Friday, January 2, 2009

2008 in Review: Books (Fun Stats!)

I read 125 books this year, not including picture books. For a complete list of books read, go here. This post is all about stats, since I do love stats so.

First I’ll break down my reading by genre -

YA/Middle Grade: 65
Literary Fiction: 23
Sci-fi/Fantasy: 21
(Subcategory dystopias: 12)
Historical Fiction: 12
Mysteries/Thrillers: 10
Chick-Lit: 6
Non-fiction: 5
Humor: 1

Secondly by gender of author -

78 by women
36 by men
1 by both

And then by how I acquired the book -

ARC/Review Copy: 72
Bought/Own: 31
Borrowed/Library: 17
Won in contest: 6

Since I don’t give books a grade on my blog, I don’t have any stats on star ratings, but I can say that the vast majority of the books I read this year were at least 3 star good.

Top 8 books released in 08 were:The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
No One You Know by Michelle Richmond
The Likeness by Tana French
The Big Splash by Jack Ferraiolo
Everything Beautiful in the World by Lisa Levchuk
Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty by Jody Gehrman
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E.Lockhart
Tomato Girl Jayne Pupek

Top backlist reads were:Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Favorite 2008 Picture Books:Vunce upon a Time by J.Otto Seibold and Siobhan Vivian
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis
Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Jen Corace
Never Take a Shark to the Dentist by Judi Barrett and John Nickle
Bats at the Library by Brian Lies

And now for some fun stats:

LibraryThing ER copies snagged: 9
Blog contests won: 31 (although in two cases, I never received the prize)
Online Book Clubs participated in: 5
Books signed by author received/bought: 36
Total books received for review (not including contests): 190
Books carried back in my suitcase after Christmas: 58 (UPDATE: it appears I miscounted - the total is actually 63 + 1 audio book)
Challenges started: 4
Challenges completed: 3

16 comments:

Beth Kephart said...

Wow. I just read your list. Then I imagined carrying 38 books in my suitcase.

Then I had to sit down.

Whew!

Lenore Appelhans said...

Well, the 58 were divided between 3 checked bags and one carry on. But yeah, still quite a lot!

Alea said...

I love stats! Hope you are still going to post a picture of all the books from your suitcases!

Unknown said...

What a great list -I love love love the way you broke it down into stats.

Carrie said...

Thanks for visiting my blog and letting me come visit you! I'm floored by your organization skills! =D Congrats on your list of books and yay for a new year in which you can outdo yourself. ;)

Emily said...

You got 190 boks for review. Oh my goodness. You are my hero

Lenore Appelhans said...

Alea - Well, they are out of the suitcases now (Daniel made me put them away already - neat freak!). Shall I put them all in a big ole pile?

Taren - I love stats! I've already found some more great categories I should keep track of for this year on others blogs.

Carrie - Thanks for coming by :)

Emily - I'm sure there are a lot of blogs out there that got even more than that. I was actually pretty choosy, if you can believe it!

Alea said...

You should you should you should!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amee said...

Wow, that's awesome! I love the stats at the end. :)

bermudaonion said...

What a great year in reading.

Korianne said...

I agree with Alea. Huge pile please! I have been wanting to do that soon too. I am reorganizing my library so I figure now is the time for it, but I haven't had the space to spread all of them out. I can't wait to see your pile!

Literary Feline said...

Bookish stats are fun! :-) It looks like you had a great reading year, Lenore.

You've got some categories I never thought of! I may have to borrow some of those for next year.

Joanne ♦ The Book Zombie said...

These stats are cool, I especially like the genre category - which I am going to keep track of this year too.

So impressed with your gender stats too - I find it so hard to keep my M/F ratio equal - Keeping my eyes open for some new-to-me female authors this year.

Sandra said...

My, you're well organized!

Ladytink_534 said...

Sounds like you had a good year too! Hope 2009 is even better!

A Writer's Pen said...

Wow, I am in awe of your stats. I could never be so organized. Happy New Year!