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In an unexpected turn of events I'm suddenly quite liking Taylor Swift. It's not like I disliked her before, I listened to her occasionally but never cared all that much. When she collaborated with Aaron Dessner I got very interested, having been a fan of The National since 2006. Folklore and Evermore weren't instant favourites for me, but I guess they were more to my taste than her previous albums so I gave them some more time to grow. And somehow they did? I also enjoyed seeing loads of Taylor fans discover The National. I sort of followed the re-release of Fearless and eventually watched Miss Americana. And now I kind of love her lol. I'm taking my time exploring her whole back catalogue and discovering new songs I like. My current favourites are This Love, I Know Places and Paper Rings. And I still haven't really listened to anything pre-1989.

I went for a walk with my dog yesterday evening, one of our usual routes. There's a little footpath that goes behind a few gardens and a school, one of the reasons I like the route so much, because for a part of it I'm not near traffic. There is a man with a doberman who lives on that route. I don't meet him regularly but I've met him occasionally, never spoken to him beyond saying hello.

So I'm walking down the footpath and at one point it goes around a corner. I see that there are two people coming, one of them being the man with the doberman. It's not very wide and bordered by fences on both sides so it's a bit tricky to walk past each other with two dogs. I'm also mindful of Flora, who is okay with most dogs now but doesn't love it when they approach her too quickly. So I decided that the best option would be to wait in the corner until they've passed.

One man without a dog passes, then the doberman comes up, practically dragging the man behind him. He can barely hold on to him, and this is an adult man, not short or slight at all. The dog goes straight for Flora in what is not an aggressive fashion, he's just sniffing, Flora is skeptical but not too intimidated. I'm watching her closely at this point to make sure nothing happens because this dog is like five times her size and his owner can't control him.

While this is happening the man gleefully says (kind of to his dog) "Oooh, who's more scared, the owner or the dog?" obviously interpreting my stepping aside to let him through and the fact that I'm keeping Flora on a short leash as both of us being scared. I didn't really know what to say to that, because what do you say to that? And without even waiting for a response from me he goes "Don't talk or anything!"

And it made me so angry. His mocking and blatant pleasure over what he perceived as me cowering in fear of this huge beast he can hardly hold on to? The dog wasn't aggressive, but what if he had been? He didn't make any effort to keep him away from me and my dog. We had nowhere to go, it could have ended badly. It was nothing but a display of power. I could hurt you and I like that you're scared. Too many men like to do this in subtle or not so subtle ways.

I don't even want to go that way anymore in case I meet him again, even though I only see him every few months. I want to change my whole routine because I don't feel comfortable meeting this person again. My parents are like "you should have told him to fuck off" but he would have found that funny too. I know what bullies are like. Me getting angry would have been hilarious to him.

Looks like this is a book blog now.

The way I acquire books is kind of complicated. To begin with I almost never buy new releases because they're expensive. I buy all my books used, or try to get them as cheap as possible some other way. I listen to a ton of audiobooks on Spotify, I use my library, I love a free ebook. Since last spring I've sometimes had a Scribd subscription where I can read ebooks or listen to audiobooks for €10 a month, which is a great deal. For my birthday and Christmas I might sometimes ask for something a bit more special I can't get second hand.

So when it gets to actually buying books I'm quite particular about which books I buy, because I don't have space for every single thing I read. Things I'm pretty sure I'm going to read only once and not again I try to read as ebooks. There's no point having a single-use paperback here. Obviously some books I think I'm going to love turn out to be not what I expected and then I usually give them away, but some books, for example thrillers, I don't often re-read those. So I select what I somehow consider valuable highbrow literature, hoping that I'll read it at least twice and get my money's worth out of it.

I've been tracking my reading habits since 2012 on Goodreads and since 2017 in a detailed spreadsheet. What I've learned is that I don't read the books I buy. I read a lot. Last year I read over 150 books. But of the physical books I own? I read 30-ish.

The thing is, I'm not always in the mood for Highbrow Literature. Sometimes I want to read Agatha Christie or YA or poetry or 20 children's books in a row because the world is horrible. But I don't buy those in a physical format. So every year I put this voluntary pressure on myself to reduce my amount of unread books, but it never works. In the first quarter of 2021 I read 39 books, 9 of those were physically in my possession. That's sad.

