Reading in Reykjavík

I have just tallied the books I read in 2016, and they come to 234 (oops, forgot some that were on my Kindle, so  make that 246 ), only including those I finished after a full reading. I also skimmed several more, maybe 20 or so, but they don't count. When you read this many books in one year they tend to blur together into a muddle of indistinguishable plots, characters, pages and covers, even some of the good ones. However, I keep a scoring system for the books I read, and so I can go over them and use the list to jog my memory.  Books were judged memorable by the simple expedient of taking the top-ranking books from my list of read books, removing all rereads and then weeding out the others until I had narrowed the choice down to the 16 books I remember the best from the year's reading. If there had been any memorably terrible reads I would have included them, but I generally stop reading such books as soon as i realise how terrible they are. Note that memorable does ...

It's that time of the year again: Time to look back over the year that just ended, to give thanks for all the great books I read in 2013, bemoan all the potentially great books I planned to read but didn't and express regrets for the books I read that were not so good. However, I have come to the conclusion that one shouldn't have regrets about books not read and books read but not enjoyed. After all, the unread books might, once you actually read them, turn out to be crap, and the only way to find out that you don't like a book is to read it, so the time spent reading the "bad" books isn't really wasted time but rather invested. It's just that the time you invested in the books you didn't like hasn't paid dividends like the time you invested in the good, great and excellent books. Therefore I will not spend time discussing the negative points of my reading year but will let my comments in the monthly reading reports suffice. As for the gr...

Happy New Year! I read 155 books in 2012, which was about the same as in a normal reading year. I finished two reading challenges, the always entertaining What's in a Name challenge, which I may repeat this year, and a personal challenge of finishing 50 books from my own library that I had not read before. The second challenge started out as a means to reduce the TBR part of my library below 600 books. Then I got around 20 books from my grandfather when he cut down his library in preparation for moving into a serviced apartment, and inherited nearly 90 books from my grandmother. Naturally, this upset the original challenge. This influx of books caused me to give up on the original goal and I decided to concentrate on finishing a certain number of TBR books rather than reducing the library down to a particular number. The books that stood out for me in 2012 were wildly different from each other: Just Kids by Patti Smith is an honest portrait of the relationship/friends...

Continuing from yesterday´s post: Breakdown by genre: This is by dominant genre, so that, for example, the urban fantasy novels I read all go in the romance category, because they are romances first and foremost, although they happen to take place in fantasy/alternative reality setting, whereas the Discworld books go in the fantasy category even if they are all also detective stories, because fantasy is the dominant genre. Crime, mystery and thrillers: 54 (31,2%), down by 10,65% Romance: 49 (28,3%), up by a staggering 21,15% Fantasy, sci-fi, fairy tales, myths and supernatural: 20 (11,6%), up by 6,5% Miscellaneous fiction: 32 (18,5%) up by 1,65% Non-fiction: 18 (10,4%), down by 16,6% My reading seems to have been more homogeneous in 2010 than it was in 2009, which I blame on the decrease in my reading of non-fiction, down to 10% from 27%. I did not read enough travelogues and ex-pat memoirs to warrant a separate category in 2010, but I plan to remedy that in 2011, whe...

2010 was a little above average for me considering the number of books I read per year in the last 5 years, or quite a bit higher if I count separately all the little Edward Gorey books collected together in the three Gorey anthologies I read. If they are counted as three volumes, I read 173 books, but if they are counted as separate books, I read 221 books. This makes a weekly average of 3,3 or 4,25 books, respectively. If I continue with two numbers I‘ll have to come up with two sets of most of the numbers, so for the calculations below I have used the lower number. I have no particular plans in terms of either the total number of books or the total number of pages I plan to read in 2011. I have several short novels on my TBR list which could push up the number of books read, but I also have some monster books I plan to read, so it will probably even out. I don‘t remember any unfinished books in 2010, only books put on hold to be finished later. Breakdown: Fiction: 155 (89,...

2009 was a very good reading year for me, with a total of 196 books finished. This is 43 books more than in 2008, making my weekly average 3,77 books. I hardly expect to read as many this year, unless I start reading shorter books. However, reading a large number of books has never been a priority for me. What I want, above all else, is to read enjoyable books. This year I actually want to focus a bit more on my other hobbies, not just the bookbinding, but also rock painting and crochet, and my stash of quilting fabrics could also do with some attention. As in 2008, there were very few unfinished books in 2009, and they consisted of guide books. Breakdown: Fiction: 139 (70,9%), down by 5,6% since last year. Non-fiction: 54 (27,6%) up by 7,3% since last year. Mixed: 3 (1,5%) My non-fiction percentage is up from 2008, which means I managed to fulfil my goal to read more non-fiction in 2009 than in 2008. Total no. of pages read: 49672, compared with 44691 in 2008. Average number of pag...

