A Year in Books

I greatly admire Lauren Baratz-Logsted’s 2005 effort to read 365 books in a year. I have not the slightest clue how she did it. She also wrote two books. Who has that time?

No matter. I read 52 books this year — one for every week — not counting a variety of research books, re-reads, novels written by my CPs, audiobooks, books I couldn’t bring myself to finish, and any book I happened to have written myself. There has been an ongoing list in the lower right corner of this blog.

I’ve always thought that a copious amount of reading is absolutely necessary to the formation of a writer. You soak up so much information about craft and story and tips and tricks when you are reading the work of another person. Read a lot is the first and best piece of writing advice to give to any aspiring author. Continued reading is also important so you get an idea of what else is out there.

Here are some stats. This year, I read (there will be some crossover):

14 chick lits
21 romances
12 contemporary romances
6 historical romances
2 time travel romances
1 futuristic romance
6 category romances
13 YA novels
35 books by authors who were new to me
41 books by authors new to me this year (Thank you, Scott Westerfeld, for making this particular statistic necessary)
14 debut novels (go, authors!) *
*Note: Debut in print or non self-published, as Bella Andre had written ebooks and Linda Berdoll had previously self-pubbed. Also not counting Gossip Girls, as have no clue how many books that chick wrote at her book packaging company.
6 novels by previously published authors breaking into a new genre
25 books that are part of a series or have a sequel (that I know of, and I’m being very loose with this. I’m totally counting the Glasses, as am I any “family” romances)
15 are the first in the series
19 series in which there are or will be more books in the series that I haven’t read
11 whose series I’m interested in following further
14 books that would not fall under the umbrella term of “women’s fiction” (and I’m counting teen chick lit as falling under that umbrella)
20 books with “paranormal,” “Science fiction,” or otherwise “couldn’t happen now, then, or at all” elements
3 I’d call horror (no matter what Dean says)
2 I’d call science fiction
2 books called “literature”

Interesting stats, I think. To me, they say a lot about my interests, my industry research, and where I might be lacking. We’ll see how these stats affect my reading choices next year.