Happy New Year! (I realized I didn’t say that yesterday). Today is my final year-end wrap up post and it looks ahead to 2011 a bit at the end with some goals. This is one of my favorite posts because I love stats and figuring all of this out was really fun for me. It is my year of reading in numbers. And if you missed it, I posted my favorite books of 2010 yesterday).
Some Numbers:
Books Read: 76 (up from 42 last year)
Print: 56
Audio: 20
Pages Read: 18,214
Audio Hours: 286.7 (just under 12 whole days!)
Average Pages per Book: 325
Average Pages Read per Day: 50
Books Acquired: Somewhere between 100 and 150
Fiction: 70
Nonfiction: 6
Female Authors: 49
Male Authors: 27
New (to me) Authors: 47
Most Read Author: JK Rowling (7)
Age group:
Adult: 42
Young Adult: 28
Middle Grade: 6
Genre:
Contemporary Fiction: 32
Fantasy: 10
Paranormal: 10
Classics: 8
Dystopian: 5
Memoirs: 2
Science: 2
Short Story Collection: 2
Social Issues: 2
Graphic Novel: 1
Science Fiction: 1
Verse: 1
Rereads: 7 (Just Harry Potter)
Longest Book: The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray (819 pages)
Shortest Book: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (134 pages)
Longest Audio: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (30 hours)
Shortest Audio: Stardust by Neil Gaiman (6.5 hours)
Library books: 43 (yikes!)
Books from my collection: 33
Average Rating: 4.18 out of 5
Published in:
2011: 2
2010: 27
2009: 13
2008: 3
2007: 0
2006: 2
2005: 3
2004: 0
2003: 5
2002: 0
2001: 1
2000: 1
1990s: 10
1900-1989: 6
1800s: 3 (*hangs head in shame*)
2010 Goals – How’d I do?:
- I want to read more adult literature than young adult/middle grade. While I love YA/MG books, I felt like I got a little distracted from other books in 2009. So it doesn’t matter if it’s one book more or 30 books more, I just want to read more adult literature than not. [Final count: 42 adult, 34 YA/MG]
- I’m aiming for 20% of my books to be classics. That’s a little better than I did in 2009. [Boy did I fail this one].
- And I’m aiming for 15% of my books to me nonfiction/memoir v. fiction. I’m trying to broaden my reading horizon. [Only 7% 😦 ].
- Specific authors: Margaret Atwood (never read); Isabelle Allende (never read); Kurt Vonnegut (haven’t read in awhile). [And Margaret Atwood remains unread once more. As well as Allende].
- Specific books: Uglies by Scott Westerfeld; The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein; David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (my one daunting read for the year) ; Finish the last 5 Betsy-Tacy books; The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharto. [Wow. I didn’t finish any of these. I did read two more of the Betsy-Tacy books. I think specific book goals are not good for me].
Five goals in 2011:
- Read more during the week. I do most of my reading on the weekend but there is no reason that I can’t read for 30 minutes or an hour every day.
- Keep up with Goodreads. I’m going to just start from this point on and really try to use it.
- Read more of my own books. I read a lot of library books this year. I’d like to balance this out a little.
- Along those lines, limit myself to two books on hold at once at the library. I hate when all 10 of the books I have on hold come in on the same day.
- Use audio mostly for nonfiction and rereads. I enjoy these audiobooks the most and I really want to focus a little more on nonfiction and rereads in general.
Do you have any reading/blogging goals this year? Were you surprised by any of your stats?
my books. my life. 
Ooh I love the idea of tracking shortest and longest book!
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Great stats!
Wish you a very Hapyy New Year. May 2011 be very fruitful for you!
Here is my Sunday Salon post!
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I want to read three of my own books and two already released review copies a month. (I’m so focused on future releases, everything else seems to fall by the wayside.)
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Holy smokes, you are definitely the stats queen! So thorough. I was lucky to keep track of how many books I read.
Hope 2011 is equally successful for you 🙂
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Your goals are admirable. I like how you tracked genres, long and short books, etc.
I’ve had that same problem with library holds…I get carried away, and then have a whole stack to read.
Here’s my Sunday Salon:
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I love the crunching of the literary numbers too! So much fun. Looks like you had a great reading year!
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For me, I’m happier when I actually read library books instead of books I buy….It’s better for me to wait for library books to come in rather than going out to purchase the books right away!
Happy New Year!
Here is my Sunday Salon post.
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Congrats in 2010, you did pretty great even if you didn’t meet all of your goals. Good goals for 2011 and all the best with them. Happy New year!
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What a great collage! 🙂 And you had a great reading year, good luck with your goals this year! I’m going to read whatever I want this year 🙂
Happy 2011!
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I am so bad at Goodreads! I signed up put on a bunch of books and then forgot about it. Perhaps I should take a weekend and just devote time to updating it, then I’d feel like I was caught up with 2010
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Isn’t it interesting/sad how most bloggers start tending towards books published this year? I wonder if it’s because we just see so many of them being pushed all the time. In which case, I guess mass marketing DOES work, book-wise! I think next year, I will be more focused on books published prior to this year (or last year) just because I have less money to spend on books, and so am rediscovering all those books I’ve had for the past several years but just haven’t read…
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Allende is among those authors which I have never read, but own numerous books by. (As is Atwood, btw, but I own more by Allende). I wish I could get myself to pick up one of her books, but it is as if I always forget about them?
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Great post, i’m always looking forward to the end of year stats. You’ve had an amazing reading year. I’m currently reading my first Allende, The house of Spirits, and it’s really good, so if 2011 is the year you get to it, you should know that’s a good one.
Good luck with your 2011 goals!
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Great list! I’d love to get all those numbers for myself, but I’m terrible at keeping track of things. And updating Goodreads…that’d actually help a lot. Nice post!
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Congratulations on a wonderful reading year Michelle! Hope you have a wonderful reading year in 2011 too! I loved the fact that your most read author of the year was J.K.Rowling 🙂 Doesn’t she rock 🙂
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