India, Aug. 22 -- Performative reading is not new. Books have been a status symbol since the first printed copy of the Bible rolled off Gutenberg's press in the 1450s. Today's bookish show-offs - the ones taking selfies with their just-read pile, posting aesthetic bookshelf decor, photographing their sticky-note annotations, posing with tea + window + novel - they're only a modern update.

On Goodreads and StoryGraph, it's hard not to feel a little jealous when someone mentions how many books they've read this month. (OMG, five? August isn't even over yet!) Online, everyone else's shelf looks so much smarter than yours (Funner too, somehow). There are readers who track chapters the way joggers count the miles they've run (Tedious, but so ...