Ditch the Dostoyevsky for Now

How to read more, from someone who read 77 books last year.

Taru Anniina Liikanen
9 min readFeb 29, 2024
Photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash

My office is so far from the center of Buenos Aires we have to take a separate minibus to get there.

Bored as I am, I usually spy on people who read on the bus, try to catch a glimpse of the cover. I love books, and I want to know what their taste is, maybe find something new.

There’s a girl I see on most days who has been carrying around Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables for about a year.

She never seems to get past the first 20 pages.

At this point, I’m starting to think she uses it as an inconspicuous handbag, maybe stashing it with a credit card and a couple of thousand peso bills before she gets out the door in the morning.

Or maybe she wants to be a reader but can’t make it through that giant brick of a tome.

The truth is, I would love to help her because I think she’s doing it wrong.

I read a lot. As much as possible. I do it for fun, to unwind, to immerse myself in another world, to feel things, to fall in love with people who don’t exist even if it really, really feels like they do.

Last year, I read 77 books. This year, I’m closing February with 24 books read. I know, I’m a little…

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Taru Anniina Liikanen
Taru Anniina Liikanen

Written by Taru Anniina Liikanen

Stand-up comedian and recovering political ghostwriter. Finnish by birth, porteña at heart. Bad jokes frequent.

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