A Year in Reading: Liv Stratman

I don’t set a reading “goal” on Goodreads. At the risk of coming across exactly like the smug shithead I really am (when I’m not pretending to be chill (ugh) so that men will like me), I admit here that I find the premise of a reading goal pretty lame. Nor do I have a journal or list wherein I have notes, or even titles, of books I have read or plan to read. I have tried to do so in the past, and find the very act of keeping a record turns the reading itself—an activity I’ve always understood to be an idle pleasure—into yet another task to accomplish. I don’t want to lump reading in with exercise and regular meals and dental checkups. I think those of you who do this, and who, as a result, will lament how little reading you get done, are masochists. 

We’ve already lost our peaceful night’s sleep to the doom scroll, and given shopping—which, you might remember, used to