I’ve been lucky to live all over the US and spent several years overseas as well. This taught me that vocabulary changes by region. Sometimes the level of education has an impact, but I find the community has more influence.

I think if you could see into my brain when I read you would likely see very clear details for rooms and other places, also details for bodies and clothing, but when it comes to the face they would likely not have many features.

I read a 19 book series about a female NPS ranger and I don’t have an image of her face, I have some details, but I couldn’t even suggest an actress to play her in a movie. If a movie has been made before I read a book, I will usually visualize the actors who play each character while reading.

I did read a while ago that there is a fan fiction site that actually creates images of characters in books. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but thought it would be helpful for fantasy books when characters don’t look human.

If you are someone who enjoys buying books, a complete ban will likely fail. If you are someone who prefers to read 1 book at a time, this will likely not be fun. If you are someone who hates to have a deadline to read a book, this will likely feel more like school or work than a fun leisure activity.

One of my goals this year was to finish the last 25 books that moved with me a few years ago. I read an average of 12 books per month (I’m retired so I have lots of time to read), but I actually listen to more books than I read in print and I have other reading goals. So I gave myself the year to read the 25, so that’s only 2 per month. I also joined a challenge to help me choose what to read next. I love participating in challenges, so I found one that is specific to TBR lists.

My suggestion to you is to think about what is most important to you when it comes to reading. Create a plan and review it regularly and adjust as necessary. If you love buying books and don’t think you’ll be able to not buy while you’re working your way through your currently owned and unread, maybe allow yourself a new book after you read 3 owned books. You may also want to try to read more than 1 book at a time to see if it works for you.

I do enjoy reading multiple books at a time, but I do it for specific reasons. I usually have a print, ebook, and audiobook going at all times. They have to be very different genres and I read each format at a different pace. I can listen to an average length audiobook in 2 days, ebook in about a week, but print can take me more than 2 weeks. That may also be because most of my print books are nonfiction which just takes me longer to digest the material than a fictional mystery.

All I can say is I saw the author on Oprah (2010) and the book sounded interesting so I purchased it and started to read it to my sons (7 and 12). My 12 year old never really read with out being prompted until we started to read this book before bed. He became impatient and started to read the book on his own and then read every other book as soon as I could get them for him.

These are just really great books that people feel connected to, but I agree with others that having access to others online who were excited about the books probably had a major impact on the depth and longevity of the fandom. People need to feel connected to others and sharing a love for the books and movies connected people.

The first thing that came to mind when I read this is how often people take a text or a quick email the wrong way. Using the right words provides clarity. When we try to be too brief or simple it can often leave too much room for interpretation which leads to miscommunication.

One book that I think highlights this really well is Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown. Most people have fewer than 5 words to describe their emotions. This book has definitions for 87 distinct emotions, all of which I have felt at some point in my life and now have the vocabulary to express them. Two words are nearly universally used wrong, envy and jealousy. We so often say I’m jelly or jealous when we actually mean envy. We think it seems nicer, but if you know the definition it’s actually the opposite. This is the power of vocabulary.

Another thing that I thought of was regional dialect. I’ve lived all of the the US and overseas in a both Europe and Asia. Although all the people I worked with spoke English, they all had different vocabulary depending on where they learned English or where they have lived. I’m not just talking about slang, but I can’t think of an example off the top of my head.

I think being exposed to people who use different vocabulary had helped me dramatically when I read books because I just know the meaning of more words or I can often guess by using context. This makes it easier to read a book without having to look up a word or phrase. I read a lot of international authors so I am coming across words that I’m not familiar with more often and do take the time to look them up.

I had to laugh that it’s classics you are struggling to finish. I decided to challenge myself to read several classics last year. I slogged through a few that if I hadn’t set that goal I would have DNF for sure.

Anna Karenina was the hardest. I also listen to audiobooks and I was able to get it for free on Audible, so I started listening to it instead of reading it in print. I also limited how much time I would listen per session because I found myself tuning out after about 10 minutes. Since it was 35 hours long, it took a long time to finish. I read other books that weren’t classics so I could take my time without feeling stuck.

