Showing posts with label book stats. Show all posts

Saturday, December 31, 2022

Neyhart's Nerdy Reading Recap 2022: Book stats, Graphs, and Charts!

I like that Goodreads tells me I'm really good at reading, and probably a lot of other things too!

2022 was the 11th year I tracked every book I read! The first year I did this I set my reading goal at a modest (for me) 52 books for the year because one book a week sounded pretty manageable. And the reason I decided to start tracking my reading was to help motivate me to read more than I already did.

2014 was the first year I started using a spreadsheet to help me collect and analyze more data than Goodreads allows. In 2019, I discovered that bookriot.com had a spreadsheet template with some built-in charts and graphs, beyond what I was already tracking. So I have used it for the past three years while modifying it to my liking. Here is a link where you can get their 2023 reading log template.

Now on to the nerd stats:

Number of books read: 200
Number of pages read: 37,753
Average book length: 188 pages

Mode of reading:

Audiobook: 67 (33.5%)

Ebook: 104 (52%)

Print: 29 (14.5%)

(This breakdown is very similar to last year.)

Book Genres:

Similar to the past two years, I read more nonfiction than fiction (60/40 split), whereas in previous years this was more of a 50-50 split.

More specific genres and categories I tracked:

LGBTQ Studies: 15 books (some of these overlap with memoir/Bio and other genres)

Seminary: 75 books - 37.5% of the books I read were for my seminary studies

(these overlap with Bible & Theology, obviously)

Bible: 52

Theology: 39

Fantasy: 39

Science Fiction: 39 (interesting that my sci-fi/fantasy was split 50-50 this year!)

Almost 40% of the books I read were either Fantasy or Sci-Fi

Memoir/Bio: 12 (not as many as last year which was 19)

Children's: 9

General Nonfiction: 8

General Fiction: 2

Gender of Author:

Last year I was finally able to read slightly more women than men but this year it's back to 62% male, 36% female, and 2% non-binary. I'm going to have to try harder in 2023 to even this out!

Books Read Per Month 2022:

This chart looks about like I would expect it to with me reading the most books between May and August when I have more time to read for fun, along with December and January because I'm also on break from classes half of December and all of January (other than auditing a J-term, which I will also be reading for).

Read vs. Re-reads:

First-time read: 132 books (66%)

Re-read: 68 books (34%)

Here is an image of the 35 books I have labeled as my favorite books I read for the first time in 2022:

If you click this link it should take you to the list on Goodreads

screenshot of part of my spreadsheet

Feel free to tell me about your reading year in the comments or in an email back to me!

If you are interested in reading progressive-type theology books and discussing them with me and other people, click on over to this page where you can find out more about that and join the fun!

Link to my book reviews

Previous reading recaps and book lists:

Saturday, January 08, 2022

2021 Reading Recap: Book stats, Graphs, and Charts!

2021 marked the tenth year that I tracked every book I read. The first year I did this I set my reading goal at a modest (for me) 52 books for the year because one book a week sounded pretty manageable. And the reason I decided to start tracking my reading was to help motivate me to read more than I already did.

2014 was the first year I started using a spreadsheet to help me collect and analyze more data than Goodreads allows. (Yes, I am an Enneagram 3, why do you ask?) Then, in 2019, I discovered that bookriot.com had a spreadsheet template with some built-in charts and graphs, beyond what I was already tracking. So I used theirs in 2020 and 2021 while modifying it to my liking. Here is a link where you can get their 2022 reading log template.

Now on to the nerd stats:

Number of books read: 202

Number of pages read: 43,364

Mode of reading:

Audiobook (76), Ebook (104), Print (22)

- Interestingly (to me, anyway), my audiobook format switched places with ebooks this year, (as compared to the last two years), probably due to an increase in ebooks read for seminary in 2020.

2021:

Compared to 2020:

Book Genres:

As in 2020, I read more nonfiction than fiction, whereas in previous years this was more of a 50-50 split.

More specific genres and categories I tracked:

C. S. Lewis Studies: 8 (these overlap with various genres)

LGBTQ Studies: 22

Seminary: 56 (these overlap with Bible & Theology, obviously)

Theology: 71

Bible: 26

Memoir/Bio: 19

Fantasy: 52

Science Fiction: 17

General Fiction: 6

General Nonfiction: 11

Male/Female Authorship:

This might be the first time I've read slightly more women authors than men!

Books Read Per Month:

2021:

Read vs. Re-reads:

First time read: 172

Re-read: 30

(This seems back to my normal amount from last year where 46% of the books I read were re-reads.)

