An end-of-year post from Brandy at Random Musings of a Bibliophile reminds me that I need to look back over the year’s reading, too. I’ll be curious to see how many books I actually read this year. I know it’s way under the number I’d have read if I hadn’t been pouring so much of my time into writing.
By this time of year I have no real idea what books I read back in January and February. And March and April, honestly, who can keep track? That’s why I write them down.
I’m curious, do any of you also keep track of what you read over the course of the year? I’ve only been doing that for a few years, but it really is interesting to look back and just see what I read and in what genres and how the list compares to previous years.
Update: here’s a “readers’s choice” for best books of 2015 from tor.com. Of the entire list, I have Sorcerer to the Crown already on my TBR pile; other than that, I think the ones I’m most interested in myself are Karen Memory. I recently read a review of Red Rising that makes me want to try that one, too, and then Golden Son is the sequel.
The one I’m least interested in off the tor.com list is obviously Half the World by Joe Abercrombe. After four of his books, I’m quite sure that I’m not the intended reader for his work.
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Yep, I have a notebook record I’ve kept since 2003. Every book gets one line with title, author, and date read. I do include re-reads in my counts.
I started keeping track of my reading in 2007 in an effort to encourage me to read more novels. I find I experience very peculiar time dilation with regard to my memories of reading. Something I read 3 books ago feels like it was years ago, even if it was just last week.
I triple, possibly quadruple, my consumption by keeping the list, though, so I feel at this point it’s mandatory for me to do so if I want to get anything read ever.
Maureen, of course you do. I mean, aren’t you the one who has this detailed TBR spreadsheet indexed by who recommended what? I am in awe of how organized you are. My books-read-so-far list every year is a piece of paper with a bunch of handwritten scribbles on it.
Macsbrains, that’s really interesting. I never thought of a books-read list as a kind of motivator. Don’t you have a huge TBR pile? No wonder you use any trick you can to whittle down that pile…
Heh. Yes, although the notebook predates the spreadsheet (and the spreadsheet desperately needs to be updated). It’s the only way for me to track things!
I kept track of all my reading in my blog for a few years, but then it started getting annoying when I got a kindle (and I’ve usually got a couple of “not-really-a-book” books on the go at my bedside, like collections of schoolchild bloopers or whatever, and remembering to add those in… ech.)
I used to read about 300-350 books a year, about a third of that re-reads. I suspect it’s rather less now that I read blogs and twitter while half-watching TV, instead of a book.
Jen, I had to almost entirely stop watching tv in order to have time to read! Maybe someday I will get a bunch of great shows on DVD and immerse myself, but I don’t know. But I definitely do put some of my reading time into blogs now, so I bet that does cut down on the number of novels I get through per year.
I try to remember to add kindle-books-read to my scribbled list of titles, but I’m sure I do forget a few. But as I read them I move them into folders, so that probably helps keep track.
I only just started keeping track of what I read via librarything, in large part motivated by you and your commenters (and probably around the time you posted about TBR lists). I’m looking forward to sorting that data :)
I started a few years ago tagging books on Goodreads by year, and whether the books were review copies, library books, or owned. But I am always fairly convinced that I’ve read more than I say I have, because marking books read on Goodreads immediately requires being a different sort of person than I happen to be….