My Year in Reading (with charts!)
I read 88 books this year. That's 38 more than my personal target for Goodreads' 2014 Reading Challenge. I wanted to under-promise so I could over-deliver. Thankfully, I did.
I usually sneak in one more book around Dec. 30 or 31st, but I'm not going for it this year. It's been a year full of pressure, so I'm not inclined to add a contrived pressure on the last day of 2014.
Above is the screencap of all the books I read this year, care of my Goodreads Reading Challenge. A pretty nifty feature, if you ask me, especially for the data conscious types. If you'd like to see what I've read this year, head on over to the page.
Speaking of data-conscious types, I am, just a little bit. When I discovered the Ultimate Reading Spreadsheet, I promptly downloaded it. It was a bit of a chore, though, to type in all the data for every book I read, which leads me to the other nifty thing about Goodreads: you can export all your bookshelf data as a csv file, which you can open in Excel. And once it's in excel, baby, you can play.
So, I used the csv file from Goodreads, which means I had to input data for just a few columns in my Ultimate Reading Spreadsheet. I also took out a column (I didn't track what day I began) and added a column (date first published), and I was good to go.
If I haven't put you to sleep yet by this point with a hinky description of my methodology, well then below, represented in charts and graphs, is me playing with the data I got from the spreadsheet. And essentially, a quantitative analysis of my reading this year.
Last time I did this was in 2009, with two measly graphs. Here, you are forewarned that there are much more than 2. But if you like this kind of thing, enjoy!
Did I read diversely?
I loved it when the #weneeddiversebooks campaign broke out. And although I questioned what it meant for us who live here in Asia, I do not question the essential tenet: that we need to read beyond our comfort zones to widen our perspectives as human beings.
Which begs the question for me, then: was I a diverse reader this year? I didn't put any conscious thought into what I read, so here are my stats:
So, ok. Fifty-fifty split between biologically male and biologically female authors ain't bad.
This is hardly surprising for me that most of the authors I read are American. But what I did find surprising is the percentage...
...which is 63% of all books I read this year. If I include the authors with dual citizenship, it'll go up to 66%. Japanese would be the second, not because I read a lot of Japanese authors, but because I read a lot of manga from one author, Hajime Isayama. Alas, only 5% of my reading comes from authors from my own country.
What about genres? To be honest, I had trouble with this, because, Jesus, do I really have to classify a book according to one genre? And even if I had multiple columns for all the possible book tags, truth be told, I'm not that big of an Excel wizard that I'd know how to manipulate all that data. So, this is my crude categorization:
or The Goldfinch
, feel free to take a breather with the latest Tessa Bailey
. That's what I did.I clumped some of these categories, though (e.g., all the YAs) into a chart with fewer items:
This is also why I'm not too happy with these two charts: they need a lot of qualification. Yes, 25% of what I read were comics/manga. They were awesome pieces of literature, but I think the number is heavily influenced by how easy it is for me to consume graphic novels or manga. Same goes for YA and romance/erotica. But I'd say I get the most bang for my buck with literary fiction. They're longer and they stay with me longer.
Since Goodreads shows a scatter graph of the date of publication, I thought I'd make one, too. Obviously, I preferred to read books published in the 21st century.
In fact, the graph above shows that majority of what I read was published in 2011 and beyond. I've been trying to clear the books in my wishlist and TBR from 2011, but I've come to accept the fact that my reading will never overtake the continued growth of my wishlist.
So, did I read diversely? My personal take is so-so. I'd love to expand the list of nationalities that I read. I don't know how far I'm willing to commit to that, though, since for the past few years, I've been keeping my selection of books fast and loose, so we'll see.
What were my reading habits?
In answering this question, I'm limited to format of books I read and where I got them. Also how much I read per month. So, here goes...
This might sound strange coming from someone who's into digital publishing, but I'm surprised that a big majority of the books I read this year were ebooks. I don't take count during the year, but I do know that every so often, I hunger for paper. Then again, I took advantage of the fantastic thing that is Scribd opening up their subscription service to the Philippines, so it makes sense.
Also makes sense after seeing that my go-to place for getting my books now is Amazon, specifically the Kindle editions. 28 out of 88 is actually 32%, with the second go-to place--local bookstore chain, Fully Booked--only at 18%.
I also tracked where I get my ebooks and my print books, which are represented in these pie charts:
This is out of 57 ebooks. Almost half of them I got via my Kindle. The "friend" refers to someone who gave me files which, shall we say, were not really obtained legitimately. Yep. I had them, so I read them. The "borrowed" does not refer to Kindle borrows, but to a friend who, for one hour, lent me his iPad so I could read the last volume of Locke & Key, and the two companion issues.:)
As for print books, I got more than half of them at my favorite local bookstore chain (because they have a better selection and store experience than that other bookstore chain).
I also wanted to see what percentage of titles--whether print or e--I get from online stores versus brick and mortar or other sources. Here's the chart:
Yep, folks, I do most of my buying online now. Mainly ebooks, but one of the books I read this year, I ordered from The Book Depository.
Finally, I tracked how much I read per month:
That sudden spike in August is due to the 13 volumes of Attack on Titan (or Shingeki no Kyojin) that I wolfed down. What can I say...I have a tiny crush on Eren, the poor boy.
Over on Facebook, a friend asked where I found the time to read 88 books. I wasn't exaggerating when I said this year was full of pressure for me, so much so that my default mode this year is "stressed," though thankfully not "stressed out." I'm still standing.
But last year was stressful for me, and I learned that because my work requires that I transform myself somewhat and learn new things all the time, I need something constant--something all mine that I had way before I assumed all the new roles and responsibilities and still want to have even after all these new responsibilites have long gone. And that, for me, is reading. So, reading was my way to manage my stress. That is why I sacrificed a few hours of sleep to read, because in reading, I felt like I was still me.
I don't know if that's weird, but that's what it is, and I'm glad for it.
So, if you've stayed with me throughout this admittedly boring-for-everyone-else-but-not-for-me review of my reading year, thank you. You must be one of my kind friends.:)
Tomorrow (or in a few hours), I'll do my darndest to post my 10 best reads for the year. In the meantime, I hope you've had good reads this year, too.
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