How Often Do I Read Books?

If you ask me how often I read, the honest answer is: not as much as I'd like. Two years, 5-6 books. That's it. Low, I know. I'm not going to dress that up as some minimalist reading philosophy, it's just what happens when life gets loud and books get quiet. Most days, the book loses to the inbox, the ride, the hundred small things that feel urgent and rarely are.

I used to feel guilty about the number. Like I wasn't a "real reader" because I wasn't hitting some arbitrary yearly count people post online. But I've stopped measuring it that way. I ride solo for hundreds of kilometers without music, without noise, just road and thought. Reading, for me, comes from the same place. It's not something I consume. It's something I let in when I'm actually ready for it. You can't force that kind of quiet. You can only wait for it and show up when it arrives.

So yes, I read books. Slowly. Rarely. But when I do, it's real, not performative, not for a streak, not to look well-read. Just me and the book, in whatever mental space I happened to be in that year. I'm not trying to finish a list. I'm trying to remember what it felt like to sit still long enough for someone else's words to land.

Maybe that's the version of "no risk no story" I live by even here, I'm not chasing numbers, I'm chasing the books that actually change something in me. Five or six a year sounds low until you realize each one left a mark. That's not a low count. That's just a different kind of reading. The risk isn't picking up the book. It's letting it actually get to you.

A book doesn't ask to be read. It asks to be let in, and I don't let much in. Some people count books. I count the versions of myself I was when I read them. On the bike, I don't chase distance. With books, I don't chase count. Both are about staying present long enough for something to hit. A book that changes you once is worth more than ten that just pass through. That's the only number that's ever mattered to me anyway.