16 September 2016

Reading Roundup Year in Review, 2015/16

It's September, which means that another reading year has come to an end. Which means that it's time to do the numbers and see how this year stacks up to years past.

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  184
2012/13 195
2013/14 148
2014/15 146
2015/16 149
SUM 1981
MEAN 152.4

The past three years have been remarkably consistent. Apparently a book every 2.5 days is the pace I will always have no matter what. But actually it doesn't really work like that:
Click to enlarge.

As you can see, I had nine months that were below average, and three months that were above average-- but two of them were significantly above average, and made up a lot of ground at the last minute. If I'd read in July and August like I had the rest of the year, I'd have finished the year with 120 books, which would have been my worst year ever! I'm not really sure what happened to inflate my numbers so much late in the year. A combination of a bunch of comic books coming up on my list at the same time I began riding the bus almost every day again? (But I rode the bus a lot in March and April, and those don't really stand out.)

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 9 0.8 6.0%
Star Trek 8 0.7 5.4%
Star Wars 8 0.7 5.4%
Media Tie-In Subtotal 25 2.1 16.8%




H. G. Wells1 8 0.7 5.4%
Other SF&F 9 0.8 6.0%
General SF&F Subtotal 17 1.4 11.4%




Batman 17.5 1.5 11.7%
Legion of Super-Heroes 6.5 0.5 4.4%
Birds of Prey 5
 0.4 3.4%
The Sandman 4 0.3 2.7%
Supergirl 1.5 0.1 1.0%
DC Crisis Crossovers2 2 0.2 1.3%
Superman 1.5 0.1 1.0%
Batgirl 1.5 0.1 1.0%
Other DCU Comics 9 0.8 6.0%
The Transformers 12 1.0 8.1%
Thor 2 0.2 1.3%
Calvin and Hobbes 2 0.2 1.3%
Top Ten 2 0.2 1.3%
Other Comics3 6 0.5 4.0%
Comics Subtotal 73 6.1 49.0%




James Bond by Ian Fleming 3 0.3 2.0%
Victorian Literature 8 0.7 5.4%
Other Literature 5 0.4 3.4%
General Literature Subtotal 16 1.3 10.7%




Other Nonfiction4 18 1.5 12.1%

1. This actually includes both science fiction and literature by Wells, but I can't be bothered to separate them back out for the purposes of this report.
2. This also include novels about these comics-originated characters/premises.
3. Comics based on a particular series (e.g., Doctor Who or Star Trek) are included with that series's count.
4. Nonfiction connected to a particular series or author (e.g., Doctor Who or George Eliot) is included in that series or author's count.

I knew I was reading a lot more comic books these days, but I would have not guessed they accounted for almost half of my reading! (Last year they accounted for just under a third.) My wife says it's cheating.

As usual, I picked a book every month as the "Pick of the Month"; here's the full list in alphabetical order by author:
I don't think it's possible to do a "Pick of the Year" this year. The full list of "Picks" going back seven years is here.

Finally, here's my usual graph of my reading trends over time:
Click to enlarge.
Here's hoping for a more diverse 2016/17!

You can compare this to previous years if you're interested: 2007/08, 2008/09, 2009/10, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2014/15. (I didn't do ones for 2010/11 and 2013/14.)
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