One of my favorite parts of Goodreads used to be seeing how my friends are progressing toward their annual reading goals. It was fun and a little competitive in a good way.
Last year, Amazon decided to clutter Goodreads with about a hundred new challenges while somehow hiding the only one that mattered to me. For a while, seeing friends’ challenge simply disappeared.
Well, good news: it’s back. If you’re using the mobile app, you can find it under: Settings → Reading Challenges → More frien…
I’m thankful it’s back so I can keep an eye on what my frien… read again.
I’ve noticed a pattern with people who start reading. They would pick a book that they really want to read and get stuck with it. A book that makes a statement. For example, I started reading The Engineering Leader by Cate Huston about 6 months ago, and I’ve not reached 30% yet. Not giving up on that one. I know the author, she gave me a copy with an autograph. I will complete that book. But then, I could’ve had a 6-month reader’s block with it, turning me from a person who reads to a person who doesn’t. The same can happen with fiction. I started Brandon Sanderson’s Rhythm of War twice. He’s great, I met him in person, his books are fantastic. But then, why did I get stuck between page 200 and 300 both times?
I think that it’s not about the book itself. The right person at the right moment would not get stuck. But we do get stuck, particularly when we want to have read something rather than enjoy the act of reading it.
Solutions
Treat it like a schoolbook. 10 pages/hour, small rewards for each chapter (like a candy). I may end up doing that for Cate Huston’s book because it feels useful and will eventually get through it. This method works well with short-form and non-fiction.
Give yourself permission to DNF (Did Not Finish). This is my recommended approach for most books that cause Reader’s Block. Rhythm of War goes here. Works perfectly with long books and fiction. If you can’t get to 20% within 5 days, time to call it a DNF.
Don’t start books that will cause it. The probability of getting stuck on a book increases with the length of the book. Too long? Don’t start.
Read two books at the same time, for example one on paper, and one e-book. When you get stuck with one, the other will keep the habit of reading alive.
Dedicate a block of time for reading. For me, that’s typically 9:30pm to 11pm.
There are still challenges I haven’t figured out. For example, how do I consistently find books I’ll actually enjoy? No clue. I have a pile of unread books at home. Most of them don’t seem as appealing as they did when I bought them.
Part of the reasons why I read so many books last year was that it was a shared experience, thanks to the Goodreads Reading Challenge. Several friends did it at the same time and I got inspired by their achievements. I would see people setting their annual goals, completing them, and would occasionally check their progress, motivating myself to read more.
Goodreads decided to revamp the reading challenge this year.
They removed any possibility to see other people’s reading challenge
They replaced the gallery of books with a simple list
They added a bunch of new challenges, monthly and genre-specific
ScreenshotScreenshotScreenshot
I think this series of changes highlights a common problem in software engineering, which is not seeing the product from the point of view of the people who use it:
Not seeing the friends’ challenges is not a problem if your Goodreads account has no friends who do the challenge or you don’t do it yourself. In that case other problems appear more prominent, like can we have a single address for the reading challenge? What should it be?
In case your personal challenge has some artificial data, like 3-4 books added for tests, it’s not a problem that the new list of books can only fit 4 books on desktop and is 95% white screen.
The artificial test account with 3 books would also only have 2-3 of the visible 7 months where we are challenged to read one book per month. It would look great, some challenges accomplished, other not accomplished. Less adequate if you read 5 or 10 books per month and have been consistent over a period of many years.
I’m not yet sure an alternative to my usage of Goodreads exists. Tried Storygraph but it needs time to import my data. Also tried Bookwyrm but it didn’t quite work for me.
Part of what makes Goodreads great is the community – lots of librarians maintain the various editions. It might be difficult to replicate elsewhere.
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