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Monday, January 12, 2015

My 2014 Bookish Stats

I've always loved those bookish stats posts where bloggers look over their year in reading and breakdown their books read by rating, genre, etc. I'm always curious! So I've put together a few pie charts depicting My 2014 Bookish Stats. Don't know if anyone will even be interested in this except me, so feel free to skip this post!

Total Books Read in 2014: 125


Note: To make this easier, I've rounded UP all .5 Star Ratings. So 4.5 Stars is lumped in with 5 Stars, 3.5 Stars is lumped in with 4 Stars, etc.
2014 Breakdown by Rating: This stat pleases me: I read an equal amount of 4.5-5 Star reads and 3.5-4 Star reads in 2014 and together, these reads made up the majority of my reading for last year. A pretty solid year in books, I would say! It helps that over the years, I've gotten better at picking books I think I will like. These days, it's pretty rare that I read a book that I don't enjoy at ALL.

2014 Breakdown by Genre: No surprise here: fantasy makes up the biggest pie slice in a breakdown of reading genres in 2014. Of course, there are many sub-genres within Fantasy that I could break down some more: high fantasy, paranormal, mythology, etc. - I love it all! I'm impressed with myself that fairly sizeable portions of the pie go to Contemporary and Classical Fiction.

2014 Breakdown by Type: Here lies the reason I was able to fit in 125 books in my schedule in 2014: I very much got into audiobooks this year! I didn't always have a ton of free time in 2014 with which to read, but I DID have regular life obligations like cleaning, cooking, getting ready in the morning/bedtime, working out, etc., and those turned into the bulk of my reading time, via audiobook. 2015 is shipping up to be much the same! Audiobooks are a great way to reread favourites and act as plot-reminders pre-sequels and book-to-movie adaptations.

2014 Breakdown by Source: Those audiobooks I mentioned in the previous stat? Well, a lot of them were the freebies that SYNC Audiobooks gives out every summer. I also took advantage of Free Books of the Week deals on various websites. I'm quite proud that the majority of books I read in 2014 were either free or borrowed! If I had put together these stats in my first year of blogging, I guarantee you that Review Books and Purchased Books would make up the majority of the pie. Notably, I read only 8 review books from publishers in 2014... and I'm quite happy with that. Honestly, I've largely fallen out of love with reading early galleys from publishers. Most of the time these days, I'd rather wait to read reviews first before deciding whether the book will work for me. Generally makes for a happier reading experience for me! And indeed, the 8 reviews books that I did read in 2014 were some of my lower-rated reads.


2014 Breakdown by Author Gender and Protagonist Gender: Pretty pleased with these stats! Female to male proportions are almost equal in both a breakdown of author genders and a breakdown of protagonist genders for 2014. BUT you'll notice I have no graphs depicting the POC and LGBT representations of books I read in 2014 - basically because it's not good. It doesn't help that POC and LGBT characters don't tend to be the protagonists in the non-contemporary reads I favour. I'm already working on fixing this in 2015.

2014 Series vs. Standalone: Wow, it's surprising to see this stat laid out like this! I mean, of course I knew that I tend to favour series over standalones, but I didn't think the ratio would be 3:1. Ultimately though, I'm not one of those readers who is wanting more standalones and less series in their life... But I DO want to keep a tab on the series I do read and work on getting my overall numbers of series on-the-go down. I'm thinking I need to make a worksheet of all the series I have read/am in the middle of/want to read in the future to keep track of all of them. DROWNING IN SERIES!

So there you go! I wish I had done this in previous years so that I could compare stats from year-to-year. I guess I'll just have to remember to do them from 2015 on!

36 comments :

  1. WOW! I did not know you read so many audio books. On my pie chart, there would be none haha. Also, wow, I'm impressed by the number of 5 star reads you've read! Not bad! I love it when people do charts; it's so clear! Awesome post!

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    1. Thanks! I never thought I would be an audiobook reader myself, so it's surprising I got into them so much last year!

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  2. I'm impressed. I also tried to make these graphics, but I seriously couldn't figure it out, haha. I like that you also looked at the gender from the protagonists. You read a lot of audio books, I wish they would work for me too.

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    1. Heh, I had to harken back to years and years ago when I learned how to make them.

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  3. Wow, I really like that you broke down your reading statistic by protagonist gender. Also, pretty impressive that you read almost equal amount of books by female and male authors.

    Yay fantasy wins! =D

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    1. Yes, I was impressed that they were close to equal too! :)

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  4. I loved breaking down my reading for the year. I never thought of looking at author gender. I'll have to go back and do that....

    Kate @ Ex Libris

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    1. Yeah, I was surprised and pleased with the author gender result!

