Thinkingdog Publishing

At the end of every year, the same thing happens. Like clockwork, my social feeds turn into a literary Olympics. Suddenly everyone’s posting reading stats as if they’ve just returned victorious from Mount Everest holding a pack of bookmarks instead of climbing gear. There are pie charts. There are bar graphs. There are people who somehow—while presumably sleeping, working, raising kids, and occasionally eating—managed to read 147 books, 62 audiobooks, and a partridge in a pear tree. And I sit there in my cozy corner of the internet, sipping my tea and thinking, Wow. That’s impressive. And then immediately after that: How? When? Do these people have a personal time-turner? Is there a reading portal? A secret club? Should I be taking notes? Meanwhile, a small voice inside me whispers, “You finished a novella this month. You’re doing great, sweetie.” Here’s the thing no one tells you during the year-end reading frenzy: whether you read two books last year or two hundred, you are still...