365 Books: First Month
Sep. 28th, 2010 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksOh, hey, I've been doing this for a month now, so I only have three hundred and thirty-five books left to read. I probably won't go into spasms of self-analysis about it every month, but I thought I'd take a look at some stats, and how doing this has changed my reading habits.
Several useless statistics:
Number of books read/reviewed so far: thirty-one in thirty days, due to my miscounting somewhere.
Books by women: sixteen; books by men: thirteen; plus one anthology edited by a woman and containing entirely male contributors and one anthology edited by two men and containing a split. This is a higher percentage of books by men than I usually read.
Books I know to be by people of color: five, plus portions of one anthology. About seventeen, eighteen percent. I should work on that.
Books published more than fifty years ago: nine. Books published this year: seven. Respectively less and more than I thought.
As to how this has changed my life: not much, really. I am reading in some ways faster than previously, but in some ways slower. I find myself reluctant to start a second new book in a day because it means I won't be able to review it except as a bonus review, whereas previously I went through spurts of reading like seven books in a day and then rereading for a while.
I am still not reading all of the books I bring home from the library, which rather surprises me, as I had thought, given that I am counting and bringing home the correct number of books each week, that I would probably wind up reading everything I get. No. I have always had the ability to bring something home and then, for reasons unknown to myself, turn up my nose.
I am reading I think about the same kinds of books I usually read, and I'm not planning ahead or anything like that. I pick up things people recommend or that I find interesting, as usual. Are there any genres I'm conspicuously missing? Could people please recommend me some science books? I have, however, finished a couple of books I might not otherwise have finished in one day, when it is late and I am tired; I would have gone back to them the next day, usually.
The number of books people have given me, offered to give me, etc. since I started doing this is now over thirty, which I am rather amazed by-- I mean, it's been a month, and I had not, actually, been expecting people to send me books at all, because why would one expect that sort of thing. And they've been well-chosen and well-thought-out and I feel really loved, and it has been very pleasant.
In conclusion: if I could catch up on the posting and keep up on the reading through the nasty week of a close relative's funeral, I can almost certainly finish this, and I'm enjoying it so far, and (mostly) happy about the quality of my writing. And I've read some very good books. One month down, eleven to go.
Several useless statistics:
Number of books read/reviewed so far: thirty-one in thirty days, due to my miscounting somewhere.
Books by women: sixteen; books by men: thirteen; plus one anthology edited by a woman and containing entirely male contributors and one anthology edited by two men and containing a split. This is a higher percentage of books by men than I usually read.
Books I know to be by people of color: five, plus portions of one anthology. About seventeen, eighteen percent. I should work on that.
Books published more than fifty years ago: nine. Books published this year: seven. Respectively less and more than I thought.
As to how this has changed my life: not much, really. I am reading in some ways faster than previously, but in some ways slower. I find myself reluctant to start a second new book in a day because it means I won't be able to review it except as a bonus review, whereas previously I went through spurts of reading like seven books in a day and then rereading for a while.
I am still not reading all of the books I bring home from the library, which rather surprises me, as I had thought, given that I am counting and bringing home the correct number of books each week, that I would probably wind up reading everything I get. No. I have always had the ability to bring something home and then, for reasons unknown to myself, turn up my nose.
I am reading I think about the same kinds of books I usually read, and I'm not planning ahead or anything like that. I pick up things people recommend or that I find interesting, as usual. Are there any genres I'm conspicuously missing? Could people please recommend me some science books? I have, however, finished a couple of books I might not otherwise have finished in one day, when it is late and I am tired; I would have gone back to them the next day, usually.
The number of books people have given me, offered to give me, etc. since I started doing this is now over thirty, which I am rather amazed by-- I mean, it's been a month, and I had not, actually, been expecting people to send me books at all, because why would one expect that sort of thing. And they've been well-chosen and well-thought-out and I feel really loved, and it has been very pleasant.
In conclusion: if I could catch up on the posting and keep up on the reading through the nasty week of a close relative's funeral, I can almost certainly finish this, and I'm enjoying it so far, and (mostly) happy about the quality of my writing. And I've read some very good books. One month down, eleven to go.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-30 11:03 am (UTC)