Ever since I first started to keep track of the books I read with the help of an Excel spreadsheet last year, I’ve been putting together these wrap up graphics every four months. It seems like only last month I wrote my last The Numbers post… But the calendar doesn’t lie: it’s September already which means it’s time for another round of bookish graphics.
First of all some quick facts. In the second round of four months of 2017 I have read no less than 79 books with a total page count of 26.002 pages; an average of about 329 pages per book. This is 11 books and roughly 3.500 pages more than in the first four months of 2017!! The average rating is 3,47 stars, which is considerably lower than before and probably had to do with some bad luck with my ARCs as well as the fact that I only had 5 instead of 10 new 5 star ratings. 18 books had a 4,5 or 5 star rating and 31 books received a rating 3 stars or below… Which means I enjoyed reading about 61% of the books during the last four months; again a lot less than previously. I’m hoping that the final months of 2017 will be better and I’m hoping that reading mostly my own books again will bring me some luck… Another fun fact: 59 of the 79 books I’ve read so far were actually ARCs; about 75% of the total. Way more than I was aiming for, but this did help me get my Netgalley shelves under control again, so I’m not complaining haha.
And now some graphics for those who like them as much as I do. 😉
This graphic above explains exactly why my average rating is not as high as before, because more than half of my ratings have been 3,5 stars or below. Here’s to hoping the final months will increase my number of high ratings again!
I’ve finally picked up a few Middle Grade reads so the number isn’t stuck at 0 anymore… It also seems like I have been reading a lot more Adult than YA in the last few months, which is probably mostly because I’ve been reading a lot of ARCs and I mainly request mystery/thrillers. 😉
One of the things I’ve been trying to do this year is read more books by male authors, because somehow I always seem to be reading more books my female authors (even though I never base my choice of books on the gender of the author). I’m pleased my percentage of male author went up a further 3% since last time!
The main genre is basically the most dominant genre I think each book belongs to. As always mystery/thriller/horror is the biggest group (there’s truly no surprise there for those who follow my blog!), and fantasy is well represented as well. The number of contemporary romance reads has increased considerably, which is actually a surprise since it’s not one of my favorites.
This average rating graphic is quite a shock… Although I already knew the last few months had quite a few lowish ratings. Both non fiction/memoir (4 rating) and mystery/thriller/horror (3,80 rating) still scored pretty high, although the first only had one title in the first place. Historical fiction (2,70 rating) was actually the lowest, which is a shock since it’s one of my favorite genres! I’m not really surprised by contemporary romance (2,95 rating), but fantasy (3,54 rating) was also quite low. Fingers crossed the last few months will be better!
The series/stand-alone ratio has been exactly the same as the last post, and I’m actually quite happy with this. As much as I love reading series, I tend to neglect them with the result of a huge pile of unfinished series collecting dust. And there is no such problem with stand-alones! 😉
Boy do I feel bad about this graphic! I joined the Beat The Backlist challenge and have other challenges as well to help me read older titles, and somehow only a meager 18% of the books I’ve read in 2017 are published in 2014 or before. Oops? To make things worse, 59% of the books have been published this year… I guess it does show I have been reading mostly ARCs so far. xD I did manage to read a few classics and the number is slightly better than in the first few months (even though I did read more books published this year), so I guess there is still hope.
Last graphic: as always most books I’ve read have between 300 and 399 pages, which seems to be a pretty good number and a sign of a story that’s not too short and not too long. There are exceptions of course; some stories are just too complex to be told in under 400 pages… What I am happy about is that I’ve read quite a few longer books as well; a total of 20% of my books had over 400 pages. Fingers crossed I’ll keep this up!
Tired of numbers yet? I know I am! That’s it for this May-August 2017 review… Happy reading everyone!
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