50 books a year

I read an article in De Standaard yesterday from their journalist Jan-Frederik Abbeloos about how he finally managed to read 50 books in 2022. Like me he uses goodreads to keep track of his progress and almost apologises for it (but not really) as it is part of the Amazon evil empire. JF lists some other qualitative and literary gripes people seem to have with goodreads but for him the app is mainly a a means to keep track of his reading progress. I started using Goodreads for the same reason before it became part of Amazon and never left. JF actually has a target of reading 10000 pages and from consulting my reading history I discovered I am reading between 5000 and 6000 pages per year on average but only around 16 books so my books are just thicker than the 200 page books of JF. I also disagree with certain labour practices at Amazon and try to avoid using Amazon when not needed. This means that I support my local Standaard Boekhandel store by buying the majority of my books there but it comes at a considerable extra cost for me as a customer as Amazon is cheaper most of the time. Purists will probably complain that I am not supporting an independent bookstore but I would have to travel far to find one so buying at our ‘local’ chain is the compromise. In case I cannot find what I am looking for at Standaard Boekhandel I look on Bol.com and if not available there I turn to Amazon. Amazon is a wonderful marketplace and the way they integrated their Kindle and Audible apps to read and listen to the same book is excellent. I have not found an ethic alternative that can compete with it so far although I have not looked too hard as I mostly read paper books. If we are really serious about doing something about unethical business practices at Amazon and other companies we’ll have to stop going for the cheapest options all the time as customers and to start voting for politicians that push for the corresponding changes in labor laws for example. I doubt it will happen soon but in the article I learnt about StoryGraph as an ethical alternative to goodreads. I will check it out as I don’t use the marketing, reviews, community or tips on goodreads. The StoryGraph site says you can import your reading lists from goodreads so that should make switching relatively painless.