Tuesday, December 29, 2015

A few numbers about books (read in 2015)

Yes, I know it’s been a long time since I wrote here; and yes, I have notes about various topics to post about in the future, with topics ranging from Star Wars: The Force Awakens to ... well, I can't find my other notes, so I'll just assume it's all Star Wars, all the way down.

But I had a few moments in a coffee shop the other day, after I wrote a quick book review on Goodreads, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun to do some small-scale data-mining of my reading trends for 2015, vis-a-vis 2014?”

To which the only reasonable answer is, “Yes.”
Year / Category 2015 2014
Total 58 54
Comic Books 32 14
Audio Books 7 18
Library Books 13 7
My Books 7 15
First impressions:

  • the totals are pretty close;
  • the numbers for library books vs. my own books are swapped, which makes some sense: 
    • in 2014, I was mostly in San Angelo, but already planning to head to Austin (prepping for code bootcamp started halfway through 2014), so I tried to read down my collection; 
    • in 2015, I was in Austin, 
      • (a) exploring the new library, 
      • (b) getting new books that I wouldn't have owned before (business, self-help), and 
      • (c) not carrying around all the books in my collection that I culled that past year;
  • the largest negative shift is in audio books:
    • there are so many podcasts to listen to in 2015, from new shows like Serial and old favorites like Planet Money;
    • I also am not spending as much time walking the dog or washing dishes, perfect listening activities;
  • the largest positive shift is towards comic books:
    • and 19 of those were Dungeons & Dragons books that I bought in a Humble Bundle and made a point of reading because I had bought several such bundles (mostly roleplaying books in Bundles of Holding) and not read them;
    • many of the others are first volumes that I read to see if I liked those series:
      • I mostly did not.
      • Except for Ms. Marvel, which really is amazing.

Here's to reading more in 2016!