The Year of the Series

For each reading year, I tend to set a kind of general goal, knowing that I don’t intend to make it a hard and fast rule. In the past, for example, I’ve had the goal of reading more poetry, or big books, or missed classics, or graphic novels. I keep this in mind as I go through the year, and try to make sure I have plenty of books from the selected category available.

This year I’ve decided to put a focus on reading and finishing book series. I love a good book series. I read a lot of them. However, I’ve often read relatively haphazardly through a series, reading one here and one there, and often stopping part way through to go on to something else. Sometimes I’ve never gotten back to a series, even though I might have greatly enjoyed it when I first jumped into it.

The first series I ever read through completely, back to back, was the Lord of the Rings trilogy, way back in college. The second series I read like this came much, much later. It was the Harry Potter series. I’ve also got a dozen or more “series” books around the house that I’ve not yet read. So, for this year, I’ve decided to keep a little focus on completing series. I’m on the last book now of David Gemmell’s Rigante series, which is four books. I’ve got like 2 of the survivalist series books left, maybe 2 of the Cap Kennedy series left, a bunch of Edge and Dumarest of Terra books, something like 5 of the Dray Prescot series, a couple of the Destroyerman series, and numerous others. I’ve also got entire series of books in my TBR pile.

My “reading year” starts on my birthday each year so I’m well into my program for this current period. I’m having fun with it. What about you? Do you ever set general goals like this for yourself?

A Year of Reading

Today is my birthday. Fifty-six now. Hard to believe. I still feel mentally about eighteen, but when I try to get up out of a chair my true age comes calling. I count my reading year from birthday to birthday. For the past couple of years I've done a post about it on this day, or soon after. Here's another.

My book consumption was down this year. I managed 72 books, which broke a 7 year streak of reading over 100 a year. This is actually my lowest average since 2000-2001, where I read 71 books. I also break my list down by genre. Westerns won this year, with 16 total. That's the most in this genre I've read since 1997-1998. Nonfiction and SF were next with 12 each. That's up for NF and down for SF from last year.

I have done more writing this year than last so that accounts for some of the decreased reading time and decreased reads, but I think more of the downturn is due to a decrease in certain genres. Three genres dipped pretty low this year, poetry, graphic novels, and YA fiction. All three of these are relatively short works compared to some others, meaning that they require less reading time. In contrast, NF works are generally slower reads. Overall, this is probably what added up to fewer total books.

I don't feel compelled to read 100 books a year, although I like to. The only real disappointment was that my average book consumption per year actually dropped a little this year, from 80.15 per year (since age 6) to 79.98. I don't actually have clear yearly records going back past 1987-1988, when I started keeping records like I'm doing now. But I have been keeping a general list of books I've read since my early teen years. I'm sure there are plenty of books that I forgot to write down in those years, when I wasn't quite so obsessive about it. And I probably have missed a number of books I read in the years before I hit my teens. So, the overall averages are just approximations, although I'm convinced they are fairly close.

In other news, I just sent out my third author Newsletter. Most of you who visit here regularly are certainly on the list to get it. But if you didn't and are interested in getting a copy, you can email me or message me on facebook and give me your email address. I send out no more than two a year so it won't clutter your inbox. My email is kainja at hotmail dot com.

Enjoy your day!
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Record Keeping and Reading

I'm working today on the questions for Elaine Ash of Beat to a Pulp, and that will be up in the next day or so. In the meantime, here's a kind of placeholder post.

I finish my reading year on my birthday, and naturally I keep records. I read 116 books since October 14 of 2009. Mystery and Thrillers accounted for 24 of those and SF added up to 21. Westerns and nonfiction accounted for 13 each, and fantasy scored 11. I read fewer graphic novels this year than last, 2 versus 5, and reread only three books rather than 6. I read only 3 YA books, as oppossed to 11 last year. That was a Harry Potter year. I went up very slightly this year in hororr and historical fiction, and remained steady in poetry at 5. I have 7 books in the "other" category this year as opposed to 0 last year. "Other" is a catch all category for books in genres I don't typically read in. A romance novel would fall in this category for me, for example, or a mainstream literary novel that doesn't fit into classics. I read 0 books in the comedy column, which is standard for me since I only have 2 listed in that column over the past 7 years. I just don't read much material that is meant to be humorous.

OK, that's probably enough boring details about my reading year. See you next year with the same kind of post. :)
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My Reading Year

I’ve mentioned how I keep records of the books I read. Well, I date my “reading year” from October 14 to October 13 of the following year. That’s because my birthday is on the 14th so it corresponds to my actual number of years alive. I’m about to finish out the current reading period and thought I might share the results.

The 2008/2009 period was a good reading year for me and I read more than average. I estimated that I first started truly reading at around 7, so counting from that age I’ve averaged about 76 books a year. I believe the actual average should be higher because I didn’t keep records until I was a teenager, and didn’t keep accurate records until my 20s. But hey, the exact number isn’t that important.

For this past year, I’ve read 124 books. This includes 18 nonfiction works, almost all having to do with science, 15 westerns, 18 thrillers, 18 SF, and 17 fantasy. I’ve also read 11 young adult books, including the Harry Potter series, and then smaller numbers in horror, classics, and poetry.

In the past, I almost never reread books, but as I’ve gotten older I’m doing so more frequently. I only started a record column for reread books about 8 years ago, and this year I set a new record with 6. Several of these I reread in order to blog accurately about them for Forgotten Book Friday.

The Harry Potter books, especially the last five, were definitely among my favorite reads of this past year. Also notable was the graphic novel The Watchmen, which is by far the best graphic novel I’ve ever read (not that I’ve read many). My favorite mystery/thriller of the year was What Angels Fear, the first Sebastian St. Cyr mystery, by our own C. S. Harris. In SF, the Cap Kennedy series of Space Opera stories were an interesting discovery, and in fantasy it would be “The Best of Robert E. Howard series, although most of the stories there were rereads. In nonfiction, the best book I read was probably The Lost Notebooks of Loren Eiseley, which I talked about a lot on my blog.

So there you have it. Soon a new reading year will dawn, and the possibilities are…endless. Hurray!
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