And it's not like I've just lost interest in all those books I bought years ago. I know people who bought a lot of YA and fantasy when they were in their late teens or early 20s and now they look back on that and don't want to read it anymore. That's fine, but not the problem I have. I do get rid of books I know I'm never going to read. I'm still genuinely excited about everything I bought.

Maybe I should just give up on buying books altogether if it stresses me out so much. I'm already doing okay, I went from buying almost 100 books in 2018 to almost none these days. It does help that everything is closed. And when I read something I love I can still buy it afterwards? I already do that sometimes. Maybe it's silly. I want to read what I want and what I enjoy and not feeling vaguely guilty for every ebook and every book I borrow from my parents' bookshelf because it's not what I "should" be reading.

There's also something about what influences how I read. I was looking at a list of Booker winners recently and saw my darling heart The God of Small Things on there, and was suddenly struck by the thought that when I read that book 20 years ago I had no idea what it was. I didn't know it had won a prize or that it was critically acclaimed, whether the general public loved or hated it. The book and I existed in a vaccuum. I found it, I read it, I adored it, it was mine. I could have been the only person in the world who knew about it. It didn't matter. That innocence.

Nowadays, that doesn't happen. I read the books I read because I hear about them somewhere, a booktuber recommends them, a magazine announces its release, a person says "what do you mean you've never read that" and it already carries that weight of "it's my dad's favourite" or "it was controversial" or "it won 7 awards and Reese Witherspoon liked it."

I'm reading Rebecca at the moment and I'm having complicated feelings about it. I went into it knowing it's a lot of people's favourite book of all time. I bought a physical copy so I better not hate it, right? When I started I loved the writing style, but halfway through I'm finding it very triggering. So my first concern is how to rate it on Goodreads. Do I rate it high, because I can tell it's very good and I should technically like it? Do I rate my actual experience, which is anxiety? I don't know. That's another one of those performative things that I do for no one. No one looks at my Goodreads. And yet.

I haven't used this in a really long time, and even when I did I mainly just tracked my reading progress for myself. I also archived all my LJ accounts here. I really miss what LJ was though so maybe I'll get back into blogging. It always felt more intimate, a small place to talk to no one or a very limited amount of people. Social media today feels too public and too restricted at the same time.

I've been struggling with the lockdown. It only took a year. I'm not someone who goes places, I'm perfectly fine at home, none of my hobbies are cancelled, I even have a garden. But after a year it's starting to wear even me down.

This is incredibly early and tentative but I keep thinking about a year-long book buying ban in 2019. I know, I know, I have failed at every ban so far, but I always had all these rules and exceptions and free books don't count and if I see this one specific book I may buy it... maybe that's why it didn't work.

I have so many books. I have a lot of books. Right now, my Goodreads "books I own and haven't read" shelf has 180 books on it. And I'm sure there are more than that because I'm an unorganised mess. At some point I was at 175 and thought right, I'm not allowed to buy anything until that number is down to 150. Which is still a lot. And while I have read books, I have also bought them.

I could easily make it through a year without buying anything new. I have something for every whim and fancy, I have my parents' books as well, and for emergencies I have the library. And so much I want to re-read. I really don't need to buy more.

That said, I never liked thinking of my unread books as something bothersome that I need to get rid of. It's my library, it's all those stories waiting for me, it's a beautiful, positive thing. On the other hand, it's consumerism as well. Everything out there is terribly exciting and I want it immediately. Then I buy it, and as soon as it's on the shelf it's not interesting anymore. Of course I still plan to read every book I own, it's not like I've literally lost interest. It's just that we're all brainwashed and like shiny new things.

We visited my great-aunt a few days ago. I haven't seen her since my grandfather's funeral in 2009. She says she was here in 2012 but I must have been travelling because I have no memory of it. We went mainly because I wanted to see some old photos for my family research. There wasn't much, but it was nice to hear a lot of stories from her childhood.

