SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Finally wrapped up for the year.

Total Books: 223

Shortest Book: Odd Interlude #3
Longest Book: The Broken Eye

Best Book: A Book of American Martyrs
Worst Book: The Graduate
Biggest Disappointment: Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

Most Popular: Of Mice and Men
Least Popular: Pimsleur's Romanian, Level 1 (shocking)

Highest Rated: The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Percentage of 5 star: 15.69
Percentage of 1 star: 9.8

Two surprises: I loved Ceremony and was meh on Love Medicine. In college when I first read these my reaction was the opposite.

Kristin B. wrote: "Final book: Lost in Arcadia
Longest book: Arcadia 608 pages..."

I started laughing hysterically when I saw this pair :)

What should also be considered in terms of volume of reading done during a year is the time reading online articles, papers and reports on the Internet. I myself do tons of researching for my novels on the Internet, a lot more than from printed books. The main reason for that is that articles on a specific subject available on the Internet are constantly updated or added on. In domains where new discoveries happen all the time, like astronomy, books will always lag behind Internet news in terms of being up to date.

Hank wrote: "Ooof! I just looked at my women vs men stats. Only 17/82 women writers. I think I need to broaden better."

I've got 66/132

I'll pretend that the 25 books that didn't get tagged were by women...

and what helps my triple digits is a 1 hour each way commute on a bus which gives me at least 2 hours of book reading a day

Not quite done, but here ya go:
TOTALS I read 123,560 pages across 1,173 books

LONGEST BOOK
966 pages
The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke

The rest of my page looks lame & inaccurate, and anyway I'd rather read than process stats.

That's an average of 105.3 pp per book, which is higher than I thought it would be, because I do read a lot of picture-books (which GR often credits with 0 or 1 pp).

What I'm proud of is that I write a review for virtually every book, especially for DNFs and picture-books.

I read 86 pages, covering 25,928. Lower than some previous years.

My longest book: The Three Musketeers - 786 pages
Shortest book: The Map - 57 pages (not counting the plays I read which were shorter)

Most Popular: The Night Circus
Least Popular: The Power: A Berkeley Blackfriars Novel (again, not counting plays)

Highest Rated: Crooked Kingdom

First Book of the Year: Small Gods
Last Book of the Year: Wires and Nerve, Volume 1 (if I finish it)

No 5-star books this year, that weren't re-reads (and even that I'd probably downgrade).
5 1-star books.

Average rating: 3.5

***

Here's the Breakdown:

Top 5 New Books/Series:

If We Were Villains
The Six of Crows Duology Boxed Set
Love, Lies and Spies
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
A Darker Shade of Magic


Top 3 Parts of Series:

Resurrection
Ghostly Echoes
The Dire King


Bottom 5:

Ladies at the Alamo
The Power: A Berkeley Blackfriars Novel
Death Watch
The Drowning Girl
Hyde


Biggest Disappointment:

The Three Musketeers


Most Overrated Series:

Percy Jackson and the Olympians



* I had done my worst 5 of the year before finishing Three Musketeers, and instead of replacing one of the original 5, I decided to give 3 Musketeers it's own category. Because dear gods it was awful, and I've always thought I "liked" the Three Musketeers - and I still do. I like the idea of it. I like the movies and shows. But the book? Screw that book. Seriously.

First Book of the Year: A Cook's Tour of Iowa: 4 Stars

Final Book of the Year: Lies' They Teach in School: Exposing the Myths Behind 250 Commonly Believed Fallacies

3 Stars

Longest Book Read: War of Honor: 869 pages

Pages Read: 23073

Shortest Book Read: Important Differences Between Successful and Unsuccessful Senior Allied Army Combat Leaders: 30 pages, 3 stars

Most popular Book Read: Ready Player One: 478532 ratings: My Rating 5 Stars

Least Popular Book Read: Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations: With One rating, that would be mine at a 3

Highest Rated: A Cook's Tour of Iowa with an avg of 4.6, but it only has five ratings.
After that is Keys to the Demon Prison 4.42 with 61925 ratings

Lowest rated: A People's History of the Peculiar, 2.71, I have it a three.