The biggest thing I learned last year was my reading pleasure is more important than a reading goal. I only read 8 classics and I didn’t really like any of them, most were irritating and only 1 would have been finished if I wasn’t working toward a personal goal. I had originally thought I would work my way through one of those 100 books you must read before you die lists, but last year changed my mind. I will continue to put a few classics on my TBR list from time to time, but I have given myself permission to DNF them without any regret.

Good Luck on your goal, but if these books aren’t enjoyable take some time to decide if the goal is still what you want to work on. I’m a retired Life Coach and one of the things I worked on with my clients is regularly reviewing goals to see if they are still moving you toward the life you want to live and to adjust often as needed.

I read a lot and a wide variety of genres both fiction and nonfiction. One thing I do is not try to read them all at the same time. I have times of year where I read more nonfiction and times of year when I read more fiction and other times when I take a bit of a break from daily reading.

I used to have a massive library of unread books, I estimate between 800-1000, it stopped bringing me joy and started to feel like a monster chasing me. So I purged the vast majority of them and started over with a single box of books for work and another box of books I felt I would likely read within 2 years.

It’s now been 4 years and I’m reading more than ever and this year I set a goal to read or release the last of the books I kept. I no longer have an official TBR list. I rarely buy books because I primarily use the library.

I do have a casual list of books that caught my eye, I keep the list on my phone and add to it from time to time, but I don’t feel committed to reading anything on the list. When I need to add books to my library queue I look at the list to see if anything catches my eye and see if my library has it and if it decide if I’m still interested in reading it. I also scan the list to see if there are any books I can delete.

I never want to feel pressure to read a particular book. Perhaps it’s because I’m older, but I don’t usually get recommendations for books from social media influencers. I also feel like most best seller lists or awards are manipulated so I no longer trust them. I think the most common way for me to find a book is by setting goals or joining challenges that lead me to research a book on a particular topic or some element that meets a goal or challenge prompt.

I also read fiction differently than I read nonfiction. I’m retired and have a lot of time for books, but I find it easier to retain information from a nonfiction book if I read it in smaller chunks. I prefer to read fiction in bigger chunks and a few years ago I started to listen to many of my fiction books as audiobooks, which allows me to read/listen to a lot more of the story in a shorter period of time. I listen while driving (I have an hour round trip to the closest grocery store), when I walk, and when I do house work.

I read about 2 fiction to every nonfiction book. I don’t have a specific method to keep my balance between the 2. I do like to participate in challenges and set goals so focusing on those helps me select what to read next.

I personally love reading challenges, but # of books per year stopped being interesting to me several years ago. I used to use Good Reads and I would just set my challenge low so I wouldn’t over think it.

I was looking for more interesting challenges and last year I joined a book club on GR that had a Genre of the month challenge. It was so much fun, but was very awkward to log the books that completed the prompts.

Last year I also switched over to StoryGraph and created my own long term challenge. After importing my data from GR into SG I started looking at the challenges they have. I love how SG has them set up. They are easy to browse and easy to log books into a prompt. I also love that I can see which books others have logged for each prompt. There are 12 categories for the challenges, I really enjoy the genre and geographical categories.

The challenge I created for myself was based on so many posts I saw about “reading the world”. My challenge is to read a fiction and nonfiction book by an author from 195 countries. I’m actually using SG challenges to help me keep track. I’m using 2 nearly identical challenges that list all 195 countries, one is for my fiction books and the other I’m using for my nonfiction books.

I hope you find a more interesting challenge or 2.

I think there are a couple of ways to look at the data. One would be the number of books read by all the people in the nation divided by the number of people of reading age that live in the nation. You can also look at the average number of books readers read, but you would also have to determine who would qualify as a reader. There are plenty of people who read for leisure or work that don’t consider themselves a reader.

