If I love to read, why haven’t I read all of the books I own? This is a question I ask myself—the answer is one I don’t like thinking about. If I were living in 1850, I imagine I would come home from my candle shop apprenticeship, set down my top hat, and read all of my fraying books many times over. But it’s not 1850, and every day we wake up to a kaleidoscope of dopamine decisions: TikTok, movies, TV shows, Letterboxd, comic books, Instagram, Substack, Facebook, podcasts, music, NYT Games, crypto, audiobooks, Marco Polo, Twitter, texting, BeReal, VSCO, Snapchat, and YouTube.
My personal favorite is probably YouTube because it features creative, talented people I am parasocially invested in. But for those videos or creators I’m on the fence about clicking, YouTube has a function called “Watch Later.” In your “Watch Later” playlist, you can save a video you have not seen and put it into a folder for “later.” Pixelated dust settles on this folder. They’re the videos I’m not willing to click on right away, but I’d like the option of revisiting later. Buying books can be a similar experience—purchasing it at the store just to put it on your “Read Later” shelf.
Over the past three years, I’ve built up the habit of reading before going to sleep. Sleep may be my number one factor for having a good day, so when I learned that using a screen before bed is bad for your sleep, it was time to do something about it. (I still haven’t mastered the habit of flossing each day, so you win some, you lose some.) And yet, when I’m looking for a diversion during the day, I ignore my bedside book and reach for my iPad.
In an effort to go on my phone and iPad less, I’ve catalogued every novel in my apartment and put them into two simple spreadsheet categories: Books I Have Read vs. Books I Have Not Read. Hopefully this will be my own personal Book Intervention. What’s my goal, you ask? My goal is to severely limit buying new books until I have read every book in my apartment that I have a desire to read (admittedly, some books I have no desire to read, like my wife’s book Beyond the Pill: A Revolutionary Program for Hormone Balance, Reversing the Side Effects of Contraception, and Reclaiming Your Health).
Here are the stats:
195 novels live in my apartment and I’m embarrassed to say (but I don’t think I’m alone here) that I own more books that I have not read than ones I have read. I have read some of them only partially, but if I haven’t finished the book, I justly filed those under the “Have Not Read” column. It turns out I own 90 books I have read and 105 books I have not read.
I want to want to read—similar to that feeling you might have had as a kid. Like Robin Williams in Hook, I want to completely rediscover what’s right in front of me. I want to buy books to read them. But in our culture, it’s more nuanced than that. The cover art, familiarity with the author, if you’re the only one in the store, social media trends, how charming the bookstore is, current bank statements, and mood all affect book buying habits. To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this. In my humble opinion, supporting the book industry is generally a good thing. But capitalism is tricky, and I’m trying to buy only what I actually use and enjoy. I view it like buying groceries: buy what you eat. For books, that means reading them. For my wallet, that means going to the library. For you, well, feel free to join me.
Isaac graduated Calvin in 2019 studying English, secondary education. After finishing teaching English, he’s enjoyed working in higher education at Hope College while taking steps to be a certified hospital chaplain. Isaac loves movies and lighthouses more than most things.
