I have one last Best of 2017 post for you guys today, and this one is the geekiest of them all. I keep a very detailed spreadsheet of the books I read (along with tracking everything on Goodreads), that keeps track of the titles I’m reading, authors, star ratings, number of pages, start and finish dates, diversity, genres, where I sourced books, expense, etc. And I do it all so I can write this post at the end of every year and find out how my reading stats break down. And also I just like geeking out over my reading spreadsheet. 🙂 So, without further ado, here are my final reading stats from 2017:
How many books did you read? 117
How many pages did you read? 39,715 pages
What percentage of books did you read in print, e-book, and audiobook formats?
- E-books: 51%
- Print: 41%
- Audiobooks: 8%
(Comparing this to last year’s numbers, I read a little less on my e-reader but bumped up my audiobook listening from nothing last year to 8% this year. Woop!)
How much money did you spend on reading this year? Not counting the books I bought but haven’t read, it amounted to $104.62, or $.89 per book.
What were the percentages by genre?
Romance still has a strong lead at nearly 44%. (I try to read one romance novel between every non-romance novel.) In my non-romance reading, I’m mostly reading fiction (I classify anything chick lit, literary fiction, contemporary fiction, etc. under that umbrella) with nonfiction close behind. I read slightly more fiction and nonfiction in 2017 than I did in 2016. My smallest categories include YA, mystery/thriller, and science fiction.
How many diverse books did you read? Only 26% of my reads were diverse and I’m rather displeased with that number. It’s around the same number of diverse books I read in 2016, so I’m not reading as widely as I had hoped. How I’m changing that in 2018: reading at least three diverse books per month. I’m going to pick out one book every month written by a person of color to read and I’m also going to diversify my romance because, right now, it’s 100% white women authors and 100% cis-gendered straight romances. I want to read more queer romance and more romance by women of color.
Where did you source your books from?
As per usual, most of my books came from the library or Overdrive – a whopping 66%! I am a library power user and a staunch supporter of them. After the library, I sourced a good portion of books from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. My smaller categories include books I got for free in exchange for a review on my blog, books I borrowed from friends, books I bought from Book of the Month (<– referral link), and books that I read as part of the Postal Book Club.
What month did you read the most? The least? The month I read the most books was May when I read 14 books. (I still don’t know how I did that!) And the least amount of books I read in a month was eight, and I did that in February, June, September, and November.
What was the biggest book you read? The shortest? The longest book was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at 784 pages. The shortest book was Between the World and Me at 152 pages.
How many books did you finish in less than 24 hours? Only 5, as compared to 12 last year!
What book took you the longest to read, and how long did it take you? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It took me 19 days!
How many books did you abandon? 11, as compared to 9 last year.
How did you rate your books?
A year of great reading! I gave 4 or 5 stars to over half the books I read (61%). Less than 10% of the books I read were rated 1 or 2 stars. It’s very rare for me to give a book 1 star, and I don’t give a ton of 2-star ratings, either. Maybe I’ve just been better about picking books that I know I’ll like or love? For me, a 1 or 2-star rating means I didn’t like the book. A 3-star rating means it was okay, but not one I’ll typically recommend. A 4-star rating means I really enjoyed it. And a 5-star rating means it touched me deeply and/or it was a book I couldn’t put down.
How many books published in 2016 or 2017 did you read compared to books published earlier?
56 vs 61, so it’s a fair split between reading new books and backlist titles. I used to read mostly backlist because I’m at the mercy of the library and I often have to wait longer for the new titles. But now that I’ve gotten more involved in the bookish community, I’m reading more and more new books and I’m okay with that. As long as I don’t only read new books, you know? This breakdown shows I have a good mix between the two.
Don’t forget to fill out my reader survey! I would greatly appreciate your feedback.
I still need to do my reading recap post. I should try to do that this week. I also use a geeky spreadsheet to track my reading in addition to using Goodreads. I am just such a data junky so love seeing the split of genres and where I sourced my books, etc.
You probably gave so few 1 and 2 star reads since you abandoned a good chunk of books. Which is good!! I only abandoned 2 books last year. I need to get better at giving up on books if they aren’t grabbing me. I struggle to do that when a book is highly rated or well-liked by many. The book Everyone Brave is Forgiven is a good example of that. It was recommend on MMD and got a lot of really good reviews on goodreads by people I know. But from the start it didn’t click with me – yet I kept reading it, which was a mistake as I did not care for it.
Very true! I am pro-abandoning books that aren’t suiting you, but it is hard to do that for books that are rated so highly. (My recent example is All the Light We Cannot See, definitely should have abandoned that book!) I have so many reader friends who have a hard time abandoning books, but I am very picky about what books I give my time to! It makes the reading experience so much better, anyway. Who wants to read a book that isn’t grabbing your attention?!
YOU READ ONE HUNDRED & SEVENTEEN BOOKS THIS YEAR? GIRL. These stats are amazing!
It was my most successful reading year yet! Here’s hoping I can make it happen again in 2018.
I love your analysis. My new rule-of-thumb is that I won’t add a book to my list that rates poorly (at least 3.5 stars) on either Goodreads or Amazon. For “expansion” books (that aren’t in my wheelhouse), I am even stricter with books being closer to 4 stars. This has helped my enjoyment level greatly.
Ooh, yes! I am currently going through my “Want to Read” list on Goodreads and weeding out books that have low ratings and/or not a lot of reviews. I think it’ll help me really get down to the books I want to read (I was nearing 1,000 on my Want to Read shelf!) and make sure I’m not overwhelming myself with choices.
Love, love, love this. I am a total numbers nerd and track everything that can be tracked LOL … but, I guess, I can track even more than I have, because I haven’t had a book spreadsheet like yours yet, but will create one right now, because I LOVE all the stats that you shared. So interesting, so much insight!
Also: Dang, 117 books. that’s like twice as many as I read and I thought I did good 😉
Reading is not a competitive sport! We all read at our own pace. 🙂 Reading anything is good enough for me!
Ok, I love this. It suits my nerd self very much and now I want my own spreadsheet.
Also, I’ve only read female authors so far this month, and I’m on book #6 for January, and I feel like now I should pick a theme each month, but also that seems like so much work and I feel like I would get bored after a little bit. We’ll see what happens in February, I guess. 🙂
I love the idea of doing a monthly theme of what you read! That sounds like fun, actually. Maybe just do it until it stops being fun, or if you find yourself less inclined to read. 🙂 Hooray for reading all female authors in January. That’s awesome!