One of the biggest heartbreaks in my family is W, who was pointlessly killed in April 1945, when the war was practically over. She's the youngest, and he was the second youngest so they were always close. She was the last one to speak to him when she took him to the train, he told her he hoped they would see each other again. She talked about how he used to make candy from oats, butter and sugar for her. His regiment was split up into two groups, the leader of one of which realised pretty quickly that they had to get out of there. A family friend, whose son was in this group cheerfully told my great-grandmother that W would be coming home soon. W was in the other group though, whose leader really wanted to fight. He died on his brother's (my grandfather's) birthday but the family wasn't informed until August.

There was my great-great-grandfather, who was big on homeopathy and starved himself to death, and his wife Ida, who married her sister's widower, and who lived for another 60 years. My great-great-grandmother Margot on the other side, who lived to the age of 90 and cared for her sick daughter. Then my grandmother, who sewed a sequined dress for my great-aunt, her future sister-in-law, and Margot said to her grandson "Now you have to marry her." My grandmother, having had her leg amputated at the age of 18, was always grateful to him because she thought nobody else would marry her, but the reality is that nobody would have married him. My sickly grandfather, the oldest of four, always the golden child. He was an abusive narcissist until his death. Even when he was helpless in hospital and several professionals had to assess his mental state, he thought everyone was flocking to him for advice.

Books read: 48

Pages read: 11366

The thing is, considering that I wanted to tackle my out of control TBR this year, I have really only read 14 books. Because everything else was either from the library or borrowed elsewhere, re-reads, free audiobooks, free ebooks... Only 14 were unread books that I own and that take up space. That's not ideal.

I read 3 French books, which is good. They were very short, but they were French and I read them all by myself. Well done.

I'm halfway through Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. I decided to read one a month and finish it by the end of the year, going well so far. It's even better than I remembered it. Other highlights include Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith and This Must Be The Place by Maggie O'Farrell. I also re-read The Hobbit and somehow enjoyed it more than the first time.

Books purchased: 29

This is actually somewhat decent. 19 of those I bought myself, the rest were either gifts or I picked them up in my local open bookcase. Out of the 29 I have read 4. I started the year thinking I would only buy a book if I wanted to read it immediately, obviously not happening. Let's make it a goal not to go over 50?

One of the loveliest things I bought were 3 parts of Chris Riddell's Goth Girl series. I listened to the German audiobook in 2016 and while I liked it, I could tell the original was full of wit and puns that didn't translate well. I was after the beautiful sparkly hardbacks for ages until suddenly all 3 showed up together in the second hand book shop of my heart. I'm still missing the 4th one but I'll get it eventually.

I recently read a story I wrote in 2002. It was a pretty embarrassing self-insert fanfic, but the most interesting aspect was that I had just started writing properly in English. I always long for the ease with which I seemingly absorbed English when I'm studying my other languages, but the thing is, I was so unafraid. I just went for it, and sometimes I got it wrong, but that's how you learn. For example, I used the word strenuous to describe an exhausting/annoying type of person, because in German the same word is used for that and exhausting activities. I apparently thought "no pun intended" meant "no offense." (I also thought bands stay in the same place while they tour? Like they just go back there after every gig? How did you think that worked, mini-me?) I read another story, written only a year later, and save for a handful of awkward bits I was pretty much fluent. Why can't this magic happen in French?

Also, one of the stories included a passionate rant about LGBT rights which I don't remember writing at all, but good to know I was always like this.

Forgot about doing the updates for the second half of the year, but nevermind. Here's a wrap up.

Books read: 77

Total pages: 19,222

Average pages per book: 297.6*

Author gender: 38 male, 33 female, 6 both or unknown

Language: 46 English, 28 German, 2 French, 1 conlang

Format: 26 paperbacks, 19 hardcovers, 19 ebooks, 13 audiobooks

Some more stats:

- I read 38 books from this decade. 10 or fewer from every other decade.

- Most books read in a month was 12 in May. Fewest 3 in April.

- Out of my 2017 purchases I read 17.

I read significantly more books in German than last year, which wasn't something I planned, but it's nice anyway. I'm using my local library to discover more German literature because I have no idea what I like. I read more physical books and bigger books, which was something I planned.

