"For the 10 th year in a row, my New Year's resolution is to read more books. Ideally, as I tend to tell myself during these protean early weeks of January, 2026 will be remembered for languorous evenings on the couch, tearing through the inventory of novels that crowd the modest capacity of my living-room shelves, perhaps with a tumbler of scotch resting on a coaster."
"I revel in the fantasy-I dream about finally cracking open A Confederacy of Dunces, or knocking out the last two entries of the Broken Earth trilogy, or making time for that Patti Smith memoir that I bought more than a decade ago. If I'm really feeling myself, I contemplate aiming even higher. Tolstoy? Pynchon? I mean, there's also that copy of The Pale King thathas been steadily yellowing on my coffee table for quite some time now."
"And yet, I already know how this saga is going to end. The year will draw to a close with a piddling number of new entries to my Goodreads, hopelessly incongruous with the size of my bibliophilic ambitions. Ask me why I never seem to read as much as I like, and I could gesture toward the well-worn afflictions of modernity-ballooning screen time, addictive algorithms, frayed attention spans."
A yearly New Year's resolution to read more begins with visions of long, languid evenings and ambitious literary projects. Those intentions often end with only a few new entries on reading lists and Goodreads, revealing a gap between desire and outcome. Commonly blamed factors include increased screen time, addictive algorithms, and frayed attention spans. A more prosaic and widespread obstacle is the inability to get physically comfortable while reading, which prevents sustained engagement. Despite a millennium of novel-writing, there remains no universally ergonomic method for consuming books, leaving many readers frustrated by unread volumes.
Read at Slate Magazine
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