Should you set a reading goal for the year?

Every January, a good number of readers type a number into an app and promise themselves fifty books. By October, some of them are reading novellas at speed to catch up, and nobody has ever looked less like they were enjoying a book. Goals are tools. The trick is choosing one that serves the reading rather than the scoreboard.

When a number helps

A yearly total is not a silly idea. It works well if:

• You have drifted away from reading and want a visible reason to pick up a book in the evening instead of the phone.
• You like tracking things and enjoy watching a list grow.
• The number is modest. Twelve books, one a month, is a gentle structure. Fifty is a part-time job.

If a number gets you reading again and you still look forward to opening a book, keep it.

When a number backfires

Totals have side effects that creep up slowly.

• They punish long books. A big Russian novel costs you the same "one" as a slim novella. Over a year, the number quietly steers you away from the books that take time.
• They make abandoning a book feel like failure. Stopping halfway through something you dislike is good reading practice, but a total makes it feel like lost progress. Our page on stopping a book halfway makes the case for quitting freely.
• They turn rereading into a waste. A favourite read for the third time does not "count" in most apps, which is absurd.
• They create a race in the autumn. If you fall behind, the last months of the year can feel like catching up rather than reading.

If you notice any of these, the goal is now in charge of you. That is the moment to change it.

Better goals than a total

A theme. A year of Italian novels, of books about walking, of writers from one country you have never visited. A theme gives your choices a direction without counting anything.

A habit instead of an outcome. Twenty pages a day, reading before the phone in the morning, a book on every train. Habits survive busy months much better than targets. See our page on reading more when you are busy.

One big book. Choose the long book you have always meant to read and give it the year. Homer's Odyssey is a lovely candidate: Emily Wilson's translation, published in 2017, keeps the same number of lines as the Greek original and is written in plain modern English, so a book or two a month carries you through comfortably with room for everything else.

A mix. Something like: a few classics, a few new books, one poetry collection, one book in a language you are learning, one book someone else chooses for you. It is still a list, but a list that pushes you sideways rather than faster.

A number of hours, not books. If you like numbers, count time spent reading. It rewards long books and slow readers equally.

How to keep any goal light

• Write it down once, then mostly forget it. Check in at the change of season, not every week.
• Allow a mid-year rewrite. Changing the goal in July is not failure; it is editing.
• Never read something you dislike just to reach a target. That is the clearest sign the goal has stopped helping.
• Keep a simple list of what you read anyway. Titles and a word or two each. At the end of the year it is a lovely record, whatever the total.