The longest book I read was 47 Tales of the Thinking Machine and Others by Jacques Futrelle with 1,216 pages. Shortest was The Trouble With Elephants by Chris Riddell, which I bought for my mother, with 24 pages.

The best book I read was Die Mitte der Welt by Andreas Steinhöfel. I'm not sure what the worst was. I picked up a few free ebooks that I wasn't particularly invested in, that probably shouldn't even count. I really disliked Peter Pan. I almost typed Peter Pain there, which seems appropriate.

Something I definitely want to change is the book buying. I have no specific targets or dates in mind, I just don't want to buy as much. But I feel okay about that, I think I got it mostly out of my system this year and last year, I have a huge personal library to choose from. If I do buy books I'd like to read them as soon as possible, so it doesn't build up so much.

Tentative goals for next year include not making too many goals, because my reading hasn't been amazing for the second half of 2017. I felt really burned out after finishing Lord of the Rings, the second 1,000+ page book I read this year, and while I still read a lot afterwards, it was almost like I never really got back to normal. Especially towards the end of the year I wasn't feeling well and couldn't read much. So I scrapped all my perfectly curated reading goals and decided to read whatever the hell I want next year. No TBRs, no lists, no must reads, nothing. Whim only.

* If that average doesn't make sense, it's because obviously audiobooks have no pages, and I also added the pages I read in the books I DNF'd to my total.

Read 50 books: Currently at 40, with half of the year to go, I think I'll manage.

Read bigger books: I haven't finished another huge one since March but I'm doing okay. What I've noticed however is that I don't shy away from long books as much anymore. I made myself a new spreadsheet from scratch to track certain aspects of my reading, and then I tried to reconstruct my 2016 books to have the direct comparison, and I read a LOT of very short books last year. No wonder I made it to 112, they barely had any pages. My current average pages per book are 255, which is alright.

Read more non-fiction: Not really. Although I read a book of essays recently, All the Lives I Want by Alana Massey, which I thought was fantastic. It's all about women, pop culture, how women are presented in the media, but also about mental illness, really gave me a new perspective on some things.

Read more physical books: Definitely. I still read ebooks and audiobooks, but over 55% have been physical books. (Last year: 20%)

Read more books that I know I'll enjoy: Also going well. I'm particularly good at not taking many risks when I actually buy books. I have a good feeling for what I'm going to like. On a related note, I'm getting better at DNFing books that I don't like. Not if I've spent money on them though.

Read more classics: Not since the last update.

Read books I've had for a long time: I'm slowly getting to them. I even made some progress in The First Five by Henry Rollins, which I've been reading for literal years because it's so bleak and depressing that I can't manage more than a few pages at a time.

Read two French books: Finished the first Harry Potter in May and haven't started a new one since, but now this book club thing is happening I'm probably going to join in with Chamber of Secrets in French as well. A chapter a week I can just about manage.

Other stuff: I'm about halfway through Lord of the Rings, I could be reading faster but I keep getting distracted by other books. It's really enjoyable though and not nearly as dry and slow as I expected. No other goal books finished.

Book buying ban: I haven't bought a book since June 4! I got three free ones though. That's okay since I'm not spending money. I also implemented a system where I can "earn" money to spend on books by reading a certain amount of pages each day, that's working quite well so far. I'm almost certain that I will cave in at some point but for now I'm quite proud that I was good for a month.

I decided to try a new reward system for my reading. I've been feeling unmotivated to read for the past two weeks but naturally still want to buy all the books all the time, so I came up with a great idea.

If I read 50 pages in a day I get 10 cents. If I read 150 pages or more I get 20 cents. Daily earnings can't exceed 20 cents so I won't be tempted to binge-read. I'm allowed to spend the money on books once I've got enough, but only that and not more.

The only real challenge will be to keep track of pages.

I’m the kind of guy that, when I see geese, I go: “All right, geezers?” and I think that’s hilarious. And they’re just looking at me going: “Like I haven’t heard that one before, you prick.”