2017 was a banner year for me. I didn't rate a book lower than three all year.

That is just wonderful about your banner year!

Cheryl wrote: "Not quite done, but here ya go:
TOTALS I read 123,560 pages across 1,173 books."

Holy. Shit.

Trike wrote: "So for those of you reading regularly into the triple digits, do you also read newspapers, magazines, blogs and suchlike?

The sheer amount of news articles I read each day would easily triple my a..."

Audio books really helped me to get to triple digits, plus I'm retired now. I read the NY Times, paper version, daily and I read various news and entertainment articles on line every day. I still subscribe to several magazines but I never seem to find time to read them any more.

• I read 22,972 pages across 55 books
• SHORTEST BOOK: 160 pages - I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
• LONGEST BOOK: 994 pages - The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
• AVERAGE LENGTH: 418 pages
• MY AVERAGE RATING FOR 2017: 3.8

• 15 series started: (view spoiler)[Shades of Magic, Malazan Book of the Fallen, Abhorsen, The Kingkiller Chronicle, Arbai, Bobiverse, The Machineries of Empire, Red Rising, Remembrance of Earth's Past, The First Law, Six of Crows, Terra Ignota, The Winternight Trilogy, Book of the Ancestor, The Brilliance Saga (hide spoiler)]
• 4 series finished: (view spoiler)[MaddAddam, Nexus, World of the Five Gods (original three, not the Penric novels), The Broken Earth (hide spoiler)]
• 9 series started before 2017 (progress but not finished): (view spoiler)[Magic 2.0, The Iron Druid Chronicles, Oxford Time Travel, Hyperion Cantos, Vorkosigan Saga, Temeraire, Silo, The Belgariad, Wayfarers (hide spoiler)]

105 books
— 27 Science Fiction
— 58 Fantasy
— 5 history
— 5 memoir
— 8 art
— 1 photography
— 1 hypertext

54 real books
— 27 by women
— 25 by men
— 2 by both

41 graphic novels
— 3 by women
— 25 by men
— 13 by both

8 art books
— 2 by women
— 4 by men
— 2 by both

1 hypertext novel (by man)
1 photography book (by man)

Total read: 36,070 pages / 125 books
Shortest book: The Star by Arthur C. Clarke (6 pages)
Longest book: Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson (875 pages)
Average # of pages: 289
Most popular: The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Least popular: In The Late December by Greg Van Eekhout
My average rating for 2017: 3.69
Highest rated on Goodreads: Saga, Vol. 6 by Brian K. Vaughan

My favorites in 2017:
Dark Tide by Mark Lawrence
The Secret Place by Tana French
A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa Wong
Right Behind You by Lisa Gardner
Penric’s Mission by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Thousand Names by Django Wexler
The Shadow Throne by Django Wexler
Snapshot by Brandon Sanderson
The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey
City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett
Come Sundown by Nora Roberts
In The Late December by Greg Van Eekhout
Red Sister by Mark Lawrence

First book of the year: Tomorrow the Killing by Daniel Polansky
Last book of the year: Red Sister by Mark Lawrence

44% of the books I read were written by women.

85 books read 31,992 pages
37 were female

Longest book: Seveneves-880 pages
Shortest book: The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom 160 pages
Average # pages: 376
Most popular: Steve Jobs
Least popular: The Best of Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, The Cask of Amontillado, and 30 Others

First book of year: I, Robot
Last book of the year: The Last Wish
My Average Rating: 3.5

My Favorites for 2017:
His Majesty's Dragon
Ancillary Justice
John Dies at the End
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Embassytown
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Six of Crows
Watership Down
The Last Wish

Ellen wrote: "85 books read 31,992 pages
37 were female

Longest book: Seveneves-880 pages
Shortest book: The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom 160 pages
Average ..."


