What was y’alls book goals for this year & did you reach them?

6 books, finishing up my 9th book this weekend. Looking to read 20 books next year. What about you?

52 and yes, finishing my 54th

glad I'm reading more, but next year my goal isn't going to be number based because it steered me away from some longer or more challenging books

didnt have one but I did read way more than I expected

Dope fam!!

I usually do between 10-20 in a year so I tried to push myself this year & set my goal at 25 and I’m finishing up number 37 this week

I’m tryna get like you my boy

hey, 37 is pretty impressive

I just had a lot of free time this year and made a habit of reading for like 30 minutes every night before bed. that adds up to a lot

ayyy that's great man. you had some favorites?

From Staircase to Stage by Raekwon/Anthony Bozza

Really painted an unfavorable picture of RZA for the last third of the book, kinda soured my view of the Wu post 1995 even more than it already was

1 book a month,so 12 was the goal.

Banged out like 24 i think so Im going for 50 this new year

Yeah off top my favorites this year were The Last House on Needless Street, Beloved, & The House in the Cerulean Sea

wby?

That's lit you should def shoot for 50 this year

probably Stoner, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, and 1Q84

fantastic book, must read tbh especially if you ever feel directionless in life or struggle with procrastination or feel creatively blocked

great lessons
great quotes
very concise
great terminology
memorable
re-readability

great book

funny timing, I actually just finished his later followup Turning Pro

it's a quick refresher course of The War of Art that focuses more on the psychological changes you need to make to fully commit to a project or discipline

wasn't as powerful and some parts were underdeveloped but these books are about what you get out of them and Pressfield does a good job of motivating the reader who goes in not being too critical

felt like I read this at the right time and would recommend for somebody who already read and enjoyed The War of Art

Dope cover

"To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true. At its core, perhaps, war is just another name for death, and yet any soldier will tell you, if he tells the truth, that proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life. After a firefight, there is always the immense pleasure of aliveness. The trees are alive. The grass, the soil—everything. All around you things are purely living, and you among them, and the aliveness makes you tremble. You feel an intense, out-of-the-skin awareness of your living self—your truest self, the human being you want to be and then become by the force of wanting it. In the midst of evil you want to be a good man. You want decency. You want justice and courtesy and human concord, things you never knew you wanted. There is a kind of largeness to it, a kind of godliness. Though it’s odd, you’re never more alive than when you’re almost dead. You recognize what’s valuable. Freshly, as if for the first time, you love what’s best in yourself and in the world, all that might be lost. At the hour of dusk you sit at your foxhole and look out on a wide river turning pinkish red, and at the mountains beyond, and although in the morning you must cross the river and go into the mountains and do terrible things and maybe die, even so, you find yourself studying the fine colors on the river, you feel wonder and awe at the setting of the sun, and you are filled with a hard, aching love for how the world could be and always should be, but now is not."

Masterpiece init

Incredibly forgettable. Nothing concrete and actionable that will stay with you. But I guess that’s the flaw of any self-development and motivation books (another example is the art of not giving a f***)

Idk this felt like a serious of random thoughts and s*** that sound interesting, but again don’t lead to lasting mindset change or anything.

are you spiritual at all? if not then yeah i get your pov

but the spirituality in the war of art is very poignant and inducive to action and helpful against aimlessness and procrastination. the entire section about blake's quote "eternity is in love with the creations of time" is fire

not read the other book you mention but i have a bias against books with "fuck" in the title!

I don't think people should expect books to lead to lasting mindset change

you have to lead yourself there and then books can help reaffirm or strengthen your mindset change

Surprised he didn't speak more about his relationship with Kanye, Bey and Nas.
It was phenomenal, Jay is an able writer.
So much happened and dropped after this: we lowkey need a part 2.

55 books and I’m at 53 rn. I think I’ll make it though

(300 page books on average. I’ve read some lengthy books but I went on a teen horror binge too this year so that gave me a huge boost. Like Fear Street, Goosebumps, and Christopher Pike books)