- Liam

Despite or because of my utter failure at sticking to my book buying ban even for a short amount of time, I decided to try again. There's a book I'm really looking forward to coming out in November, and ideally I won't buy anything until then. I own 133 unread books and I have a huge list for the library again, so I don't think I'll run out anytime soon. My downfall is always seeing that a book is cheap right now, so I have to buy it before it's either gone or not cheap anymore. Today I already resisted buying American Gods (only 5.99!) and instead only bought birthday presents for my dad. Good girl.

Halfway through May book situation! I just finished Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers, at 305 pages the longest French book I've read to date. I'm glowing.

I'm a bit over halfway through The Fellowship of the Ring and that's what I should be concentrating on, considering I started reading it back in March. But we'll see how that goes, it's not exactly a quick read. So I've got a German mystery novel on the side! And a bind-up of 47 mystery short stories! And the illustrated edition of the same book I JUST FINISHED! Just in case I get bored.

I feel like I need a Potter break, but the Pottermore Book Club thing is happening in June, so... I'll have to see what that's all about. I feel like I'm not ready for the next one. It was actual work to read it in French, and that did take away from my enjoyment, so now I think I should wait until I'm in the mood instead of forcing myself.

My next French book will be a middle grade-ish mystery novel by Christian Grenier that I bought on a whim last year, it's shorter and it shouldn't be too hard.

I carved your name across my eyelids

You pray for rain, I pray for blindness

I am heavy
Can I beat within your heart?
Can I bleed within your love?

Why not.

Read 50 books: I've read 21 books so far so I'm well ahead, but I knew that. 50 is a pretty safe goal for me.

Read bigger books: Going okay, I read one book over 600 pages, two over 500 and one over 400. And I'm currently reading The Lord of the Rings, which has over 1,100 pages.

Read more non-fiction: Fail. I've read three memoirs and one of Russell's football books, which wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I said non-fiction.

Read more physical books: Definitely doing this and pleased with it. Out of 21 books 13 were physical copies, four ebooks, four audiobooks.

Read more books that I know I'll enjoy: I think I'm doing this? I've had a couple of 2-star reads already, but they were books I picked up thinking I'll like them, so... I'm not sure. I'm trying to read whatever I'm in the mood for.

Read more classics: I've read Jane Eyre and really liked it. I guess I've also read a couple that are considered modern classics, like In Cold Blood?

Read books I've had for a long time: Not really got around to this yet. I went through my Amazon order history, found out which books I've had the longest and tried to push them to the top of the priority list, but I'll have to see what I'm in the mood for.

Read two French books: I read a big chunk of Harry Potter when I had to do a lot of waiting the other day and now I've got less than 100 pages left, which is great.

Out of the more book-specific goals I set myself I have checked off two and a half, I read The Master and Margarita, the first Cormoran Strike book (loved both), and I also read The Hobbit and am currently reading LotR. I have yet to start the next Agatha Christie book, because I kind of realised that once I've read them that's it, I know what happens, it will never feel the same way again. So I might try and save them a bit more instead of ploughing through the series.

Something that wasn't a goal but is a really fun thing I'm doing now is use the library. Unfortunately they have a really tiny selection of foreign language books, but I decided it would be a great opportunity to try some German and German-speaking authors, because I don't really know what I like. I know a lot of classics but hardly anything contemporary. The first book I picked was the winner of last year's German Book Prize and it was a huge disappointment. But since I didn't spend any money on it that's perfectly fine.

and all I wanted was a sliver to call mine
and all I wanted was a shimmer of your shine
to make me bright

I wish I liked really quick, easy, stupid books. Everything I want to read exhausts me. That doesn't mean I don't want to read it, I just wish I could somehow skip the process and have already read it.

I've been watching videos about book buying bans, mainly to distract myself from my own, and I've seen a surprising number of people say things like "You buy a book, you're really excited about it, but then you don't read it immediately and probably never will." Who says I won't? A book doesn't expire.

I have books that I bought 10 years ago and haven't read. I'm not planning on throwing them away. I read a book last year that I bought in 2009, that I adored, and that I feel like I wouldn't have appreciated as much had I read it right away.

I'm not a person whose taste changes every 6 months. If I bought a book a couple of years ago, I can be pretty certain that I still want to read it now. It's okay. It's not going anywhere. Stop it with the assumptions, the pressure, and the panic about unread books.

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