resonates. That’s the best thing reading can offer. And it doesn’t require speed or statistics. Or even holidays. But they help.
Read as many books as you like. Or fewer. Ditch what you don’t like. Read the wrong genre. Read slowly. Put the book down and look out the window.
Happy Easter. That’s totally enough.
How do you approach reading – do you still enjoy it, or has the counting already begun? I look forward to hearing your opinion. You can find the contact option in the author profile. (str)
