Leisa Michelle

Nerdy Monologues of an Autodidact

38 Books in 12 Months

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When I moved to Poland on August 30th, 2015, I decided to make a list of goals for myself. One of them was to read 15 books within the following year. It turns out that I read 38 books. That comes out to 7,942 total pages read or 209 pages per book on average.

Just… why? Why did you do this?

I dropped out of college in January 2015. Lots of factors played into my decision, but the biggest problem I had with university was that I wasn’t learning enough and I wasn’t learning what I wanted. So since dropping out of school, my education has been exclusively in my own hands. If I want to learn new things, I have to consciously set aside the time to do so. It happens that books are my favorite way of learning. Reading is awesome. I do a lot of it.

So without further ado, please enjoy the fun graphs and master list of all the books I read (with the link to the review I wrote of each book, if applicable) presented below.

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Bad Idea Monday: Do I Have to Sleep Through the Night?

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This post is a part of my Personal Development Project for May 2016.

TLDR; Yes, you have to sleep for a lengthy period every day. Ideally 6-9 hours at night.

Sometimes I feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do. And I like to think that I do a pretty good job of managing my time. My life is filled with valuable activities. I take my time drinking a cup or two of tea every day, I like taking walks and going for bike rides, I like meeting up with friends, I like listening to music, and I like sketching with graphite and charcoal. I also like doing productive things like reading and writing and even working.

I’ve gotten good at recognizing when I’m bored. Whenever I feel that I’m not being intentional or engaged in what I’m doing, I stop and think of what I’d rather be doing. And then I go do it. So even if I’m not doing something productive, I still make sure I’m doing something valuable in an active and engaged way.

Once I cut all the boredom and valueless activities out of my life, it was pretty awesome. I felt great because at the end of every day, I would think, “Wow, today was a great day!”

This has been going on for the past several weeks, but now I find myself thinking not just, “Wow, today was awesome,” but also, “Man, I wish I had more time to do X and Y and Z”. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do!

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Books: the Bad, the Good, and the Truly Awesome

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This post is a part of my Personal Development Project for May 2016.

I read a lot of good books. I also read a lot of terrible books. And I’d say one of the reasons that I wade through all the terrible books and good books alike is to uncover the truly awesome books. If I had to give a totally biased, gut-based statistic for the ratio of good to bad to awesome books I read, I’d say that out of every ten books I read, 7 are good, 2 are bad, and 1 is truly awesome.

How do I define books as bad, good, and truly awesome?

Bad books are sometimes unclear, poorly written, and/or poorly researched. But what really makes a book good or bad is the reaction it stirs in me. When I’m reading a bad book, I feel nothing. When I finish reading it, I usually think, “Well, no complaints.”

It’s not that feeling bored makes a book good or bad for me. Whether or not I enjoy the book plays no part in my book assessment ritual. When I say that I feel nothing, I mean that I don’t feel a pull or push, and I don’t have a frenzy of thoughts, questions, and arguments whirling in my head. Reading a “bad” book is usually a pleasant, non-polarizing experience.

I think of reading a bad book like eating a bowl of grandma’s soup. You know what grandma’s soup tastes like. You’ve had it many times all throughout your life. It tastes great! You love grandma and her soup. But it’s not comparable with the soup from that restaurant down the street. There’s no comparing grandma’s soup to anything– that soup just is. “Bad” books just are. They’re don’t excited me, they don’t challenge me, they just are.

Keep reading…