It is that time of year…time to review the previous year; make top 10 lists; and resolve to be a better person in 2015. I will tackle the first, but only of my reading habits. In 2014 I read 46 books for a grand total of 17,480 pages. (Note: I do not count academic books for work in this list, only books I read for recreation.) This is a yearly high, at least since I have been tracking this data on GoodReads (since late 2010). You can read an older annual report of reading here.
| 2011 | 45 | 15,332 |
| 2012 | 29 | 9,203 |
| 2013 | 45 | 15,887 |
| 2014 | 46 | 17,480 |
When am I reading?
The trend displayed here was somewhat surprising when I looked at it—at least related to the decline in reading over the summer months. Although, reflecting on it, it maybe should not have been as surprising. There is a slight uptick around the month of May (when spring semester ends) and the decline begins in June/July. Not only do summer classes begin, but I also try to do a few house and garden projects over the summer months. This uptick and decline are still visible when a plot of the number of pages (rather than the number of books) is examined, albeit much smaller (1,700 pages in May and 1,200 pages in the summer months). This might indicate I read longer books in the summer. For example, one of the books I read this last summer was Neal “I don’t know the meaning of the word ‘brevity’” Stephenson’s Reamde, which clocked in at a mere 1,044 pages.
Was I reading books that I ultimately enjoyed?
I also plotted my monthly average rating (on a five-point scale) for the four years of data. This plot shows that 2014 is an anomaly. I apparently read trash in the summer (which is what you are supposed to do). The previous three years I read the most un-noteworthy books in the fall. Or, I just rated them lower because school had started again.
Am I more critical than other readers? Is this consistent throughout the year?
I also looked at how other GoodReads readers had rated those same books. The months represent when I read the book. (I didn’t look at when the book was read by other readers, although that would be interesting to see if time of year has an effect on rating.) The scale on the y-axis is the residual between my rating and the average GoodReads rating. My ratings are generally close to the average, sometimes higher, sometimes lower. There are, however, many books that I rated much lower than average. The loess smooth suggests that July–November is when I am most critical relative to other readers.
