reading

2015: Reading Review and Metrics

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This series has become tougher and tougher to write, as I amass more data every year and life gets more and more busy, which further delays the posting. Yes, I’m talking about shit that went down in 2015 in September of 2016. And, sadly, this is mostly just wankery for two reasons:

  1. I do this to satisfy my own curiosity.
  2. It doesn’t really spark much in the way of conversation, usually.

This year, I’m making use of TablePress so it should make for better reading of the actual list (and sorting by various data types, I think). Additionally, I’m using Google Web Fonts, some fancy-schmancy CSS3 stuff, and Google Charts to present elements that were previously boring flat graphics, so I’ve got more coding than I usually do…

Okay, so how’d it go?

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2014: Reading Review

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Good year for reading, man. It started off rough, but then I started taking the bus to work every day and that gave me two uninterrupted hours a day to pound through the pages. My goal for 2014 was to read 50 books. When I started the regular commute in June, I was 8 books behind schedule. I ended the year well past my goal. I’ve posted a full run-down of the metrics similar to what I did for 2012.

Besides the goal for reading 50 books, I was also of the mindset that I wanted to branch out and not read mostly science fiction, like I had done in years past. Thus, I made pointed choices to start reading a lot more non-fiction, and that helped. Sci-fi was still the lion’s share, but 2014 was a lot more balanced than previous years.

That said, by mid-November, I was getting pretty sick of reading. I finished The Girl With All the Gifts, and then floundered about for what to read next. Which is exactly what happened after I read Dataclysm. Clearly, I’d crammed a lot of reading into the previous six months.

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2014: Reading Metrics

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It’s that time of year again!  Time to kick some ass in the metrics department.  Here’s the deep-dive look at my reading in 2014 and how it went. (For my 2012 metrics, see this entry. There are no 2013 metrics for a variety of reasons.)

Overview

At the beginning of the year, I set the goal of reading 50 books in 2014. As unemployment crept onward during the first half of the year, it began to look unlikely — as of May 1st, I was 8 books behind schedule. Once I got re-employed, and started taking public transportation in early June, my rate of consumption accelerated rapidly.

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Halfway Home: Reading Metrics for 2014

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It’s July 1st and the year is now half over.  I’m sure you’ve seen my reading metrics for 2012 prior to this, and yes, I’ll be doing a post with that level of detail at the end of this year.  For now, though, let’s do a quick progress check on the ol’ reading metrics and see where shit’s at.

Book goal: 50, per my Goodreads account.
Current books read: 22
Current number of pages read: 7627

I’m behind the curve to hit my goal for total number of books this year (50), but I am on-pace to beat 2012 and fucking crush my 2013 reading volume.

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Revisiting 2012: Reading

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reading

I’ve been meaning to get to this post for awhile now, and with the kid, the framebuilding, work, and more craziness in 2013, I haven’t been able to sit down and really dig into my booklist analysis. So, here’s some insights into my reading list from last year. (For the list of titles and thoughts on them, along with my movie-watching, please refer to my 2012 Media Intake posting.)

Overview

I read a lot of science fiction, which is typical. I also read for entertainment more than anything else and was very quickly grabbing time wherever I could, as the kid kept me pretty busy. Two books really sucked the life out of me — Stephenson’s REAMDE, which was a letdown from about a third of the way through, and 1634: The Ram Rebellion, which completely annoyed the shit out of me. The former took over a month, the latter took a month.

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Reading, 2014

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open book

As you may know, from following me on here, I read a lot, and normally I keep track of things pretty closely — titles, word counts, completion dates, etc. Last year, I was off-track and didn’t follow my progress too closely. I wound up reconstructing much of 2013 from memory. This year, I’ve started using … Read more