Book Stats for 2022

I'm at least initially going to try to follow the outline of last year's stats post. Who knows if I'll stick to it. I notice that for 2022, I'm compiling statistics well into the second month of the following year, whereas in 2021, I crunched numbers before the month of December had officially reached its end.

Totals

Last year, I typed out the total number of books I read each month, but how about I do graph instead this time? I realized I only had about three pie charts in last year's number post, and it would be nice to see this information visually, too. I'm even going to be able to compare it with 2021's counts.

I think the bar graph makes it look like I read many fewer books this year, but really, it was a total of 52 books, which is only 5 fewer than last year. It continues a downward trend from 2020, but if I remember correctly, I was crazy close to having read 100 books that year (thanks, pandemic). So perhaps I can cut myself some slack about the "downward trend".

Here are some other facts to consider:

Total number of books attempted, but put down that were noted: 5 (same as last year)

Percentage of books started and completed: 91% (same as the last two years)

Books being read, but not completed, at the end of 2022: I'm really not sure; probably at least 4

Percentage of books that were rereads: 15%, or 8 books total (compare with last year's 12 %, or 7 books)

And here's another pie chart...I think it makes more sense to look at it this way.

This is quite a difference from last year. The number of ebooks read on the Kindle decreased from 21% (12 books) in 2021 to a mere 6% (3 books) in 2022. The percentage of audiobooks increased heftily to 35% (18.5 books), up from a lowly 2% (1 book) last year. The book that was half-physical and half-audiobook was Twain's "Joan of Arc" because I was getting tired of reading it in tiny snippets during lunch breaks and decided that a public domain audiobook was the best way to finish what I heard would be a pretty difficult ending. Audiobooks saved my totals count, by the way. I simply didn't have time to sit down and actually read because I was so busy in 2022.

My Reflections On the Data So Far

I probably put down more books prior to finishing than I noted. It's just a suspicion, but it is possible I recorded every instance of an unfinished book. With having what felt like less time, I thought I would have been choosier about my reads, but then again, maybe I just didn't have time to take a chance on that many books to begin with. I can think of several that I intend to pick up again at some point, but just don't know when that will happen ("Planet Narnia",  "The Betrothed", and a philosophical work I can't think of the title of just now late [for me] on a Thursday night).

The number of works I read in the spring seemed greatly reduced compared with last year, but the deficit didn't end up being so bad with a comparably strong summer and a decent finish. I wish I could say the works I read or listened to were more substantial in subject and quality of writing, but I can't say that's true. That's alright, though. I've been busy.

Only a slight increase in the number of rereads this year, but they were pretty great rereads: the Bible; "Searching For and Maintaining Peace"; "Taggerung"; "The Hobbit"; "The Great Divorce"; the two "Princess and the Goblin" books by George MacDonald were all excellent and all most welcome reads. The only reread attempt that failed was "Triss" because I was irritated by the strong accent given to a major character.

Genre Data

I decided to not reinvent the wheel (accidental pun there) and kept my pie charts pretty similar to last year. Copy and paste in Microsoft Excel is a beautiful thing! Here is the breakdown of all the "books" (one was a manual) I read (or listened to) in 2022.

Compared with 2021, my fiction intake decreased 1% and my spiritual reading increased 7%. I'm pretty sure that Jessica from 2021 would be pleased with the increased amount of spiritual reading. However, I will say that many of the spiritual works were not what I'd call "theology" or "spiritual classics". More will come on those books later in the post. My reading of other genres all decreased 1-6%, depending on the genre. I'm not necessarily upset about this, but I would like to see a little more variety, especially considering that fiction still takes up just over half of my book-reading intake. In the next year, I hope to continue to read a good number of spiritual works, but it would be nice to know I'm expanding my tastes, learning things, and considering "big ideas" or more academic works. I like learning and it's good to push myself to do that a bit.

Spiritual Reading

This is the breakdown of the spiritual works I read. In this case, spiritual means "just about anything Catholic". I didn't include the biographies, all of which were about Catholics. I decided to have no overlap amongst genre titles this year.

The sub-genres within this genre changed somewhat from last year. I split apologetics from Catholic living, and combined the latter with "marriage" books because they seemed to go together well. I still have apologetics prayer, as previously, but I changed the blue subgenre from "Jesus, Mary, Saints, Witnesses" to "Bible, God, Mary, Witnesses". It feels a little bit like a catch-all category, but I think it goes together. It looks like I read fewer apologetics works - which I think is true - but that decrease is also exaggerated by separating it from Catholic living. I almost et the informal goal I set last year, of reading at least as many spiritual works this year as last year; I was two short this year, but I'm satisfied: I had a higher percentage of spiritual books read this year.

Fiction

How does one categorize an eclectic collection of fictitious works? I'm not entirely sure, but I did my best. I was pretty generous with the "classics" designation, but it allowed the "Other" catch-all category to diminish. Historical fiction was deemed to be any work that was written realistically about a past era. Some books that didn't seem to fit any category were a children's book about animals being scared by a scarecrow, an imaginative adventure involving Tolkien and company, a post-apocalyptic tale, an L.M. Montgomery tale, and a children's book set in the month leading up to Christmas. There was a lack of diversity in my other reading, but it was nice to see some variety in the fictional works.

It looks like fantasy fiction picks diminished, but I don't think it actually did - about four fantasy fiction works were subsumed into the "classics" category. It seems I managed to read more historical fiction this year. 

I'd like to read through one hefty work of fiction in this coming year - ideally, "The Betrothed". That may need to be my summer read!