I can tell you my average per year has varied wildly depending on what phase of life I was in. I was an avid reader as a kid and averaged a couple of books per week easily, plus my school work. As a young adult with a full time job and part time college I still read a couple of books per month. When I added a husband and kids to the mix, I was thrilled to read 2 books a year. One year when we were planning vacation, I told my husband the only thing I wanted to do was be able to read a book cover to cover in a single week. We found a place with a kids club and I got my wish. When the kids were older I started a business and I read an average of a book a week, but they were all nonfiction for work. Now I’m retired and I average 15 books per month.

I only started logging books a few years ago. I’m basing my childhood estimates on the fact that I got most of my books from the school library as a kid and I know we were only able to check out 2 per week and I always finished them. Over the summer we went to the public library and I usually checked out a stack every 2 weeks.

For contrast, I’ve been married for over 30 years and I’ve never seen my husband read a single book in that time. I doubt he has read one since he was in school. I’m the youngest of 5 children and I 3 of them never read, the one that does read, probably averages 1-2 per year.

It takes practice. I’m a retired Life Coach and editing media was always a part of my programs. Like any other habit, there will be times when you feel you are doing it well and times when you fall back into old patterns. Your priorities will change over time as well, so just make choices that help you feel better as often as you can and over time it will become easier.

I agree, it’s hard to support someone that you think is a horrible human, that is why I actively try to stay ignorant about what they say and do in their personal lives. I limit my news and my social media which really helps. Sometimes it’s hard to avoid information, but I’ve been doing this for years so I’m pretty good at it. I didn’t even read your post, just the title.

This may seem naive, but having been an activist for decades I’ve learned to filter what I choose to expose myself to and what I deem unimportant to stay current on. There is only so much empathy I have to give to the world so I choose to give it to a few select causes and simply ignore the rest. This was something I had to do to protect myself after getting very burnt out about 5 years into my activist journey.

I love to read, and there are so many books available to me that I don’t need to love or finish everything I start reading. I don’t have to justify my reason to DNF a book. Unless I have a specific goal I won’t push through a book anymore. I’ve pushed through awful books in the past and I’ve never really felt like it was worth it.

I feel like there is a before and after of the Dark Tower series. I used to read everything he wrote until that series and the Bachman books. I didn’t like either series and stopped reading anything from him. I’ve tried a few of his newer books and they just don’t draw me in like his older books.

I actively avoid learning about authors, actors or other artists/celebrities. It just makes it easier to separate the art from the artist.

It depends on what my goal is. I don’t care about # of books per year, the only place I log that is on the app I’m using to log book. On that app I do log my DNF books. I use Storygraph and it allows me to rate and comment on a book that is marked DNF.

When it comes to my other goals I don’t usually count a DNF book, there are a few exceptions.

We all have preferences and I think that’s what makes us interesting. I’m an avid reader, but I’m the only one of my 5 siblings who reads for fun. I have 1 sister who has read some self help books over the years, but the rest of them haven’t picked up a book since school and we are all 60+ yo so I don’t think it’s going to change.

My husband also doesn’t like to read, in 30+ years of marriage the only books I’ve seen him read are reference manuals and he just skims them for the info he needs.

Not everyone wants to read and it has nothing to do with not finding the right book yet. They may not enjoy stories or they just choose to get stories in other forms of media.

I don’t like to exercise, it’s not about finding the right exercise, I’ve tried almost everything over the years, I just don’t enjoy doing it. I literally have to trick and distract myself to get myself to so the bare minimum to stay mobile as I age. It’s just not something I enjoy, but I do it because if I don’t I will not have a fun retirement.

I didn’t read classics when I was young so now that I’m retired I’m exploring a wide variety of genres. Last year I read 10 classics and disliked most of them.

The 2 worst were Anna Karenina and Wuthering Heights. I really regret not DNF Anna Karenina, I wanted to on several occasions, but kept pushing through the torture with the expectation it would become interesting at some point.

I’m thrilled to say that I don’t currently have anything that I started more than a few weeks ago.

Last year it took me almost the full year to get through Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown. I would only read a small section and take time to reflect on it before I would read the next section.