I’m not usually one for New Year’s resolutions, but one thing I can absolutely assure you is that in 2018 I will make sure that on many more days I will disappear for a couple of hours to read a book under a tree.
I say that not only because it’s a great way to spend time, but also due to the fact that in 2017 my reading output was rather atrocious. The data does not lie:
In summary, the fewest pages I’ve read in the 10 years I’ve been keeping track. Also by far the fewest books read and the highest number of average days it took me to read each book.
On the bright side, my average pages per book was the second highest I’ve recorded, which in part explains why it took me so long to read each one. The other major factor there is that my goal for this year was to plow through as many of the unread books on my bookshelf as I could without buying new ones. Those long-ignored books included some lengthy ones, and one that was very academic in nature and thus not exactly a quick read.
Here’s the full list with links to their respective posts:
–Hidden Figures by Margaret Lee Shetterly
–Memoirs of a Gas Station by Sam Neumann
–Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
–This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
-The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
–The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck
–Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
–One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
–Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
–Bowling Alone by some guy
–Basketball (And Other Things) by Shea Serrano
I did not notice until I went looking for those links that I never wrote anything about The Namesake. Whoops. I loved that one. Add another pledge for 2018: Write about a book within a week of finishing it so I both remember to do it and remember enough about the story to know why some piece of it connected with me.
If you read five of them: The Namesake, Thunderstruck, Hidden Figures, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Basketball (And Other Things).
Oddly enough given that short list, I think The Wayward Bus was in the top three of books I really had a great time reading this year. It was the right story at the right time by one of my favorite authors.
If I could go back in time, I would have skipped Memoirs of a Gas Station and perhaps either This Side of Paradise or Bonfire of the Vanities. Those were three I really feel like I made myself get through, but I was never really excited to jump back into them in the way I was with something like Thunderstruck.
Basketball (And Other Things) was both the shortest (231 pages) and the fastest read (17 days). Bonfire of the Vanities was the longest (690 pages) and the slowest (62 days). Those may seem like obvious connections, but it actually rarely works out that way.
I read the first two books on my Nook and the rest in actual book form. This year I also got a library card for the first time in forever, and both The Namesake and 100 Years of Solitude were library books. I anticipate spending a lot more time at the library in 2018 both to check out books and as a place to write.
And unlike how I’ve felt about a lot of the 2017 reading year, I’m rather excited about what I have on deck already for next year. One major part will be re-reading the Red Rising series, while this time adding in the prequel comic book set that came out during 2017 and the fourth book that comes out in January.
As always, please send me a recommendation if you read something awesome.
Happy reading.