;)
2011 ABAW, the statistical retrospective
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 1:29PM I set out to read at least one book each week last year. And I did it. I read a total of 58 books in 2011. That’s down from 2010’s 73 books, but I still did well.
In January I came up with a PLAN to read in four categories each month: a notable or classic book I’d never read, a book I’d read before, something published in the past two years (alternating fiction and nonfiction), and something banned by an idiot or recommended by a friend. I even preplanned about half the books I thought I’d read.
Well, you know what they say about plans.
I kept up with all of that for almost half a year. Turns out that I was no good at keeping track of which books were recommended by friends (virtually everything I read was recommended by someone), so that wasn’t a useful category. I’m also not very good at sticking to plans when it comes to my personal whims. I didn’t always feel like reading what came next on the list, so mostly I didn’t. Early in the year, I actively sought out banned books, but as a category, that one fell apart for me pretty quickly. Too many books are banned or challenged.
I read eleven books out loud to the kids. I’ve never counted that before, but my gut tells me that’s a lot. As they get bigger, the Sonars can keep listening longer. Even when we more frequently replace our out-loud reading time with their own personal reading time.
I read five classic or notable books I’d previously missed. I don’t know why I found this category so difficult. There are so many books out there. I suppose I was less inspired by the oldies but goodies. Maybe that will change this year.
I reread nine books. More than half of these were books reread to the Sonars. I love to see them rediscover great stories and notice new things. I want to keep working at this category this year.
I read fifteen nonfiction books. I did better in this category than I remembered, though this category was bulked up by several summer skims and a little research for a novel.
I abandoned two books. One for sheer boredom and one for shift in season. (I’m not counting the handful of books that I picked up but didn’t really start before putting them back into the To-Read pile) I started reading Far From the Madding Crowd last January. I quit and came back to it four times, but can’t bring myself to finish it. It was my first serious eBook and the first time I left it, I thought maybe it was the format. But since I finished at least four other books in the electronic format in 2011, I think it’s just Hardy. The other book I didn’t finish was When Santa Fell to Earth, our traditional Christmas read. Our December reading time was more interrupted than normal, and we started it late. We all love the story, but once Christmas passed, the Sonars were ready to read something else. We’ll catch it next December.
I skipped twenty-four books that were on the plan in January. They’ve all gone on a To-Read list. Maybe I can knock out a few of them in 2012.
My first book for 2012 is The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy. I’d tell you what I hope to read next, but that might just jinx it. What’s on your reading list this year?
A Book A Week, Books, Read Something in Words 
Reader Comments (5)
You're a beast. I'm looking to wrap up "World Without End" by Ken Follett in the near term. After that I'm not sure. I want to read the Song of Ice and Fire series, but I never like starting a series that isn't complete. There are supposed to be 2 more installments published, but he went almost 6 years between books 4 and 5. I don't like the thought of catching up through the released 5 books and having to wait for the conclusion. In the past I've gone back and re-read the previous books when the next one came out, and I think I might just want to wait until the series is complete. I didn't like waiting for the various Harry Potter books to be published, especially because I don't like reading hardcovers, so I would have to wait another year or so for the paperback. But with his track record, it might be another 10 years before the series is done. What should I do, wise one?
Other than that, I really have no firm ideas of what I want to read. I'm sure I'll re-re-re-re-read the Hobbit at some point this year in preparation for the movie release in December.
The only series I got entangled with last year was The Hunger Games. Which was engaging, but I still can't decide if I really *liked* it or not. And it's a different kind of beast from The Pillars of the Earth/World Without End. I haven't read either of those, but talk about waiting a long time for the conclusion? Eighteen years? Sheesh.
Have you checked out that Thrones thingy that's getting all the buzz and the TV show? I haven't read it either. So this is me, trying to recommend to you books I have not read, and not recommend books I have. Good, right?
Just now, though, I'm entangled in a series of a completely different flavor. Well, not series so much as three books that hang together with some of the same characters in the same place. Cormac McCarthy's Badlands Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain. They don't make me want to be a cowboy, but they're really good stories nonetheless.
The Hobbit is, of course, always a great fall-back position. You're welcome.
Incidentally, did you know that the kids these days are using "beast" as an adjective instead of a noun? As in "I'm so beast" or "That new Ustin-jay Eiber-bay single is so beast." FYI.
Great info about "beast." I did not know that, but I will now incorporate it into my lexicon. I feel so hip.
I think you would enjoy the Pillars/WWE books. I'm not even sure why I had it, b/c I don't remember ever picking it up, but I found Pillars in a box of books in my basement last fall when I was looking for something to read. I liked it a lot and then discovered that it had a "sequel," so I went and got World Without End. I wouldn't say that it was like waiting 18 yrs for the conclusion, however, b/c while WWE takes place in the same town and with descendants of the characters in Pillars, it is some 200 yrs later and the stories are not related. At least not yet, says me about 3/4 of the way through WWE.
I don't know how historically accurate they are in how they describe life in feudal Middle Ages England/Europe, but it has been fascinating to me. I have read that everything including the town in the stories is fictional but set against real events, Pillars is during the Anarchy between the sinking of the White Ship and the murder of Thomas Becket, and WWE during the 100 Years War and the Black Death.
The way Pillars got started I almost had to stop reading it, b/c of just how brutal life was for the characters. I wondered at one point why was I torturing myself reading what I was reading. And at one point I was probably halfway through Pillars and I still didn't really know who the main character was. I ended up really liking it, though, and in retrospect I realized I've read and enjoyed quite a few of Follett's novels. So yeah, I'd recommend Pillars of the Earth to you, and if you finish that in a week, I'll be suitably impressed. It's rather lengthy.
The Song of Ice and Fire series that I mentioned is the "Thrones thingy that's getting all the buzz and the TV show." "A Game of Thrones" is book one in that series.
I'm thinking (partly thanks to your review) of reading the Girl w/Dragon Tattoo series (trilogy?). Haven't decided yet, though.
The problem with my reading schedule is that it tends to be 10-15 minutes per day when I go to bed and thus am exhausted, so it often takes me a very long time to get through anything.
Oh, yeah, heh heh. Just goes to show that you can read a lot and still not be paying attention. ;-)
I'll have to check out Pillars/WWE. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the first of three books. They are very violent, but the stories are very good. The first time I read the first one, I quit it after the first forty pages because I found it so boring. But it gets a lot better once Lisbeth Salander is (finally) introduced around page fifty. The movies were good too (US and Swedish).
Ten or fifteen minutes of reading each day is perfectly respectable. More than a lot of people do, too. At that rate, you could probably start the Thrones-thingy and roll in just about the time Martin throws down the next one. ;-)