The Reckoning

When I started this blog this year, I noted down certain reading goals that I had. In the course of the year, I believe I forgot about most of these goals or just kept them at the back of my mind. Except for my 100-book goal this year. That, at least, I wanted to finish. And, I'm glad to say, I have.:)

A couple of months ago, I listed down the 83 books I'd already read. These are the books I've read since then:

84) The Ask and the Answer - Patrick Ness (Nov. 2)
85) Storm Front - Jim Butcher (Nov. 6)

86) Trese 3: Mass Murders - Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo (Nov. 18)

87) Voices from the World of Jane Austen - Malcolm Day (Nov. 18)
88) Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (Nov. 20)

89) Julie & Julia - Julie Powell (Nov. 28)

90) Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians vol. 2) - Rick Riordan (Dec. 1)
91) Vampire Knight, vol. 4 - Matsuri Hino (Dec. 6)

92) Arthur and George - Julian Barnes (Dec. 13)

93) Hush, Hush - Becca Fitzpatrick (Dec. 14)

94) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson (Dec. 20)95) Clockwork - Philip Pullman (Dec. 20)
96) The Winter Queen - Boris Akunin (Dec. 21)
97) The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians vol. 3) - Rick Riordan (Dec. 26)

98) The Dream-maker's Magic - Sharon Shinn (Dec. 27)
99) Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde (Dec. 30)

100) The Bridges of Madison County - Robert James Waller (Dec. 31)

It's great to be able to finish a goal, especially if it's something one loves doing. Now, my next goal is to blog about all of them. And I'll be coming up with my top ten reads for this year once 2009 is finally over.

Oh, and list freak that I am, I logged all my 2009 reads in an excel file, with their title, genre, and how I acquired them. Then, I actually spent a fun and revealing hour sorting out the data in different ways. For instance, this year, I found I actually read 5 non-fiction books, a genre which I generally used to avoid. More surprising, I enjoyed all of them! So, I think it's just a matter of finding which non-fiction books actually spark my interest.

My most read author this year is Charlaine Harris--not surprising considering how many books she has out. And my most read genre is a toss up between young adult reads and what I call literary reads.

And I even made a few graphs out of the figures. For instance, here's how many books I read per month:

Predictably, the number of books I read per month was directly proportional to how busy or stressed I was. I also checked out which of these books I actually bought, since it might give me an idea of how much I spent. You see, though I used to keep track of my book spending with another excel file, I quit because the totals per month alarmed me. But a profile of how I acquired these 100 books that I read gives me a general idea:

Apparently, almost 3/4 of them I bought. And of those I bought, this is how I bought them (again, of interest to me because I wanted to know whether I I read my second hand books more or the brand new ones):

Yes, I do like playing with data. But I think I really just enjoyed looking at my life this past year through the books I read. After all, this is one concrete way that I can measure something as unmeasurable as life.:)

Now, on to next year's goals, which I will concretize and blog about soon!