Some years I read between 70 and 80 books. Other years, like this one, I read much less — more like 30 to 40. There’s always some guilt when I have an “off” year. After all, there’s tons of great stuff to read, and especially now that I’m not a classroom teacher, there really isn’t a great excuse.
There’s a pattern, though, to my off years: I tend to read more nonfiction, especially online. It’s not the same, of course. No matter how much I read articles from Longform, my favorite curator of long-form articles, there’s nothing that replaces a book. But most of it is still good reading.
The other day, I received this email from Pocket, my favorite phone app of all time.
You see? I get an A!
Apparently, I read nearly 3 million words this year on Pocket. How does it know? Is this number based on the articles I opened? Or is it based on the articles that I’ve saved? Or does Pocket actually scan my eyes as I read or determine whether my brain comprehends what I’ve read? It’s a mystery.
At least I’m reading, though, and many of the articles I’ve read have made their way to Iserotope Extras or been saved to my Evernote.
That’s good, but what I really want is a way to talk about these articles — in the same way that I like talking to people about books. Pocket doesn’t do this (yet), and comments on the bottom of articles are never very good. Maybe someone in 2014 will be the year that social reading takes off.