1 Year 100 Books
by Carolina Williams, who was accepted to Yale University, Class 2021.
If each week of the year had a personality, the last week of December would be awkward. I’m in between holidays, so there is nothing to celebrate. The idle hours compound pressure to create some sort of obligatory resolution, and I am uncomfortably forced inside my own mind to contemplate how I can become a better version of myself.
I was caught in this reflective stupor in a never-ending retail line during the last week of December 2014 when one piece of conversation somehow audibly rose above the characteristic murmur of a crowd awaiting gift return: “I think you’ll like him,” said one man to another, “he’s very well-read.” After that, their words fizzled into mumbles as my own thoughts overcame the sounds of theirs, because hearing that within my realm of introspection, those words ignited in me a desire to be well-read. The notion was utterly vain, but the thought of being called “well-read” was sweet, and the taste of his words lingered in my mind. To me, “well-read” implied a new level of intelligence and a wealth of experience that the word “smart” did not. Relenting to the shallow endeavor, I established becoming well-read as my goal for the next year.
I have always been a reader, my childhood days spent reading, anxiously awaiting my next voyage to the library or Barnes and Noble. I discovered at an early age that reading was the fastest way to acquire information, and I quickly began to appreciate the art of the stories in my books and I frequently turned to them for entertainment. Despite my background as a reader, though, I had begun to read less in high school, and I knew I needed a plan. Instinctively, I turned to the Internet in search of an unrealistic formula to become well-read. Deep into the pages of Google, I stumbled across one valuable clue – a man awed for reading tilly books in one year. Hoping for unquestionable validity, I decided to double it.
In Janua1y of 2015, I began my first book of the year, with ninety-nine more ahead of me. Starting with Bom Standing Up, a memoir by Steve Martin, I delved into various authors, genres, and eras, and I gained valuable new perspective from each one. Each book is a sculptor, molding me into a better form. Fictional characters have allowed me to better understand the thoughts and feelings of other people. Memoirs have given me both the secrets to success and the opportunity to learn from others’ mistakes. And from non-fiction books, I have become more knowledgeable about a myriad of topics, including physics, Wall Street, and inevitably, the Dewey Decimal System. Through all books, though, I am able to live so many lives. From the glamorous to the mundane, I’ve lived the life of a daring entrepreneur, a poor girl growing up in Brooklyn, an exasperated waiter, and a shrewd detective. With books, my lives, and the lessons I learn from them, are infinite.
After twelve months passed and I turned the final pages of This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I knew that my relationship with books was only just beginning. I have continued my reading habits in 2016, and I will finish my hundredth book of this year in December. Yet, I have come to find that being “well-read” is not truly attainable, but rather it is an asymptote that my endless list of books to read makes impossible to touch. Therefore, I am no longer reading for a title. I read with such urgency because it both satiates and sparks my curiosity; I turn to literature to find solace, as well as inspiration. And now, that awkward last week of December has become a time to reflect on each book I’ve read that year, and I celebrate the words that have shaped me.
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