According to Audible, I listened for 19,114 minutes (318.5 hours) which is up from 279 hours in 2020. It means I averaged 52 minutes of listening per day. Of course, I wonder if that takes into account the times I'm listening at 1.5x speed or 2x speed. But it doesn't really matter. The top genres graphic confirms that I tend to listen to fantasy and sci-fi more on audio and other fiction. And if I'm listening to non-fiction it's probably a biography or memoir.

I posted about 10 of my favorite fiction reads in this post.

I intend to post about my favorite memoirs and other non-fiction in separate posts.

Feel free to tell me about your reading year in the comments or in an email back to me.

If you are interested in reading progressive type theology books and discussing them with me and other people, click on over to this page where you can find out more about that and join the fun!

And if you're not bored yet here are my previous reading recaps and book lists:

2020 Reading Recap and Book Stats

2019 Reading Recap and Book Stats

2018 Reading Recap and Book Stats
2017 Reading Recap and Book Stats
2016 Reading Recap and Book Stats
2015 Reading Recap

What I read in 2019 (203 books)

What I read in 2018 (130 books)
What I read in 2017 (83 books)
What I read in 2016 (142 books)
What I read in 2015 (120 books)
What I read in 2014 (111 books)

What I read in 2013 (100 books)
What I read in 2012 (56 books)

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

2020 Reading Recap (with charts and graphs for fun!)

2020 Reading Challenge Goal Met (150 books read!)

This was year number nine of religiously tracking all the books I read. The first year I did this I set my reading goal at a modest 52 books for the year because one book a week sounded pretty manageable. 2014 was the first year I started using a spreadsheet to help me collect and analyze more data than Goodreads allows. (Yes, I am an Enneagram 3, why do you ask?) Then, in 2019, I discovered that bookriot.com had a spreadsheet template with some built-in charts and graphs, beyond what I was already tracking. So I used theirs this year while modifying it to my liking. Here is a link where you can get their 2021 reading log template.

Now on to the nerd stats:

Number of books read: 150

Number of pages read: 26,475

This was not as many books as I read last year because I was ridiculous last year and read 203 books. I was originally going to try to read 200 books again this year but then, you know, 2020 happened and I hit a reading slump for a few months before I got my reading groove back. But before last year, my highest number of books read in one year was 142 books in 2016, so you know.

Mode of reading:

Audiobook (69), Ebook (43), Print (38)

- These percentages are very similar to last year.

Book Genres:

Fiction vs. Nonfiction is significantly different from my normal 50-50 split. This year it skewed heavily toward nonfiction, probably because of going back to seminary and not reading as much for fun during the first half of the year because of the aforementioned reading slump.

More specific genres and categories I tracked:

C. S. Lewis Studies: 10 (these overlap with various genres)

Seminary: 39 (these overlap with Bible & Theology, obviously)

Theology: 49

Bible: 43

Memoir/Biography: 10

Science Fiction: 27 (I read a lot more scifi than fantasy this year.)

Fantasy: 9

General Fiction: 2

General Nonfiction: 10

Male/Female Authorship:

This is much closer to the 50-50 ratio I would like it to be. But it continues to be something I have to be very aware of or it is easy to read way more men than women authors.

Books Read Per Month:

2020

You can see that reading slump I was talking about in February through July, bottoming out in April and June. And you can see where I started reading like crazy once my first semester back in seminary started. And here's last year's chart for comparison:

2019

Read vs. Re-reads:

First time read: 81

Re-read: 69

I re-read a lot more books this year than normal. Part of that was re-reading the entire Bible from cover to cover and part of it was revisiting some familiar sci-fi stories I enjoyed as comfort reading. I also re-read some other theology books to refresh my memory. What I wouldn't give for an eidetic memory... oh well, C. S. Lewis said "The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers ‘I’ve read it already’ to be a conclusive argument against reading a work. [...] Those who read great works, on the other hand, will read the same work ten, twenty or thirty times during the course of their life” (An Experiment in Criticism, 2). And C. S. Lewis re-read countless books over and over again throughout his life, so at least I am in good company. =)

These are my favorite books that I read in 2020 (and yes, some of them were re-reads, but we've been over that already. =) You can see the list of these 24 books pictured here on goodreads.

According to Audible, I listened to 119 titles for a total of 279 hours. That doesn't quite match up to how many books I logged as audiobooks but I think it must be counting titles I started but didn't finish or something. And I don't include those in my reading tracking.

Audible also shows my emphasis on nonfiction this year: 166 hours of nonfiction vs 112 hours of fiction.

Feel free to tell me about your reading year in the comments or in an email back to me.

If you are interested in reading progressive type theology books and discussing them with me and other people, click on over to this page where you can find out more about that and join the fun! We are planning on reading and discussing Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation towards the end of January.