Poe was the least popular? Wow, I actually loved that book.

41 books - 17,470 pages
First book: A Darker Shade of Magic
Last book: A Natural History of Dragons
Longest book: It
Shortest book: The Wave
Average page length: 426
Most popular book: It
Least popular book: Prince of Wolves
Highest rated book: Six of Crows
My average rating for 2017: 3.8

My favorites for 2017:
A Monster Calls
Pushing Ice
The Warded Man
Seraphina
Moon Over Soho

I read 27,128 pages over 70 books. (Does anyone else wish you could make yearly page count goals instead of book goals?)

First book: The Dragonriders of Pern
Last book: A Matter of Magic
Longest: Also Dragonriders of Pern (I hate it when I read my longest book so early in the year...don't know why...)
Shortest: Night
Most popular: Also Night
Least popular: Rondo Allegro
Highest rated: Crooked Kingdom

Some favorites from 2017:
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
The Left Hand of Darkness
All Clear
When the Moon Was Ours
The Touchstone Trilogy

Stephanie wrote: "Does anyone else wish you could make yearly page count goals instead of book goals?"

Yes! That's one of the main reasons why I keep a separate spreadsheet. I want to know the exact number of pages I read, and which of those were audio or graphic novels, etc. That's much more informative than the number of total things read.

Stephanie wrote: "I read 27,128 pages over 70 books. (Does anyone else wish you could make yearly page count goals instead of book goals?)

First book: The Dragonriders of Pern
Last book: [book:A Matte..."

The Left Hand of Darkness is one of my top ten favorite books of all time. I reread it every five to ten years or so. So that puts in on the same list as Dune and LotR, well and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, but that is a different story altogether.

Anna wrote: "Stephanie wrote: "Does anyone else wish you could make yearly page count goals instead of book goals?"

Yes! That's one of the main reasons why I keep a separate spreadsheet. I want to know the exa..."
Yes! Maybe I need to start a spreadsheet. There are things I want to know that GR doesn't keep track of as well as I'd want.


Dj, it's interesting because although I enjoyed the book a lot when I read it, I didn't realize it was one of my favorites of the year until recently. It stuck with me afterwards in a way a lot of other books haven't.
Also I've been meaning to read Dune for so long!

That's exactly why I wrote a program to process my good reads data. I started with a spreadsheet, but it wasn't enough for me.

Poe is not unpopular. That particular collection is. Just saying.

Rob wrote: "That's exactly why I wrote a program to process my good reads data. I started with a spreadsheet, but it wasn't enough for me."

how does the program work, what areas does it cover? is it a databank?

Kateb wrote: "Rob wrote: "That's exactly why I wrote a program to process my good reads data. I started with a spreadsheet, but it wasn't enough for me."

how does the program work, what areas does it cover? is ..."

It's a CSV parser written in Java. More details are here: https://github.com/robertzak/goodread...

My yearly report is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

But it also does year to year reports as well.

Stephanie wrote: "I read 27,128 pages over 70 books. (Does anyone else wish you could make yearly page count goals instead of book goals?) "

Problem being, some of the page counts in the GR database are off. I noticed this for one graphic novel I read, which has a given page count of 151, but that’s just the main story. There’s also a 15-page second story, as well as 10-12 pages of extras,so the book itself is actually more like 172 pages.

I think one of the larger books I read previously also had that issue, something like Seveneves or Three Body Problem had more pages than the GR count.

Trike wrote: "Stephanie wrote: "I read 27,128 pages over 70 books. (Does anyone else wish you could make yearly page count goals instead of book goals?) "

Problem being, some of the page counts in the GR databa..."

I also had a few books where the page count was listed as unknown. Just consider it an estimate.

My actual page counts in my own database versus what GR reported were off by about 300 pages for 2017, and by 1900 pages in 2016.

