Reading by the Numbers

Long before I was a book blogger - or knew what that was - a couple friends and I kept track of the books we read. On facebook, of all places. It was a hotly contested battle, and I reigned as Queen every year (no really, I kicked major reading butt, mwuhaha). As I started blogging, I shifted my record keeping to here and eventually began to integrate Goodreads more. Their challenge widget is so nifty!

The other day I started thinking: I know what my recent reading has been like, I can look at the stats on Goodreads, but what was I reading in college? In grad school? Back when this all started ... I dug up the old facebook notes, and found out!

• 2007: 77 books, 24084 pages
• 2008: 58 Books, 18124 pages
• 2009: 64 books, 21333 pages
• 2010: 76 Books, 25128 pages
• 2011: 78 Books, 23679 pages

Not too shabby, especially considering the end of college and all of grad school are covered in those years. Apparently 2012 was the magic year to shift everything over to Goodreads, so the most recent numbers are:

• 2012: 83 Books, 24723 pages
• 2013: 83 Books, 25899 pages

Again, I don't feel that's too shabby. Even if I did have to step down as reigning champ in 2013. I bow to Steven's vacuum reading, and the resulting amazing numbers (151 books, 49137 pages!). Honestly, when I think about all the Crazy Big Things that happened in 2013, I'm a little surprised I managed to read as much as I did, let alone beat my personal page number record. I'm shooting for 100 again this year (I like the maths), but I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't make it. The numbers show I've never made it to 100 ... but as fun as the numbers are (Mum says I really should have majored in math), that's not what reading is about.

Reading is for fun. Sometimes an escape - a realization that came startlingly clear to me last week while I took a hiatus from fiction. I've got to find the balance between reading because it's what I love and is a great way to spend lunch hours and/or wind down from the day, and turning to a book when I don't want to deal with whatever is going on in life. I've taken back reading for pleasure - there won't be nearly as many "for review" titles, as we've discussed already, and I'm going to spend 2014 reading What I Want To Read. (I have a sneaking suspicion this might raise my final counts).

I plan to continue my experiments with audiobooks this year ... I do love my music in the car, but it's fun to work in an "extra" story too. And I desperately need to catch up on eBooks ... my poor Kindle is loaded with books I've stashed away in a virtual no-man's land, and I must be more diligent about reading these treasures. I should probably also try to resist the impulse to check out every awesome looking book that comes across the Library desk and read my own ... Since I brought home an entire trilogy last Friday, as soon as they transitioned from "in cataloging" to "checked in," I'm failing on that point already. Ah well, it's early yet.

Looking back at the titles and authors I've read - remembering some books and drawing a blank on others - I'm very interested in seeing how 2014 will develop as a year of reading ...