I Read 52 Books in a Year and Remember Almost None of Them. So I Changed How I Read.

In 2024 I set myself a goal that is popular among people like me, a software tester in Kraków who likes spreadsheets: 52 books in 52 weeks. I tracked every title, page count and finishing date. On the 29th of December I closed the last one and felt very proud of myself.

Two weeks later, over beer with my friend Kuba, he asked me about a book on my list that he was thinking of buying. A book about habits that I had given four stars. I opened my mouth and realised I could not tell him a single specific idea from it. Not one.

The uncomfortable audit

That evening I went through my list and tried to write one sentence for each book about something I had learned or remembered. For 52 books, I managed real sentences for eleven. For another fifteen I remembered the general topic. The rest were essentially blank.

I had read roughly 15,000 pages and retained something from maybe a fifth of them. I had been optimising for a number, not for understanding.

Why it happened

Looking back, my reading habits were built for speed:

• I read mostly in short bursts on the tram, ten minutes at a time.
• I picked shorter books in November and December to hit the target.
• I never went back to a book once it was finished.
• I took no notes, because notes slowed me down.

It is the reading equivalent of watching a film at double speed. You technically see everything.

The new rules

For 2025 I dropped the number completely and tried a different approach:

• One page of notes per book, written by hand after I finish, without looking at the book.
• A one-week gap after finishing before I start the next serious book, during which I reread my page of notes once.
• Talking about it. I tell at least one person what the book was about. Usually that is my girlfriend Ola, who has been very patient.
• Permission to quit. If a book does not hold me by page 70, I stop.

What the numbers look like now

This year I will finish around 19 books. I quit six others. That felt like failure at first. But when I did the same audit in October, I could write a meaningful sentence about sixteen of the nineteen. Several of them have changed how I actually work.

One book on testing complex systems led me to propose a new way of writing test cases in my team. A book about the history of Kraków has turned my tram rides into small sightseeing tours. A novel I read slowly over a month is still in my head weeks later.

The part I did not expect

Writing the notes by hand from memory is uncomfortable. The first few times, I stared at the blank page and felt stupid. That discomfort, I think, is exactly the point. It forces my brain to rebuild the book instead of just recognising it.

I still like numbers. I am still a tester. But I now track something different: how many books I could explain to Kuba over a beer. This year, so far, it is sixteen. That is the only reading statistic I care about.