08 September 2012

Reading Roundup Year in Review, 2011/12

I'm a little behind on reviews, but we mustn't let that distract us from other things-- it's the end of the reading year. The first month I kept a list of what I read was September 2003, which means my "reading year" runs from September to August. So how have things been going this past year?

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:
Except I did pick a best book of the year:
This one's main idea still sticks with me. Is it ironic that my favorite Gaiman comic was not written by Gaiman? Russell is good. Overall, it's a pretty pleasing mix of books: four 19th-century novels, four very different comic books (except that two are by Chris Ware!), a couple sf tales, and even two (albeit unofficial) tie-ins. Ain't no one gonna call me a literary snob!

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.)

No comments:

Post a Comment