Saturday, January 11, 2025

My Year In Books (2024 Edition)

 

Finally back to reading and then posting about it!

Gosh, it's been so long since I've done this that I've almost forgotten what I'm supposed to do! Luckily for me, the graphic helps, as does the last entry in this series (from three years ago!).

I had a goal of reading 24 books in 2024. At this point, I can't recall why I set that as the goal, since it's below my mean and median reading quantities. In any case, I manage to just push past that with a final count of 51 books, totaling 16,394 pages (according to goodreads.com). The real number, by my spreadsheet, is actually 50, and a total page count of 16,074. I'll be using the latter numbers for the purposes of analysis.

Five Stars

This year, I rated 12 books as 5 stars. Here's the list (ordered by date read) and a quick blurb about each of them.

[secret novel beta read], by Matt Carson
Oops, I can't actually tell you anything about this one, sorry! However, ff you're an agent or publisher, Matt's still querying, and you'd be well-served to give him a moment. 

I think this marks my third time reading this book, and I did so very early in the year before the SA allegations came to light. I won't comment any further on the author, but will say that I won't be able to bring myself to read it again unless something changes.

This isn't actually a book; it's supplemental content for the excellent Apple TV series Severance. I highly recommend both, but start with the TV series (otherwise the supplement might not make as much sense, nor be worthy of 5 stars).

The second entry in Stephen Fry's Great Mythology series, and it's just as well-written and entertaining as the first. If you're into audiobooks, these are read by the author, and he is a great writer and reader. You should definitely read both!

There's a large part of me that wishes Carl Sagan had lived to see where we've made it to as the human race, and a smaller part of me that cringes at the notion. This book was released in 1995 and I'm astounded at how well it describes what's happened in the years between. Sagan was a brilliant mind and a fantastic writer, and you should read this book.

The Only Pirate at the Party, by Lindsay Sterling and Brooke S. Passey
If you're a Lindsey Stirling fan, this book is essential reading. It's eight years old at this point, but offers an excellent insight into who she was at the time of publishing and how she became that person. It's simply and wonderfully written by her and her sister, and definitely worth picking up in general.

The way mythology emerges has been and continues to be fascinating to me. How the Christian Bible got to be the book it is today is explained in layman's terms in this book, and it's a bit of a wild ride. If you're a history buff, especially the religious history type, this book is definitely for you.

I actually reviewed this on goodreads, so I'll copy/paste that review here:
I received an advanced reader copy of Cowpuppy from Harper Horizon (via a Goodreads giveaway).

What a fantastic and well-written book, especially for those interested in a little science and a little narrative about the secret life of zebus and new cattlefolk! I grew up adjacent to cows (small-town Texas, although my family didn't own livestock), and while I was no stranger to cattle, I had no idea of how little I (and humans generally) actually knew about them. I highly recommend this book if you're curious about herd animal lives and interactions in a microcosm, and how a scientist made the transition from deliberate clinical lab work to accidental/incidental field lab work!

Empire of Silence, by Christopher Ruocchio
This is the first in a series of sci-fi books, told in a memoir style by the main character. There's a lot (the book is over 700 pages long), so I encourage you to read the synopsis on goodreads. Pick this one up if you're looking for an epic sci-fi book in a (nearly finished) series.

The Elements of Style [Illustrated], by William Strunk Jr., E.B.White, and Maira Kalman (Illustrator)
The content of this book is essential for anyone that wants to write well. The illustrations add a level of delight!

Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem (Bill Johnson, translator) 
If you want a well-written collection of observations about human nature (and perhaps its limitations) packaged up in a sci-fi setting, this book is a great one. I can only vouch for this specific translation, however.

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
I read this book every year, but this year, after watching The Man Who Invented Christmas, I wound up buying a Manuscript edition. Seeing the "original prints" next to the typed words, with the scratches and edits, is pretty fantastic for a guy that used to write in spiral notebooks with Bic pens...

Facts and Figures

OK, let's get some dang METRICS up in here!
This table brought to you by Microsoft PowerPoint!

Interesting that the median was so much lower than the mean. Seems like my weightier books must've been pretty dang weighty! In fact, the top five books by page count sum to 3,324 pages. So, roughly 10% of my books made up 20% of my pages!

Given that, what's the distribution of books (and pages) over the months of the year?

This chart brought to you by ChatGPT!
Once again, I find myself finishing books in a diminishing manner through April and May, then picking up over the summer while spiking in the autumn. It's a little surprising that I finished so many short books at the beginning of the year. The October binge is something not completely uncommon, but it seems this year I was unexpectedly inspired!

I was even more surprised to see the diversity by genre!

This chart brought to you by Apple Numbers!
I was all over the place this year! Fantasy dominated, followed by sci-fi, but there were also respectable appearances by non-fiction, fiction, and short stories. I used more categories this year, as it felt appropriate. If I were to group all of the smaller non-fictional categories into non-fiction, the total would have been 13, or 26%. That's a considerable amount given my penchant for escapism!

As to how I read books this year, the majority were consumed via my ears.

This chart brought to you by Microsoft Excel (online)!

I'm glad to say that I read more books with my eyes than my ears this year, and for the first time in a long time, I read more printed books than ebooks. Part of that was due to the fact that I had several books on my shelf that I decided had gone too long unread, so I remedied that. In addition, I won several giveaways from goodreads this year (more on that later), and tried to get through some of those as well. The result was that I had a book or device in hand more often than buds in ears, which... might also mean I wasn't working out in the mornings as much as I usually do (since that's when I listen to books, primarily). This is probably also true, as I was injured a lot this year, because I'm getting old and broken. (Sidebar: I was really fortunate this year to get some fantastic physical therapy, and am trying earnestly to get better.) All of that to say: expect more audio next year!

Goodreads Giveaways

I should take a moment to mention that I had forgotten about Goodreads giveaways but was reminded of it again this year. When I enter, I leverage the following strategy:
  1. Filter the giveaways by "Ending", so that you see things that are ending the in the next few hours first.
  2. Filter by "Print Only", since receiving a book in the mail is pretty dang cool!
  3. Look for entries where the ratio of available copies to current entries is "favorable."
I deliberately do NOT try to limit to genres in which I'm interested, as having an unfiltered genre field is an easy way to find other writers and other genres that I might like. The ratio mentioned above that I look for is generally anything that's better than a 1 in 50 chance of winning. For example, if there are 50 copies in a giveaway, and the number of entries is around 2,500, I would enter the giveaway. Using that approach, I managed to win 7 giveaways this year, and read 4 of them. (Sidebar: you should also enter giveaways for books that you actually want -- after all, SOMEONE wins those things too!)

Here's the rub, though. Since I don't filter by genre or target audience, one of the books I won was a complete miss for me, so far outside my pleasure that I decided not to rate it. Two of the other books were good (3 stars) -- one of them had fantastic writing, but I didn't care for the subject matter, while the other was insightful but not engaging. The last one was Cowpuppy (mentioned above), which was an unexpected 5-star from me, and made the entire exercise worthwhile!

Conclusion

It's good to be back reading a bunch and writing a little. Hopefully this summary will inspire you, gentle reader, to continue finding and indulging in things you enjoy! I suspect we could all use a little more joy in our lives! To that end, let me know how your year went, or if you're interested in other metrics/topics that I used to cover but didn't this year. Happy reading (or whatever floats your boat, so to speak)!