I've done a reading report each of the last several years here on my blog. Time for another one. I've mentioned it here before but my way of keeping records is kind of unusual so I'll quickly explain again. I keep my yearly reading records from October 14th of one year through October 13 of the next. October 14th is my birthday, so that's why I do it that way.
This was a good year for me. I read 129 books, up from 106 last year. I'm pretty sure I owe the increase to taking it a little easier at my job in the aftermath of last year's heart attack. It also seems I found a bunch of books I really liked this year and so I tore through them at a fast pace.
For the first time in quite a few years, Westerns led the parade. I read 29 of those. This is certainly due to me writing a lot of western related material this past year, including the novel The Scarred One, the short stories for Scott Harris's four 500 word anthologies, and some stories for another western collection that I plan to put together in the next year or so.
Second on my most-read list was Mystery/Thriller, with the main emphasis on the thriller side. I read 23 of these, due mostly to Harlan Coben, whose books I've been devouring at a high rate of speed. An interesting development (at least to me), is that for the first time I separated Men's Adventure from other types of Thrillers. This is because of the Men's Adventure group on Facebook, where I've been having a lot of fun talking about this kind of book. I didn't start separating these out until late in the year, however, so I only have 5 official Men's Adventure books on my list. That'll probably go up next year.
Non-fiction was next on my list, with 14. These generally fall into three categories: science books, books on writing, and books on heavy metal music. I separate these on Goodreads but not in my word processing list, which I like to keep to one page.
SF and Fantasy took slight dips this year, ending up at 9 and 10 respectively. I also read 7 classics (meaning books by folks like Hemingway etc), and 7 poetry books, both slight increases over last year. I got sent several poetry books this year from folks who know I do reviews and that's probably why that number went up a little bit.
I could go on but I may have overstayed my welcome on this post already. I do love talking about books. Here's to a great 2019-2020 reading year for everyone!
Showing posts with label book reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book reading. Show all posts
Friday, October 11, 2019
Thursday, October 18, 2018
My Year In Books
Since my way of figuring out my reading year is a bit different, I always explain in these blog posts. I count my reading year through my birthday. It starts October 14 and ends October 13 of the following year.
This year, I had a very good year, totaling 106 books read. This is up from a low of 67 last year. A main reason for the change is that I eased up on some of my academic workload this year, and then I had an extended period after my heart attack where reading was about all I could do. Six of these were also graphic novels, which was up from 0 last year and which do not take long to read.
I also classify my books by genre. One major change this year was my westerns going from 6 to 14. That's partially because I was writing my own western through much of the year and tend to like to read in the genre I'm writing in. The biggest change, though, was in mystery/thriller, which went from 14 to 19. The primary reason here was my discovery of Harlan Coben. I binged on his books to the tune of 12.
Fantasy at 12 and SF at 11 continued to be staples for me. Poetry stayed about the same, at 5 versus 4 for last year. My nonfiction reading (not counting articles and essays but books only) has remained at 7 for the past three year.
Bizarre as it may seem, I also keep an average book-read stat. Figuring that I started reading actual books around the age of seven, I've averaged 80 a year for the past 53 years. I've only been keeping detailed records since 1987 but in that time my best reading year was 95-96 with 126 books read. The worst year was 2001-2002 with only 49. I had eleven straight years when I read at least a 100. I remember being disappointed when I dropped below that number one year to end the streak but it was because of family health issues.
This year, I had a very good year, totaling 106 books read. This is up from a low of 67 last year. A main reason for the change is that I eased up on some of my academic workload this year, and then I had an extended period after my heart attack where reading was about all I could do. Six of these were also graphic novels, which was up from 0 last year and which do not take long to read.
I also classify my books by genre. One major change this year was my westerns going from 6 to 14. That's partially because I was writing my own western through much of the year and tend to like to read in the genre I'm writing in. The biggest change, though, was in mystery/thriller, which went from 14 to 19. The primary reason here was my discovery of Harlan Coben. I binged on his books to the tune of 12.
Fantasy at 12 and SF at 11 continued to be staples for me. Poetry stayed about the same, at 5 versus 4 for last year. My nonfiction reading (not counting articles and essays but books only) has remained at 7 for the past three year.
Bizarre as it may seem, I also keep an average book-read stat. Figuring that I started reading actual books around the age of seven, I've averaged 80 a year for the past 53 years. I've only been keeping detailed records since 1987 but in that time my best reading year was 95-96 with 126 books read. The worst year was 2001-2002 with only 49. I had eleven straight years when I read at least a 100. I remember being disappointed when I dropped below that number one year to end the streak but it was because of family health issues.
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