Two weeks ago I came to the distressing realization that I had not really completed any books in the past year. Since graduating from college the amount that I read has dropped precipitiously. Admittedly I’ve taken to reading a lot of articles online and I’ve skimmed some books of poetry. I’ve read a few chapters now and again of Infinite Jest (somehow, I’ve been reading this book for four years, seemingly without getting any closer to completing it). But I miss spending time with books. I miss completely immersing myself in a world or a topic for a period of time. I miss feeling well-read and productive.

All of which is just to say that I have made a very small resolution. I was inspired to this resolution by a Julien Smith blog post on how to read one book a week for a year and by one of my long-time favorite blogs, Mandy Brown’s A Working Library.

On reading one book per week, Julien says:

It feels awesome. It gives you an amazing amount of ideas. It helps you think more thoroughly. It’s better than TV and even the internet. It makes you understand the world more. It is a building block towards a habit of completion. Did I mention it feels awesome?

(Though, I don’t know if I’d go so far as saying books are better than TV or the internet. They are certainly different and that difference makes them worth engaging with as an additional source of information and ideas.)

Mandy says:

The phrase “a working library” refers to a collection of texts on a given subject, for the purpose of an academic or professional work. So, people speak of a working library on Proust, for example, or on psychotherapy. This working library differs in that the subject is reading itself: the library exists for its own sake and no other.

Of the many ideas at play here, the most significant is my belief that every book is connected to many other books, such that no book can or should be considered in isolation. When you read a book, you bring to it all the other books you’ve read (and been affected by), so your reading of it is necessarily unique.

This is my resolution: I will read one book per week and I will write about them here. This is my working library.

I just finished my first book: Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise. Stay tuned for my writeup.