I just discovered an error in my reading report for last year. I have been collecting all the statistically interesting information from my handwritten reading journal in an Excel file that allows me to make the statistical analysis I have published here at the end of each year. From the beginning of my journal-keeping I have written in the name of the publisher, but for some reason I never entered that information into the Excel file. Having nothing better to do this afternoon, I decided to add the publisher information for this year and the last, so I got out the journal, opened last year’s spreadsheet, sorted the information by date and started entering the information. I soon discovered that I had somehow missed a couple of pages when entering the information for 2008, amounting to 4 books. The outcome is that instead of 153 books and 44691 pages I actually read 157 books and 45212 pages in 2008. It hardly affects any of the other stats, so I haven’t bothered recalculating them. Fo...

Total books read in 2008: 153, which is 10 more than in 2007, making my weekly average 2,95 books. Last year’s unfinished books were fewer than the year before and consisted only of 2 books I gave up on and a couple of guide books I borrowed and read only the relevant sections of for my trip to Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Breakdown: Fiction: 117 (76,5%), up by 8,2% since last year. Non-fiction: 31 (20,3%) down by 10% since last year. Mixed: 5 (3,3%) My non-fiction percentage is down from 2007, which means I was unable to fulfil my goal to reach 35% non-fiction in 2009. Maybe this year I’ll do better (I have some juicy travelogues lined up that may pull this average up). Total no. of pages read: 44691, compared with 38901 in 2007, which is not surprising as I read more books in 2008. Average number of pages per book: 292. This is 18 pages longer than in 2008. I have some big reads of 700+ pages lined up that may push the average page count even higher this year. Number o...

I finally got my act together and compiled the annual report. Total books read in 2007: 142. This is 18 books fewer than in 2006, and 140 fewer than in 2005 (an exceptional reading year for me), but still pretty good when you consider that it makes nearly 3 books a week. Last year I was very focused on cookbooks and skimmed through 18 of them in search of interesting recipes, reading all the titles and a number of recipes from each book, but as I can’t claim to have actually read any of them all the way through, they are not included in the tally. Also not included are the books I began reading in 2007 and will hopefully finish in 2008. Breakdown: Fiction: 97 (68,3%) Non-fiction: 43 (30,3%) Mixed: 2 (1,4%) The mixed books are The Literary Gourmet , which combines real recipes and passages from novels, and The Science of Discworld which combines popular science with fantasy. In addition there are 3 books that are ostensibly autobiographies, but have a distinct flavour of being mor...

My most read author in 2006 was Terry Pratchett, which is no surprise as I embarked on a rereading of all the Discworld books, which is still not finished. If the Pratchett rereads are left out and only authors with books I read for the first time are counted, the list looks like this: Georgette Heyer: 7 Sharyn McCrumb: 5 Marion Chesney/MC Beaton: 4 Georges Simenon: 4 Catherine Aird: 3 Robert Barnard: 3 Paul Doherty: 3 Arthur W Upfield: 3 Patricia Wentworth: 3 Terry Pratchett: 2 Arnaldur Indriðason: 2 Carolyn G Hart: 2 ST Haymon: 2 Joan Hess: 2 Caron Anne O'Marie: 2 Elizabeth Peters: 2 Kathy Reichs: 2 Josephine Tey: 2 It is interesting that all the authors whose books I read who have more than one book on the 2006 reading list are mystery authors. While Heyer is better know for romances and romantic historicals, Chesney for historical romances and Pratchett for fantasies, all have written mysteries. I read one Pratchett mystery, one Chesney mystery (written as MC Beaton) and three ...

I suddenly occurred to me yesterday that I had not published my annual reading report. Well, here goes: Total books read in 2006: 160. This is 122 books fewer than in 2005, which is not surprising as I wrote my master's thesis in 2006 and thus had less time for reading. Fiction: 119 (74,4%) Non-fiction: 41 (25,6%) My non-fiction percentage has risen by 4% since 2005, probably due to all the travel books I read in 2006. Total no. of pages: 40422. Average number of pages per book: 252. Not surprisingly, I read fewer pages in 2006 than in 2005, but the books I read in 2006 were on average 38 pages longer than those I read in 2005. Number of books under 100 pages long: 2 Number of books over 300 pages long: 43 (26,8%) Re-reads: 15 (9,4%) Library and loan books: 50 (31,25%) E-books: 1 Audio books: 1 Translated books: 13 (8,1%) Books published before 1900: 2 (1,25%) -> Memo: Must read more classics in 2007 Books published after 2000: 27 (16,9%) Average rating per book (o...

I finally found time to sit down and finish my reading report. In addition to the books reported here, I started but did not finish several books, and read chapters and parts of about 15 school and academic books (required reading and research for assignments). Off we go: Total books read in 2005: 282 Fiction: 202, or 71,6 % Non-fiction: 80, or 28,4% Total no. of pages: 60355 Re-reads: 15 Library and loan books: 156 E-books: 50 Audio books: 8 Translated books: 14 Average number of stars per book (out of a possible 5): 3,6 Languages : Danish (2), English (265), Icelandic (14) Breakdown by genre: Crime, mystery and action: 86, or 30,5% Romance and chick-lit: 29, or 10,3% Fantasy and sci-fi, supernatural horror included: 28, or 9,9% Teen and children’s literature: 22, or 7,8% Novels that defy genre classification (also known as literature): 16, or 5,7% Books about books and reading: 12, or 4,2% Biographies, autobiographies and memoirs: 12, or 4,2% Travel: 11, or 3,9% Othe...