I was feeling a little disappointed with my reading year until I looked back at the stats.
Years ago I set a goal of reading 20 books, which I accomplished a few times, and since then I’ve settled into not worrying so much about that number and on doing other things instead. Last year, that was taking care of as many of the unread books on my shelf as possible. This year I started adding books in Spanish to my routine.
And when I looked at the overall statistics I realized I actually did pretty much the same as last year, and arguably a bit better:
Same number of books and average days per book, and I read sliiiightly more pages. I’ll take it. Also I’d like to note the oddity that the books that took me the longest to read in 2017 and 2018 I finished on October 15 and October 16.
Here’s the list of what I read, along with their respective posts:
- Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
- My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You I’m Sorry by Fredrik Backman
- Red Rising by Pierce Brown
- Golden Son by Pierce Brown
- Morning Star by Pierce Brown
- Iron Gold by Pierce Brown
- In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck
- The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
- La Tregua by Mario Benedetti
- The Fighters by C.J. Chivers
- Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
You may notice there are no posts for the last three books, and that is because there are no posts for the last three books. I got in a very bad habit this year of finishing a book and setting it aside for months with every intention of writing about it, only to wait until I had two or three sitting there to actually do it. The result was feeling like I was doing it just to do it, while not properly remembering the feel of the book or what I might want to write about it.
So rather than phone it in for the last three to check off a box, I decided just no to do it. I’ll give a quick note about each of them, and we’ll all move on and do better in 2019!
La Tregua: This is the first book I’ve ever read in another language. It was a really interesting experience to figure out how to do that without feeling like I was stopping to translate every word along the way. I’m happy to report I got a lot better as things went along, and I’m currently reading Spanish book number two!
The Fighters: By far one of the most interesting reads of the year. It tells the stories of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at a more granular level than we’re used to seeing, relying on the experiences not of top commanders, but the lower-level people. I’ve long had great admiration for Chivers’ work and the way he’s able to use his own past military experience to better explain our current conflicts. You can get a taste of this book in a piece that was adapted for the New York Times Magazine.
Uncommon Type: My expectations were about a five on a scale of 10, but I like Tom Hanks and I’m working on my own short story collection so I figured why not give it a shot? And I’m glad I did! These stories are downright charming and with the craziness that is our world it truly was a perfect escape read.
Okay with that taken care of, here are the ones I would pick if you were to read three of them: The Fighters, The New York Trilogy, Uncommon Type.
Put me in a time machine and let me skip one? Probably In Dubious Battle. I love Steinbeck and I generally enjoyed this book, but it was definitely not my favorite from him or this year.
I very much enjoy the Red Rising series and made the decision to re-read the first three books to prepare for the new, fourth book that came out this year (Iron Gold). Obviously that limited the new stuff I read this year and probably cost me a couple in the overall book count since they’re long, but I have no regrets there.
Last year, the shortest book took me the least time. This year, the shortest one was La Tregua (202 pages) and it took the longest time (68 days). We have official confirmation I read way slower in Spanish. Iron Gold (624) was the longest book this year and took me 56 days to read. And for the first time since I got a Nook in 2012, I read exactly zero books on it. I know I have at least one there waiting for me and I hereby promise to get to whatever it is in 2019.
I don’t have an extensive list of things I’m dying to read next year, and I’m feeling very good about that. I want to go with the flow and see what I find when I’m ready to read something new. And I’m going to continue reading books in Spanish, even if I don’t totally understand what’s happening all the time. I’m thinking two English ones, then a Spanish one, and since setting goals is always nice, maybe I can do 12 books even with some that will go pretty slowly?