| Year | Books Read |
| 2003/04 | 151 |
| 2004/05 | 129 |
| 2005/06 | 141 |
| 2006/07 | 129 |
| 2007/08 | 152 |
| 2008/09 | 161 |
| 2009/10 | 157 |
| 2010/11 | 139 |
| 2011/12 | 183 |
| SUM | 1342 |
As you can see, I read the most books this year of any year since I started! Nice! My wife accuses me of cheating, which I think means "reading a lot of comic books," but if you subtract comic books out from this year and last year (where I followed the same plan of ILLing ~3 comic books per month), it still comes out to an increase of 20 books over last year, so I'm apparently just reading more.
Here's what I've been reading this year: (I broke out series/authors only if I read more than one book of that series/author)
| SERIES/GENRE/AUTHOR | # OF BOOKS | BOOKS/ MONTH | % OF ALL BOOKS |
| Doctor Who | 27 | 2.3 | 14.8% |
| Star Wars | 13 | 1.1 | 7.1% |
| Star Trek | 1 | 0.1 | 0.5% |
| Sapphire & Steel | 1 | 0.1 | 0.5% |
| Media Tie-In Subtotal | 42 | 3.5 | 23.0% |
| Isaac Asimov1 | 2 | 0.2 | 1.1% |
| Other SF&F | 17 | 1.4 | 9.3% |
| General SF&F Subtotal | 19 | 1.6 | 10.4% |
| The Sandman | 3 | 0.3 | 1.6% |
| Legion of Super-Heroes | 3 | 0.3 | 1.6% |
| Green Arrow | 3 | 0.3 | 1.6% |
| Other DC Comics2 | 16 | 1.3 | 8.7% |
| Spider-Man2 | 7 | 0.6 | 3.8% |
| Other Marvel Comics | 8 | 0.7 | 4.4% |
| Scott Pilgrim | 5 | 0.4 | 2.7% |
| Starslip | 4 | 0.3 | 2.2% |
| Harvey Pekar | 4 | 0.3 | 2.2% |
| Other Comics | 16 | 1.3 | 8.7% |
| Comics Subtotal | 69 | 5.8 | 37.7% |
| Elizabeth Gaskell | 4 | 0.3 | 2.2% |
| Thomas Hardy | 2 | 0.2 | 1.1% |
| Other Victorian Literature3 | 13 | 1.1 | 7.1% |
| Frances Hodgson Burnett | 13 | 1.1 | 7.1% |
| Inspector Lynley Mysteries | 2 | 0.2 | 1.1% |
| Other Literature | 5 | 0.4 | 2.7% |
| General Literature Subtotal | 39 | 3.3 | 21.3% |
| Other Nonfiction4 | 14 | 1.2 | 7.7% |
1. This also includes books related to Asimov (i.e., Donald Kingsbury's Psychohistorical Crisis).
2. These also include novels about these comics characters.
3. This also includes nonfiction written by Victorians (e.g., John Tyndall's Fragments of Science: A Series of Detached Essays, Addresses, and Reviews), but not nonfiction about Victorians (e.g., Ursula DeYoung's A Vision of Modern Science: John Tyndall and the Role of the Scientist in Victorian Culture).
4. Nonfiction connected to a particular series is included in that series's count.
I was utterly flabbergasted when I made this chart: I only read one Star Trek book this year! And it wasn't even a novel, nor an official release; it was Michael Piller's Fade In, about the making of Star Trek: Insurrection. I'd felt like I'd fallen behind on my tie-ins, but apparently Star Trek more than most (though many of the Doctor Who books are actually Professor Bernice Summerfield books). I continue to read a decent, if not stellar amount of Victorian literature, which is good, 'cause that's supposedly my job these days! I bet that number will be really high this year.
As I have the past couple years, I've selected a "Pick of the Month" every month. I won't try to rank them amongst each other, because that's nearly impossible, so here they are in alphabetical order by author:
- Frances Hodgson Burnett, Through One Administration
- Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone
- George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
- Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
- Moto Hagio, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories
- Donald Kingsbury, Psychohistorical Crisis
- Jim Mortimore, Campaign: An Adventure In Time And Space
- Michael Piller, Fade In: From Idea to Final Draft: The Writing of Star Trek: Insurrection
- Cordwainer Smith, When the People Fell
- Chris Ware, The Acme Novelty Library, Number 19
- Chris Ware, The Smartest Kid on Earth, Jimmy Corrigan: An Improvisatory Romance, Pictographically Configured
- P. Craig Russell, Neil Gaiman's Murder Mysteries
If you really want to see how my habits have shifted over the years, this chart sure reveals it:
| 2003/04 | 2004/05 | 2005/06 | 2006/07 | 2007/08 | 2008/09 | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | ALL | |
| Star Trek | 41.1% | 38.0% | 25.5% | 14.7% | 21.1% | 13.7% | 8.9% | 4.3% | 0.5% | 18.0% |
| Doctor Who | 16.6% | 15.5% | 18.4% | 11.6% | 13.2% | 6.2% | 10.2% | 3.6% | 14.8% | 12.2% |
| Star Wars | 10.6% | 11.6% | 11.3% | 15.5% | 12.5% | 11.2% | 2.5% | 6.5% | 7.1% | 9.7% |
| Other Tie-In | 0.7% | 6.2% | 3.5% | 3.1% | 1.3% | -- | -- | 0.7% | 0.5% | 1.6% |
| SF&F | 9.9% | 6.2% | 21.3% | 15.5% | 20.4% | 23.0% | 22.3% | 25.9% | 9.8% | 17.1% |
| DC Comics | -- | 4.7% | 0.7% | 3.1% | 8.6% | 11.2% | 21.0% | 26.6% | 21.9% | 11.3% |
| Other Comics | -- | -- | -- | 2.3% | 3.3% | 0.6% | -- | 7.2% | 15.8% | 3.6% |
| Victorian Lit | -- | -- | 1.4% | 7.0% | 0.7% | 7.5% | 7.6% | 1.4% | 10.4% | 4.2% |
| Other Literature | 14.6% | 10.9% | 14.9% | 24.0% | 15.8% | 20.5% | 20.4% | 14.4% | 11.5% | 16.2% |
| Nonfiction | 6.6% | 7.0% | 2.8% | 3.1% | 3.3% | 6.2% | 7.0% | 9.4% | 7.7% | 6.0% |
Would 2003 Steve have thought he'd read so few Star Trek books nine years in the future? Or so many comic books? Or any Victorian literature at all? Probably not. The only real regret I have this year is how few non-tie-in SF&F novels I managed to read. My non-Victorian literature also isn't so great.
Or look at it graphically:
Craziness!
Well, I'm required to read over a hundred books for my exams, so I know I'll have a good year this year. And I wager that that Victorian slice will be much bigger!
You can compare this to previous years if you're that interested: 2007/08, 2008/09, 2009/10. (I didn't do one for 2010/11.)
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