A friend asked me recently how I decide what books to read. There is no one answer. I used to work in a used bookstore so I would find stuff there that looked interesting. I subscribe (or used to subscribe) to many publishers such as Haymarket, Transit, Archipelago, and Belt. I find out when publishers host big sales, like when New York Review Books does 40% off for four books. I read what people I know are reading. I read what I get as gifts. I read what looks interesting on Twitter. It’s a lot of different ways.

In 2021 I read 52 books. According to my Goodreads where I’ve logged all this, I’ve read 9,952 pages. The average length of each book being 190 pages. The shortest was all 64 pages of Herman Melville’s Bartleby The Scrivener. The longest was Remain in Love by Chris Frantz at 384 pages (which I didn’t even read the whole thing and donated to a Little Free Library almost immediately).

I like short books. Maybe I have a short attention span. Maybe the writers I enjoy have short attention spans. Maybe I want to read as many different authors as possible and short books are a good way to do that. I also read a decent amount of poetry which greatly reduces the page count.