I surpassed my annual target of 120 books for the year, totalling 137 for 2018.
Books is a somewhat loose term, insofar as I'll count anything available to source on its own as a book.
The vast majority of my reading was "crime fiction" though I have no idea on the number of books in the various sub-genres - PIs, police procedurals, Noir, Cosies, mysteries, thrillers, hard-boiled, who-dunits .......
QUALITY - subjective obviously - but overall no stinker books encountered, which if I approach my reading on the basis of selecting what I think I will enjoy isn't a surprise.
More of the same needed in 2019, I reckon.
11 - 5 STAR READS
55 - 4.5 STARS51 - 4 STARS
6 - 3.5 STARS
13 - 3 STARS
1 - 2.5 STARS
AGEING - I think I've called myself out on my oft-repeated claim that I enjoy books from the 60s, 70s and 80s in a pre-tech age. Yeah man - you enjoy them, but you don't read them!
I'll see if I can get double digits for 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s this year.
1 from the 1930/40s - a collection of pieces previously released singly1 from the 1940s
1 from the 1950s
2 from the 1960s
0 from the 1970s
1 from the 1980s
4 from the 1990s
10 from the 2000s
74 from the 2010s
43 from 2018
FACT v FICTION - I used to target myself with one non-fiction book a month.
That's gone for a Burton then!Try and read more in 2019, which shouldn't be too challenging.
134 fiction
3 non-fiction
READING FORMAT
The kindle wins - hopefully in 2019 I'll read more physical books
81.5 Kindle
10 Epub file on laptop
8 PDF
5 hardback
3 audible
1 magazine
.5 iPhone
LENGTH
Does size matter?
14 <50 pages16 51-100 pages
33 101-200 pages
44 201-300 pages
24 301-400 pages
6 400+ pages
My longest read was 640 pages - The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker
My shortest was 13 pages - Breaking Spirits by Glenn McGoldrick
DIFFERENT AUTHORS
103 in total, plus 4 anthologies which had multiple authors.
One author was read under two different published names - Jack Strange/Jack D. McLean
NEW-TO-ME AUTHORS59 in the year
POPULAR AUTHORS
15 authors were read more than once
12 times Lawrence Block
3 each by Nick Kolakowski, Graham Smith, Robert Parker, Glenn McGoldrick
10 authors twice
GENDER ANALYSIS77 male authors (with 105 books)
26 female authors (with 28 books)
AUTHOR NATIONALITY
14 different countries represented, not too much from Europe overall and nothing Scandinavian - Don't Cry For Me Nordic Crime.46 USA
27 ENGLAND
8 SCOTLAND
3 CANADA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND
2 IRELAND, NORTHERN IRELAND
1 SOUTH AFRICA, MALAYA, BELGIUM, SWITZERLAND, ZIMBABWE, GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN (unable to ascertain whether from England, Scotland or Wales)
with a couple UNKNOWN
SOURCE
I'll try and read more pre-owned books in 2019
55 pre-owned
25 publishers
19 Kindle Unlimited trial
15 authors
10 Net Galley
8 publicists
5 Edelweiss
PAGES READ
Monthly - 2761 - 4170 - 2909 - 1022 - 533 - 1816 - 2966 - 1511 - 1890 - 4481 - 2667 - 1247
Total - 27973
Monthly average - 2331 pages
Average book length - 204 pages
FAVOURITE COVERS
Great post
ReplyDeleteThanks
DeleteI'll check it out in a bit, cheers
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you had a good reading year, Col, with a lot more 4.5 and even 5-star reads than real disappointments. And I like the way you break things down and really take a look at what you read. Here's to a lot of good books for 2019.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Margot. Lots more to like than dislike, so a great year overall, with hopefully more of the same in 2019!
DeleteNordic crime is not a favourite of mine either, but one exception is a Norwegian series by Hans Olav Lahlum, who sets his mysteries in the 60s/70s. Have you tried any by him? 5 of his books have been translated into English.
ReplyDeleteKate, thanks for the tip-off. I remember seeing the Anthill book a year or two back, but never went any further than a cursory glance. I've had a look at Lahlum's canon and they do seem interesting. Onto the wishlist they go - for when I temporarily lift the embargo and add some more books to the pile in 2019!
DeleteCol – I will be on the opposite track from you this year as I catch up with the all the newly published books in a holding pattern on the Kindle. But I also have a stack of crime fiction from my favorite era – post WWII to early ’60s – waiting for me.
ReplyDeleteElgin, I'll see how the plans work out. They have been known to get abandoned!
DeleteWell, you beat me for the number of items read this year, tho' none of the books I read were 13 pages long. (In fact, according to Goodreads's handy annual accumulator thingie, the average length of book I read in 2018 was 300pp.)
ReplyDeleteYou read 12 more Lawrence Blocks in the year than I did.
Yay, though with 13 page long books, it's a hollow victory!
DeleteI think you ought to read something from the maestro this year, maybe not 12. (The 12 in themselves are a bit distorted and skewed, and help paint a false picture. A lot of them, not all mind you, were his Keller kindle single - weighing in from anything between 30 - 60 pages from memory)
I love reading your statistics, never stop doing it! A very good year for reading, even if not quite how you planned it.
ReplyDeleteCheers, I probably could have read a book and a half (of a decent length) in the time taken to compile the post, but it keeps me amused!
DeleteWhat can I say, Col, except that your annual reading continues to inspire me. I have never seen anyone break down their reading the way you do. Great stuff!
ReplyDeletePrashant, thanks. I'm sure the time could have been better spent doing something more useful, but what can I say...
Delete