Happy New Year, everyone!
We are just not going to talk about the fact that I did not post a single time in December, because TODAY is a new day, right??
Of course, I’m going to post later this week about my favorite books from 2012, but I have to acknowledge that I managed to beat my goal for books read in 2012. I’d originally hoped to read 52 – one a week, on average – but by midnight last night, I’d completed 57! Considering my busy year, I’m immensely proud of that number.
A few more fun facts about my reading year:
- First book: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (completed Jan. 4, 2012)
- Last book: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed (completed Dec. 31, 2012)
- Longest book: 11/22/63 by Stephen King, at 849 pages (started Jan. 15, 2012; completed Jan. 21, 2012)
- Shortest book: The Lifespan of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal, at 129 pages (completed March 29, 2012)
- Total number of pages: 19,602
- Oldest book: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, published in 1953
These stats are pretty cool, but they’re also going to influence the reading resolutions I’m making for 2013.
- Read over 20,000 pages. I got close this year, but to me, page count is almost more important than book count.
- Read at least 65 books. That being said, I still want to read more books too.
- Read older books. The fact that the oldest book I read in 2012 is 60 years old is tragic, especially since I’m gradually trying to read more classics.
- Read more books that challenge me. As much as I loved so many of the books I read this year, there were few that pushed my reading limits. All but ten of the books I read in 2012 I rated either 4 or 5 stars on Goodreads. And only one I gave one star - Watergate by Thomas Mallon. To me, this means I’m just not pushing myself beyond my comfort zone.
- Finish more books. I didn’t keep track of the number of books I DNF’d this year, but I know it was more than a few. So along the same lines as the previous resolution, I’m going to finish as many book as I can. Not to say I won’t DNF at all, but I want to do it far, far less often.
So with all of that in mind, I’m going to go back to a book that I put down in Puerto Rico, hoping I’d come back to it eventually. My first book of 2013: Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin. All 748 pages of it.
Share and Enjoy
Happy New Year!
I count pages, too, and I read substantially less this year than in 2011. I’m hoping to fix that in 2013… We’ll see, I guess!
Happy New Year! Those are wonderful stats, and I wish you luck in your reading endeavors this year.
Happy New Year! Great stats – I like tracking longest/shortest read and oldest, too. Looking forward to your thoughts on Wild!
Hey just discovered your blog through a comment you made at New Dork Review of Books. Anyway, your reading stats look fun, hope you don’t mind, I plugged my stats into your format:
First book: One for the Money by Janet Evanovich (completed 2012-01-01)
Last book: Seen Reading by Julie Wilson (completed 2012-12-31)
Longest book: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (started 2012-09-04; completed 2012-09-18)
Shortest book: Baby Not on Board: A Celebration of Life Without Kids by Jennifer L. Shawne (completed 2012-12-12)
Total number of pages: 37,741
Oldest book: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, published in 1847
Also just wondering, I like to go back and read older posts of blogs I discover, especially since it seems you like to read a lot of the same books as I do, but is there any way to use Google Reader to read your blog? I can’t seem to find anything. And do you have any “next post, previous post” buttons on each individual post pages? Or do you have to click on each post to read the comments and click back to get to the main page? Sorry to be so bothersome.
Hi Joanne! Thanks for stopping by. Up on the sidebar, under the Connect With Me header, the top middle button is for RSS feeds.
And I’d never noticed that the next post, previous post feature was missing!! I did the redesign myself, and am still figuring my way through. Thanks for pointing it out and I will try to rectify ASAP!
So I tried the RSS button (still kinda new to this whole blog thing) and I think it might have some sort of problem because it takes me to a page that’s titled: “This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.” and then has a bunch of coding language.
If you’re using Chrome, you’ll need to install an RSS plugin in order to see the feed properly. You might try it on Firefox or another web browser. Or go to the Chrome Web store to install a Feed Reader. Hope that helps, and thanks again for the feedback!
Just to clarify, the extension you need for Chrome is the RSS Subscription Extension (by Google).
You can also subscribe to almost any blog from within Google Reader by clicking the red “Subscribe” button in the top left corner of the left-hand navigation, and then entering the URL of the blog you want to subscribe to!
Great wrapup and congrats on an impressive year of reading!!
I usually count how much I have read by completed books, not number of pages. However, last week I didn’t have access to the internet so was reading more than usual. I read just over 600 pages, which, if I continued for a year, equates to over 30,000 pages.
I am now back online and my pages read per day has dropped dramatically. I don’t feel too badly towards the internet though, as it is through blogs that I often come across new authors or reviews of classics which make me think, ‘yes, I must read that!’.