Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Meditation on My 2010 Year in Reading

Last year I read 87 books, most of them before I became a parent in late September. This year I fell significantly short of that mark (for a full list of books see this page), but here are the stats:

Books Read: 51 (27 in audio format)
Young Adult: 17
Fantasy: 10
Romance: 9 (7 lesbian romances)
Nonfiction: 4
Science Fiction: 3
Children's (not including the masses of books read to Baby G): 3
Mystery/Suspense: 2
General Fiction: 2
Books Resisting Categorization: 1 [The City and the City]
Favorites: Shades of Grey, His Majesty's Dragon, Howl's Moving Castle, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Madensky Square

This accounting also includes a few books, such as Pretties, Specials, and Wildthorn, for which I have not yet gotten around to writing reviews. There are many books in the "Young Adult" category that could be classified as Sci-Fi or Fantasy, since that is what I particularly like to read.

Last year, only 7% of the books I read were in audio format. This year, I listened to over half (53%) of the books that I read. Generally this also involved having a paper copy of the book in hand, but if you've been reading this blog you will know that I feel strongly that listening = reading. And THANK GOD for audiobooks, otherwise my commute would be a wasteland of commercial radio (dramatic exaggeration) and I would have missed out on a lot of great books. As my friend Jen said in her year-end review, this is the year of the audiobook, and I'm glad that I am finally at the point where half of my reading is done in the car, ideally with the aid of Simon Vance.

I think my reading resolution for 2011 will be to read more books that are recommended to me, even if they don't seem like something I would choose for myself. Maybe I will occasionally do something as random as asking Twitter what I should read next and following up on the first recommendation given. I am also planning on participating in "The Women of Science Fiction" reading challenge, because I'd like to read a lot of those books anyway, and the opportunity for intelligent discussion is very appealing.

Happy New Year!

2 comments:

jpetroroy said...

Thanks for the link. I like the way you summed up your year into categories. Very neat (in both senses of the word) :)

Amanda said...

Well, you out-read me, and *I* don't have a baby. ;-)