Last year, I decided to use Goodreads to track my year in reading. I logged books as I acquired them, tagged them as currently reading, to read, or read, and mostly remembered to mark them as read when I was done in a timely fashion.
The stats: I read 106 books, have 5 I’m currently reading, and 10 to read. Some of those aren’t finished yet because they’ve been in boxes for most of 2010. (I failed to log 2 of the books I read, both nonfiction, and I need to look up their exact titles in order to enter them.)
Books read: this was a pretty typical year for me in terms of what I read. Science fiction, fantasy, romance, urban fantasy, nonfiction, poetry, comics, mystery, thrillers, classics, YA. And one or two literary novels.
Some of those 100 plus books were borrowed from the library or gifts, but most were purchased, which is why we’re more and more buying just ebooks. See the boxes issue above; when you buy that many books a year and everybody else in the family is equally book-crazy, you either live with rooms made small by all the wall to wall bookcases or you start finding space-saving alternatives.
2010 was really the year we vowed as a family to start going electronic on media before it buried us.
On the plus side, young readers are adaptable; once the 5 year old figured out any new Berenstein Bears or Ivy and Bean books could be had just by hitting a button on the iPad, she’s been in book heaven. (No, we don’t let her hit the button. She’d buy 500 books in ten minutes.)
If you want to track your reading for 2011, Goodreads is a user-friendly way to do it. I will continue to use it this year.
I love Goodreads. It’s interesting to look back as see what the trends in your reading habits are. About this time last year, I looked at my reading list and noticed there was very little capital-L Literature on it. One of my goals for this year was to read some more challenging books, putting time aside to read Moby Dick, Mark Twain, and some modern poets.
My favorite part of Moby Dick, honestly, were his letters to Nathanial Hawthorne about writing the book. Although “Call me Ishmael” really does ring. There was a special edition a few years ago that contained all the letters and it’s worth chasing down.
I’ve been reading Shakespeare again (which I also failed to log in Goodreads) and really enjoying it. His works are in public domain, so easy to nab on the reading device of your choice.