2017 Reading Stats

Welcome to my giant post of 2017 reading stats! I don’t know how interesting this will be for you, but all these graphs help me figure out what I want to change about my reading. If you’re the kind of nerd who wants more data about my reading year, check out My Favorite Books of 2017, My Year In Review Tag, and the New-To-Me Authors post. So, here we go, let’s look at all that data I spent a year obsessively collecting.

2017 Quick Facts

Total number of books I read: 113

Number of rereads: 14

Total number of pages I read: 36,642

Approximate pages read per day: 100

Number of books I gave up on: 4

Number of translations I read: 7

From Goodreads

I managed to find a book that nobody else has read! It was bad. Don't read it.

I won at Goodreads! Also, *awkward laugh* at being good at other things.

From My Spreadsheet

My spreadsheet was a nightmare in 2017. Between its glitches and my incompetence, it’s surprising we got anything done. I have a different spreadsheet this year, so hopefully everything works out better.

Analysis: You can see all my mini reading slumps. And you can tell that I read a bunch of short books in January.

Analysis: Yeah . . . I’m afraid of big books, and I can not lie.

Analysis: I swear I read in February. The graph just didn’t work for . . . reasons. #YouHadOneJob. Can you tell that readathons happened in April and October?

0 = DNF

Analysis: Most of my 5-star books were rereads. Still, I enjoyed the majority of what I read. Three stars means the book was average. Four is above average. Two is below average.

Analysis: I’m fairly happy with this. One of my goals for this blog is to review backlist books. I feel like I did that. Still, a lot of what I read was published in the last 17 years. I need to get back to reading more classics. There were times in my life where I pretty much only read classics.

Pie Charts

"Children" includes young adult books.

Analysis: This completely surprised me. I knew I was reading a lot of adult books, but I didn’t know it was this many. I have two theories on why this happened:

Theory One: After finishing my degree in children’s lit in 2016, I felt burnt out on children’s books. Adult books were more appealing to me. 

Theory Two: I didn’t read as many YA-centric blogs last year. Honestly, I got a bit sick of having my feed constantly flooded with Cassandra Clare and Sarah J. Maas books. I started using lists on Twitter and Bloglovin’, so it was easier to find posts that interest me. I ended up reading a lot more adult-fiction-focused blogs.

Analysis: I prefer hardback books because they don’t fall apart easily, but paperbacks are cheaper. I guess my wallet is winning out over my heart.

Analysis: This isn’t a surprise. I love my novels.

Analysis: Almost all of my books came from the “Big 5” publishers. That’s sad. I need to find more indie books and presses. Also, I apparently really like Penguin Random House? No idea why. Am I drawn to their books? Do they just publish a ton of stuff? Are they better at promoting their products than other publishers? It’s a mystery.

Analysis: This is the “Where did all my money go?” graph. I bought 13 full-price books last year. Over half of my books were acquired through trading at the used bookstore. A lot of my other books were bought used or scratch & dent. The rest were gifts or giveaway wins.

The Diversity Stuff

Note: My graphs only track the presence of diverse characters. They don't track the accuracy of the representation.

Analysis: I did it, guys! The majority of the books I read last year fit my “diversity” criteria. It took some research to find diverse books, but mission accomplished! Here’s how a book ended up in the “Yes” category:

It’s #OwnVoices

And/Or

It’s a work in translation

And/Or

It features a point-of-view character who is a member of a minority community

And/Or

It discusses issues that disproportionately impact minority communities

“Other” = one author from each of these countries: Algeria, Greece, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, Vietnam.

“Multiple” = more than one author from different countries. 

Analysis: This is still a bit of a problem. I’d like to read fewer US-born authors. I read a lot of them because I live in the US, and their books are easy to get. I need to find more books by talented people who aren't from around here.

"Multiple" = more than one author, different genders.

Analysis: I guess I was loving the lady writers last year? This graph is mostly just random. I don’t pay attention to the author’s gender when I decide what to read.

Note: This graph tracks the presence of diversity, not the accuracy of representation.
Note: All the books on this graph are from the "Yes" category on the "Diversity?" graph.

Analysis: I tried to track the types of diversity I was seeing in books, but it was difficult. It’s hard to put characters (and books) into neat boxes. A lot of the books ended up in the “Multiple” category. If a character is a Muslim immigrant, I didn’t know if I should put the book in “Culture/Religion” or “Immigration/Refugee.” That’s how the “Multiple” category got so big. I guess it’s interesting to see what types of people are turning up in literature? The graph seems pretty useless, though.

That’s my massive post of 2017 statistics! I hope it was slightly interesting.