And if you're not bored yet here are my previous reading recaps and book lists:

2019 Reading Recap and Book Stats

2018 Reading Recap and Book Stats
2017 Reading Recap and Book Stats
2016 Reading Recap and Book Stats
2015 Reading Recap

What I read in 2019 (203 books)

What I read in 2018 (130 books)
What I read in 2017 (83 books)
What I read in 2016 (142 books)
What I read in 2015 (120 books)
What I read in 2014 (111 books)

What I read in 2013 (100 books)
What I read in 2012 (56 books)

Monday, January 06, 2020

2019 Reading Recap (The one with the charts and graphs!)

I did it! I didn't think I was going to reach my goal, but I read like a maniac during the last few days of December in order to read 200 books in 2019! (I had a lot of time in the car to listen to audiobooks and a lot of other downtime when I was able to finish books in progress on kindle.

2012 was the first year I set a reading goal (52 books) and started keeping track of everything I read.

2014 was the first year I started using a spreadsheet to help me collect and analyze more data than Goodreads allows.

And then last year I discovered that bookriot.com had a spreadsheet with some built-in charts and graphs, beyond what I was already tracking. So I used theirs to jump off of this year, while still tweaking it a bit as I went along. Here is a link where you can get their 2020 reading log template if you so wish.

Now on to the nerd stats:

The above image is from the Goodreads infographic. Apparently, only 4 other people also read (and tracked on Goodreads) The Theology of Martin Luther by Hans-Martin Barth. Go figure? :-)

Number of books read: 203

Number of pages read: 43,268

Average Length: 213 pages

This was by far the most books I've ever read in a year. Previously, my highest number was 142 books read in 2016.

Mode of reading:

Audiobook (106), Ebook (57), Print (38)

- According to Audible, I listened to 371 hours of audiobooks in 2019 (Although that was before the last few days of December, so it was actually even more than that.).

Book Genres:

Fiction vs. Nonfiction is still very close to 50-50, like usual.

More specific genres I tracked:

C. S. Lewis Studies: 19

Seminary: 12

Theology: 58

Spiritual Memoir: 9

Science Fiction: 22

Fantasy: 59

General Fiction: 23

General Nonfiction: 18

Male/Female Authorship:

Female: 71

Male: 131

This continues to be difficult to balance. In 2018 I was able to get it to 55% men and 45% women, but in 2017 it was 80% men authors. This year it swung back a bit to 65% men authors and 35% women.

Books Read Per Month:

2019

It's interesting to compare my reading trends in 2018 vs. 2019. Both years spike up in December, but I read a lot more books in January of 2019 than January of 2018. I also bottomed out in April and October of this year.

2018

Read vs. Re-reads:

First time read: 174

Re-read: 27

Favorite first-time reads of 2019:

See this list on goodreads

These 36 books are a pretty good mix of theology, fantasy/science-fiction, including some graphic novels, which is a pretty accurate representation of my typical reading patterns.

2018 Reading Recap and Book Stats
2017 Reading Recap and Book Stats
2016 Reading Recap and Book Stats
2015 Reading Recap

What I read in 2018 (130 books)
What I read in 2017 (83 books)
What I read in 2016 (142 books)
What I read in 2015 (120 books)
What I read in 2014 (111 books)

What I read in 2013 (100 books)
What I read in 2012 (56 books)

Wednesday, January 02, 2019

2018 Reading Recap (Book stats, and graphs, and charts, oh my!)

Image of my book tracking spreadsheet from 2018

Goodreads Reading Challenge

Number of books read: 130

Number of pages read: 30,006

Average Length: 230 pages

(From my Goodreads year-end info-graphic)

I had a very good reading year. As far as the number of books read, it's my 2nd highest. Somehow I managed to read 142 in 2016.

My average rating is slightly higher than last year's 3.5. Here's the breakdown:

Mode of reading:

Audiobook (88), Ebook (24), Print (18)

- According to Audible, I listened to 337 hours of audiobooks in 2018.

Book Genres:

Fiction vs. Nonfiction is almost 50-50.

More specific genres I track:

C. S. Lewis Studies: 3

Inklings: 1

Seminary: 15

Theology: 15

Spiritual Memoir: 8

Science Fiction: 20

Fantasy: 34

Fiction: 14

Nonfiction: 20

(Goals for 2019 include reading a lot more in my C. S. Lewis Studies category. I plan to re-read Till We Have Faces and the Space Trilogy, and probably The Chronicles of Narnia. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, I hope.)

For this chart I grouped Seminary, Theology, and Spiritual Memoir together as "Theology", and I put the Inklings in with C. S. Lewis.

Male/Female Authorship:

Female: 58 (compared to last year's 17)

Male: 72 (compared to last year's 67)

I'm really glad I evened this percentage out this year. Last year 80% of the books I read were written by men. This year it was 55% men and 45% women.