I had intended to post a review today. I really did. Unfortunately (or unfortunately), I finished listening to The Man with the Golden Gun on my commute home last night. Innocently – I swear – I opened my 2012 Reading Graph developed by the generous and talented Nikki from Fyrefly’s Book Blog. This is the first year I’ve used her graph because I’ve been so intimidated by its functionality and power. This year I decided to do away with the fear and dive in. I’ve loved using it. When I opened the spreadsheet and entered the 4+ hours I logged in audiobook reading with this latest Ian Fleming novel, I looked up at the top at the stats. From that moment on, the reality of review writing faded away.
I thought it might be fun to share a couple of screen shots highlighting where I am in my 2012 reading to date.
As you can see, I set myself a goal of reading 100 books this year. I’ve never done that before. In fact, at 76 books read as of today, I’m near my typical amount of books read since 2008 per year. I’m very pleased. If I actually do read 118 books this year, I’ll be toasting to a magnificent reading year come 12/31.
Here you see my male vs female author and print vs audiobook numbers. They both are pretty close to being equal with female authors and print with a slight advantage. This has pretty much held true since February or March, when there was enough data to make the measurements meaningful. I will really be curious to track this over the course of several years.
Do you have any way of tracking your reading statistics? If so, what kind of information do you like to keep track of over time? Has reviewing your reading statistics ever prompted you to make any changes?
Have a great Wednesday everyone! I’ll be back tomorrow with my review of Faithful Place by Tana French. I promise. I’ve closed down my spreadsheet for now and I won’t finish Illumination by Mary Sharratt until Friday.
That settles it – I’m going to have to use this next year.
You will be happy you did, Kathy.
I have a couple of different spreadsheets I use and they are an integral part of my reading and blogging experience. I keep track of books per month, page numbers, new to me authors, M/F (where I have a decided lean towards female authors), Australian authors, reading challenges I am participating in and so much more!
I have never been particularly good at reading challenges. Maybe spreadsheeting that will make a difference. I’ll have to give that a try next year.
The main way I use it is to keep a list of which books I have read for the challenge. Then once I have met the requirements they are filtered out so that I can still see at a glance what I still need to read for. Doesn’t necessarily mean that I finish them though! lol
I start out each year using this spreadsheet & then things taper off. I need to make it more of a priority!
It needs to be somewhere front and center. It’s one of the only things on my desktop, so I see the icon every time I log in. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have kept up myself.
That’s a very ambitious tracking process! I don’t break mine down that specific, but I do use the Goodreads system to see books per year and pages, things like fiction vs. non-fiction…
The only reason why my tracking is so ambitious is because I didn’t develop it. LOL! I’m not on GR that much, but I am usually on LT every day. They must have some way to track, but I’ve never really looked.
Oh, hooray, I’m so glad you’re using (and liking!) the spreadsheet!
Has reviewing your reading statistics ever prompted you to make any changes?
Not exactly, but I do try to keep the “read from my own TBR pile” bar on the graph at 50% at above, and it makes me guilty when it’s not (like now).
We’ll need to talk about the “read from my own TBR pile” bar. I think I’ve missed it somehow. I wonder if it is hidden because I am using a netbook and Open Office. Hmmm… I definitely would like to track that.
I’m jealous of your organization! LOL!
I just have a word document where I list the books I read and the date finished. Really simplistic, but I’ve done it for 3 years so it’s working well for me! (I’m at 78 for the year – and I don’t think I’ll hit my goal of 140. Perhaps too ambitious…)
-Jac @ For Love and Books
I think whatever you use for your tracking – so long as you love it – is just perfect. Have you ever read 140 books before? If I’ve ever read more than 100, it was when I was before I started working in high school. I’m pretty happy with my progress. Having an 18 book lead right now makes me happy.
Girl, you should have been an accountant, if you are having this much fun with the spreadsheet! I actually am an accountant by trade and track NOTHING. I shunned spreadsheets when I quit work. I am such a rebel…a spreadsheet rebel! Anyway, I do have a loose way of keeping track of audios and books read in a year, but I find that if I fixate on it too much, then I feel pressure. I usually get to a 100 books in a year, but I’m not totally sure if that will happen in 2012.
Ha! If I’m meant to be an accountant, it would be a gift given to me late in life. Keep in mind that I did not develop the spreadsheet. Adding calculations gives me headaches at work. LOL!
I’m not sure if the spreadsheet pressures me or not. This year I’m getting more and more behind in my reviews because all I want to do is read. But the compulsion to read isn’t to fill out the spreadsheet. I just want to devour everything in sight. At some point I’m going to have to buckle down and just write the reviews.
That is an impressive spread sheet!!
I only use goodreads for tracking my reading and audio progress. I don’t track pages. My goal for this year is 50 books….believe it or not, that is a big increase for me, and the audio books are helping my #s. I like spreadsheets, I’d be all over that and my stats, I’d better not try it.
I do a monthly wrap-up, with stats only on number of books and pages read /day, and hours listened to/day. see for July, for instance:
http://wordsandpeace.com/2012/08/01/july-wrap-up/
But I do something much more extensive with several categories once a year, see for instance here my 2011 recap:
http://wordsandpeace.com/2011/12/30/year-of-reading-2011/
you can see all my categories after the list of favorites.
I will add more charts next December for my 2012 recap.
I love my yearly recap, but dreaded it, so this year, I’m entering my titles as I read them in a google chart, by category, to make it easier at the end of the year. see here, it’s public:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqZIzZFqfnNxdHlYSHNPOS03NFRvWE1tTEhjS1cxLWc
I do the same for all my numerous reading challenges:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqZIzZFqfnNxdDU2cDE3SHRydmtlY1E4UElzend4MFE
I hope this will give you some ideas.
I love this chart! I am using it too and I am so far behind on it… I think I stopped in ummm….. April. Yeah. I have a lot of catching up to do
I maintained a spreadsheet of audiobooks (2007-2012); but I decided to divorce myself from lists of all kinds! I stopped somewhere in April of this year. The decision wasn’t based on the value of spreadsheets; but rather on my mental health: I get very compulsive about numbers and formulae and organizing data. I needed to step away. It’s a weird little world inside my head and I needed to step away from list-mania!
I keep books on Goodreads, but stopped myself from focusing on the number of books read per year., because I found I was reading too fast & not even remembering the books after I had read them. I also track the countries I read books from on Google Maps, and have a spreadsheet for challenges.