I don’t know much about the librarian process on GR, but I’m pretty sure you can submit requests for librarians to fix bad data, including page counts. Then your #’s would be more accurate, but I guess there’s always the danger that somebody else will decide it needs to be changed again. Hopefully there’s some sort of validation process to verify change requests and minimize invalid changes.

Anyone can be a librarian, and as far as I can tell there is no validation for changes.

YouKneeK wrote: "My actual page counts in my own database versus what GR reported were off by about 300 pages for 2017, and by 1900 pages in 2016. "

1900 pages is cray-cray. That’s like 5 regular books’ worth.

YouKneeK wrote: "My actual page counts in my own database versus what GR reported were off by about 300 pages for 2017, and by 1900 pages in 2016. "

Probably depends on edition, if the data for your edition are missing, then they probably pull it from the original. Paparback/Hardcover/Ebook can have different page counts, and so it can be with translations.
I think this could be even more the case for older books with several reprints in different formats (in this case I mean book dimensions) thus different page size and different page count.

I fix page counts for books I read fairly regularly

It doesn't matter what the page count is for the edition you shelved, because GR doesn't use those in the yearly report. I still don't understand how and why they do it, but for some editions (audio) the default page count is used, and for others it's something else. I made several different tries at cracking it last year, no luck. I can't make the numbers match no matter what I do, so I just use my own numbers.

I still add and correct page counts when necessary, but the GR totals will always be off.

Anna wrote: "It doesn't matter what the page count is for the edition you shelved, because GR doesn't use those in the yearly report. I still don't understand how and why they do it, but for some editions (audi..."

Ah, thanks. That explains why my year in review is more than 8,000 pages higher than what it shows on the My Books page.

Anna wrote: "It doesn't matter what the page count is for the edition you shelved, because GR doesn't use those in the yearly report. I still don't understand how and why they do it, but for some editions (audi..."

They do this do to the nonsensical standard method for audiobook page counts that GR uses (1 hour = 1 page). This is completely useless and anybody who listens to a lot of audio have huge differentials between the Year in Books results and the Stats page from your My Books tab.

1 hour = 1 page? Shouldn’t that be more like a minute per page?

Trike wrote: "1 hour = 1 page? Shouldn’t that be more like a minute per page?"

That would make more sense but nope, Goodreads uses 1 page per hour :-(

Trike wrote: "1 hour = 1 page? Shouldn’t that be more like a minute per page?"

It's because good reads has terrible support for audiobooks. The only option for duration is pages, so the best you can do is round to the nearest hour. It messes with counts and durations. Another reason I made my program. I do so much audio, I wanted better information than what the site provides.

So, like a normal 300-page book which takes 11 hours to read counts as 11 pages? That’s borked.

That's why I normally shelve the Kindle edition for audiobooks. Although it really doesn't matter, since the GR totals don't mean anything.

Dj wrote: "Poe was the least popular? Wow, I actually loved that book. "

It just wasn't read by very many people. It's an excellent book

I just looked at 2022 and there's some really odd results

Shortest Book = 576 pages
Longest Book = 1361 pages

Average book length in 2022 = 367 pages

how can my shortest book be 576 pages if my average book length = 367 pages?

CBRetriever wrote: "I just looked at 2022 and there's some really odd results"

For some audiobooks there is no page number at all, but they're also counted in total book number. Maybe that's the reason?

And, does it make sense that your shortest book is 576 pages?

Something seems very off!

CBRetriever wrote: "how can my shortest book be 576 pages if my average book length = 367 pages?"

In USA academic circles I think that's referred to as 'new math'.

Olga wrote: "CBRetriever wrote: "I just looked at 2022 and there's some really odd results"

For some audiobooks there is no page number at all, but they're also counted in total book number. Maybe that's the r..."

nope, no audio books in my reading

My 2022 data looks normal.

Stephen wrote: "My 2022 data looks normal."

someone must have seen this thread and or reported it - my shortest book is now 16 pages (a short story) which make more sense

aha: Updated about 2 hours ago.