Once & Future

January 17, 2011

The State of My Reading 2010/2011

Ah, 2011.  A blank slate once again if you happen to be keeping track of things by calendar year.  I don’t keep track of much by calendar year, but my reading log is one of the few things.

It’s a bit late, I know, to start rhapsodizing about the new year – almost three weeks too late.  But, if you haven’t heard, I’ve been down sick with the first trimester of a brand-new pregnancy for the last two months and it’s only recently that I’ve been able to pick up a book or sit in front of a word processor without feeling immediately nauseous.  So my new year of reading begins now, a bit late, just as my old year of reading had to be aborted a little early.

2010 wasn’t a bad year for me.  I read exactly 40 books, and on top of that 32 graphic novels.  This is very nearly double what I read in 2008 and 2009 (22 & 21 books respectively) though not so amazing as the 46 I read in 2006 (including such bricks as War and Peace, Atlas Shrugged and Richard Fortey’s The Earth).  That was back before I had kids, or had taken up knitting – reading disruptors both.  For a complete list you can always look here, but I always prefer to end my year with a tallying of meaningless statistics, in order to make my reading resemble a scientific undertaking.

Books Read in 2010: 40
Non-Fiction: 12.5% (5/40)
“Children’s” or “Young Adult” Lit:  10% (4/40)
Read but Not Owned: 0.5% (2/40)
Bought in 2010: 60% (24/40)
Bought in Previous Years: 35% (14/40)
Bought in 2010 but Not Read: Don’t ask.
At This Rate, I’ll Be Crushed Under a Bookshelf By: 2025

Favourite 5 Books of 2010:

Margaret de Valois by Alexandre Dumas
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
The Possessed by Elif Batuman
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
KENK: A Graphic Portrait by Richard Poplak, Alex Jansen, Jason Gilmore & Nick Marinkovich

Biggest Accomplishment of 2010:  42.5% of the books I read were Canadian! 28% of the graphic novels too. Behold the science:

Looking ahead to 2011, I wanted to say I don’t have any goals. But in reality I have two whoppers: I want to finish all ten of the as-of-yet untouched Canada Reads and Canada Reads Independently 2011 books by March. And I would love, despite Beta’s arrival in July, to manage to read at least 20 books this year. That means I’d better choose my remaining 10 books carefully – and those chosen for me had better be great!

Wish me luck!