JEAN PHILIP DE TENDER

Any idea how many books you have read until now? And how did you count? By the number of bookshelves you have? Or by a list you are keeping?

I have been an avid reader my whole life, and at some point, I started keeping a paper list of the books I read (and of the films I had watched). But then came Shelfari, a handy app to track your booklist online. Later, Shelfari was acquired by Goodreads, owned by Amazon. It is now my online book list but also a community of friends. Finishing Amelie Nothomb’s “l’Impossible Retour,” I ticked the box of a thousand books read. How many meters of shelves would that be?

inspiration from British Vogue

I’m a proud reader. At a time when everything is short form as a response to the short attention span, it feels good to train yourself to immerse yourself in a story in depth. Although I read on my iPad most of the time, and other apps try to get my attention, I find my reading bubble there.

If I started listing when I was 20, now almost 40 years later, that would mean I have read 25 books per year on average. That sounds like me. I most likely must have read more, as not all books were in the database, and at the start, I probably was not as meticulous as now to record my readings. Today, I aim to read 52 books per year. Books can be novels, art books or catalogues, summaries of books, essays, or anything between 30 and 300 pages. Reading a 300+ book is hampering my rhythm. 

Reading has been my best companion in my professional career. I don’t apply what I read in those books, but it creates a layer of knowledge I unconsciously can pull from when something needs to be solved. 

I have set a target to have read 2000 books by the time I turn 80. If I continue at my current pace, that is within reach.