Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

I know I can probably find all this information in separate threads, especially the spreadsheet thread, but I can't access Google Docs and work, and also I'm just feeling lazy, so I'm starting a dedicated thread.

What stats do you keep on your reading?

Last year I kept fiction vs. nonfiction, author gender & whether the author was a POC, but this year, I'm looking to beef up my stats game. So please share with me (again, sorry) what you track in the books you read.

Thanks!

Mmm, stats.

I do:

Length of book (Short - <250; Medium - 250-500; Long - 501-750; Doorstop - >750
Author: Old vs. New
Author: Gender
Language: Originally in English vs. In Translation
Book Type: Series vs. Standalone
Read For: Me vs. Spider
Star Rating
Genre: Autobiography/Biography/Memoir; Children's Books; Classics/Modern Classics; Contemporary; Fantasy; Graphic Novel; Historical Fiction; Horror; Humour; Mystery; Non-fiction; Play; Poetry; Romance; Sci-Fi; Short Stories; Thriller; YA
Publication Date: Pre-1700; 1700-1799; 1800-1899; Then I break down the 20th & 21st Centuries into decades
Author Nationality
Author Diversity: White vs. POC

I'm always thinking of something else I could track, but I come up blank.

I'm tracking:
- Star rating
- Genre
- Format (novel, short story, graphic novel, etc.)
- Length (by 100 and then regrouped (Short (<200), Medium (200-400), Long (400-600), Very Long (600-900), Doorstop (<900))
- Series (Standalone, new, continuing, finished, abandoned)
- In translation or not
- Year Published
- New Uthor or not
- Author gender, country (regrouped in continent), diversity

I only track what books I read nowadays. I did at one point record stats but then last year I decided to delete them along with the majority of my shelves here on GoodReads.

Why did you decide to delete your shelves?

I'm curious to know if there are any stats kept for the group as a whole -- other than what is in the surveys?

This is my first year doing a spreadsheet, so I'm pretty excited about it. (Ever feel like the planning and recording is more fun than the actual reading? Sometimes? When it's a not fun book?)

I track per book, then have them tallied (as indicated in parenthesis)
Pages (Total read)
Year Published (Average Year)
Stars (Average Stars)
Challenge categories
Borrowed/Library/On Shelf (Totals)
YA/Adult (Totals)
Contemporary/Classic (Totals)
Self-Development (Totals)
Nonfiction/Fiction (Totals)
POC/White (Totals) - I count if it's the author or the protagonist
LGBTQ+ (Totals) - I count if it's the author or the protagonist
Author's country of origin (Total unique countries)
Setting country (Total unique countries)

I haven't done genre because I hate trying to figure out which genre each belongs in. Also, I once had all of this on goodreads shelves, but I hated how cluttered it was and I hated trying to divide it all up, so I switched to the spreadsheet instead.

I do love my spreadsheet. Mine is kind of like Jody's and Emily's,
# of days to read
# of pages
Year Published
Rating
Gender
Nationality
Challenge Name (Classics Bingo, AtY In 52, Personal Challenge, Side Read)
Challenge Topic
Audio vs. Book (20%/80%)

I color code each month to track the # of books per month. I bold all true 5 Star books (I do 1/4 And 1/2 Stars). I don't really care about genres or series. I do visit the 1000 books to read list every now and then to see what I can check off. I'm at 125 on that now.

I only keep track of book title, pages read, rating, what challenges it fits in, and number of books per month.

Ok...

In 2016, I did:
- authors' gender
- number of novels read

In 2017:
- authors' gender
- number of novels read per year and month
- authors' country, if POC or not, if translated or not
- diversity in the books (LGBTQ, POC, etc)
- genres read
- age target (children / YA / adult)
- length (number of pages)
- series or standalone
- number of sequels
- number of series started
- number of books added to TBR
- publication date
- purchases (because I'd no idea how much I spent on books)

In 2018:
- number of novels read per year and month
- authors' country, if POC or not, if translated or not (+gender, but it's just because I still have the column)
- diversity in the books (LGBTQ, POC, etc)
- genres read
- age target (children / YA / adult)
- length (number of pages)
- series or standalone
- number of sequels
- number of books added to TBR
- purchases

I've some dedicated shelves here and I fill a spreadsheet when I finish a read.

Emily wrote: "Ever feel like the planning and recording is more fun than the actual reading? Sometimes? When it's a not fun book?"

YES! I can always tell when I'm not really into whatever I'm reading, as I revert to planning, and finding new challenges to join in on. I've started three (or is it four?) new challenges in the past two days. Safe to say that The Good Earth isn't really doing it for me. 😂

Bahaha. What challenges, Jody. Do share!

I am totally with you, Emily. I love my multisheet spreadsheet & filling out all the metadata about my books when I finish reading them. Hence why I want MORE STATS!

I spent a large part of the afternoon yesterday going through all the books I've read since I started my Around the World challenge in 2016 to note what state they're set in because I decided I didn't want to count USA for the challenge until I've read something from every state. I found out that I have all the states covered but 7, and of course one of those is the state I live in! And it has no books set there or authors from there. But it sure was fun to do that tracking.

Thanks for the great ideas guys. I'm off to prettify my spreadsheet.

Katie wrote: "Bahaha. What challenges, Jody. Do share!

I am totally with you, Emily. I love my multisheet spreadsheet & filling out all the metadata about my books when I finish reading them. Hence why I want M..."

I thought about doing the Around the World challenge just so that I could spreadsheet it!

Katie wrote: "Bahaha. What challenges, Jody. Do share!"

LOL ... I picked out a few more over at Wacky Challenges. I love that they have so many - long, short, easy, harder, and I can just do them along with these ones. I really enjoy fitting each book I read into as many challenges as I can over there. It's like a little competition with myself.

I'm still procrastinating on my book too. Who knows, I might end up doing another letter in my bujo! 😂

Jody wrote: "Emily wrote: "Ever feel like the planning and recording is more fun than the actual reading? Sometimes? When it's a not fun book?"

YES! I can always tell when I'm not really into whatever I'm read..."
I have Good Earth up soon as well -- I'm thinking maybe I should find something else.

I was trying to track how diversely I was reading, so I've only been keeping track of the author's name, whether they were POC or LGBT, and if they were male or female. I'm not sure I'm going to continue doing it this year though, since I don't keep up to date, and end up having to fill the whole thing in toward the end of the year.

In the back of my mind, I've always thought it would be more accurate to track whether the book has diverse characters, but by the time I decided that, it was too late into the year to start. I don't even have a solid goal about diversity, it was more for my own curiosity.

I'm not particularly enjoying it, but I'm at 85% now, so I'll finish it over the weekend. Yay!

Rachel wrote: "I was trying to track how diversely I was reading, so I've only been keeping track of the author's name, whether they were POC or LGBT, and if they were male or female. I'm not sure I'm going to co..."

My goals are to read POC/LGBTQ+ characters written by POC/LGBTQ+ authors... "own voices" if you will. I'm not too interested in what a white author has to say about a black main character's perspective, not that you come across that too much in writing. So I track POC/LGBTQ+ only if the character and the author fit into that category.

I feel much the same way, Emily. It’s all about the author for me.