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  5. Now this is a really cool post. Having said that, I just signed up for SYNC Audiobooks - I remember you telling me about it before but it must have slipped my mind. I NEED to find ways to read when driving, cleaning and what have you, I've failed my GR challenge the past two years *sobs*

    Like you, I feel that I've become better at only picking up books I know I'll enjoy - AND I've been reading a lot less arcs and review copies, I want to go back to reading for FUN. Of course, I love seeing all the fantasy space in the genre pie-chart, but man you did amazing with contemporaries and classics this year. I think I only read two contemporaries last year, but both were favorites, a 4-star an 5-star read so I really should diversify more. WTG Aylee :D

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    1. Thanks, Mich! Oh excellent, I will remind you this summer in case you forget! Audiobooks are life savers for me. As you can see, I wouldn't have come anywhere close to 125 if I hadn't been listening to audiobooks all year long. HURRAY for FUN reading! As for classics and contemporaries, I wouldn't force yourself to read them if it's not fun :)

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  6. Congrats on reading 125 books - that's really very impressive.
    I need to get better at listening to audiobooks, because I can totally see them really helping me get through more books. And they're an interesting, fun way to experience stories. That's also awesome you had such a positive year in terms of reading choices. Someday I'll get there myself haha.
    I hope 2015 is just as successful a reading year for you!

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    1. Thanks, Amanda! Oh yeah, they definitely helped me reached 125 last year - as you can clearly see. I hope 2015 treats you well, as well!

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  7. Wow! That's so organized and grown up!
    I can barely keep track of what I read, let alone break it down like that!!
    It looks like you ha a pretty good read over all!! Also, great job on reading both genre authors and protagonists, I often fail miserably at that, leaning toward female author and ignoring both male authors and protagonists. :P

    Anyway, maybe 2015 be an awesome reading year for you ;)

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    1. haha, oh really? I wouldn't say so. But I am actually going to try to stay on top of things this year and fill in my spreadsheet as I go because it was a big project to do on its own. Wishing you the best in 2015 too!

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  8. I enjoyed this post very much - the graphs made it even better. I didn't know you were listening to as many books as you do. Its also great how you still love those fantasy book. Do you have any inspirations to force yourself to read from other genres? I'm happy you shared this post it was fun to read - thanks!

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    1. Aw, thanks :) As for inspirations for reading outside my usual genres - can't think of any! Mainly I go off of talk in the blogosphere and on Goodreads - if people are buzzing about a book that is completely new to me, I take notice. And I may give it a try. Sometimes it works for me, and sometimes not, but it's worth the risk I think!

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  9. I really love these posts too! Congrats on meeting your goal; that's awesome audiobooks are working out so well for you. I STILL need to listen to one. I wanted to last summer, and I just never did. This year though! I need to get on it. haha

    I read a lot of stand-alone novels because I know it's difficult for me to keep up with series, but a lot of series (especially trilogies) are finished or almost finished...and since I've been wanting to read them, I hope to do that in 2015 so I can keep up!

    -Lauren

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    1. Thanks, Lauren! Don't be afraid! It's so easy, you can pick up a whole bunch for free this summer from SYNC and go wild :D And that's exciting to hear you may be picking up some completed series soon! How fun - hope you love them!

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  10. Aylee-- such fun stats! At first I was like, "WHAT YOU READ 125 BOOKS WHEN YOU WERE *THAT* BUSY?!" But then I saw that you listened to a TON of audiobooks! I keep having weird periods of time where I listen obsessively, and then I stop for a few months. I need to keep it consistent, because they really awesome! I'll have to check out the audiobook websites you mentioned. :) Fabulous post!

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    1. Yup, that's how I did it! I go through phases with audiobooks as well. Sometimes it's ALL audiobooks ALL the times, sometimes it's podcasts, sometimes it's musicals. But I can never resist a free audiobook!

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  11. I've recently started getting into audiobooks for those same reasons. Especially with all of the spring cleaning I've been doing as of late. Audiobooks are the gifts from the gods. xD

    Great stats, hope 2015 is just as good if not better for you!

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    1. Heh, oh absolutely! I do so much more cleaning now that I have audiobooks that I want to listen to :) Thank you!

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  12. You beat me! I didn't listen to nearly as many audiobooks as you but I definitely listened to more than I ever have before. I'd listen to even more but I love podcasts (I subscribe to over 100) and spend much of my listening time with them. Also I really prefer listening to non-fiction books on audio over fiction, with a few exceptions. I have an audible subscription. I particularly love that because I can listen at triple speed!

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    1. 100 podcasts!! Oh my. I think I'm subscribed to... 4 podcasts? Heh, so that would be why I can keep up with all my audiobooks. And I love listening to non-fiction audios too! Also, I never knew you could do that with audible!

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  13. Aylee, you are definitely a much generous rater than I am. I never thought of breaking down my reading by formats and author gender. I might do that for this year.

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    1. Heh, it's perhaps a combination of being a bit generous and choosing my reading choices well.

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  14. Wow, those are some interesting stats! I don't think I'll ever get to where audiobooks outnumber physical or ebooks for me, but they definitely helped me meet my reading goals this year. I also got most of my books for free this year and while I hope to do some buying to support authors in the future, as a grad student I'm definitely content to save my budget and support authors in other ways. Your author gender breakdown is very even, which is great, and it looks like it might closely parallel character gender, which is what I saw in my stats too. Awesome post :D

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    1. I never thought I would get to the point where audiobooks outnumbered physical books for me, but here I am! And I love it. And yeah, I do wish I could support more authors monetarily-wise... but I think it also definitely supports them just to take out their books from the library and reviewing them and such.

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  15. I love, love, love the idea of using audio books for re-reads! Especially before reading the next new book in a series. MUST DO THIS. I tend to get distracted easily when listening to audio books and hate missing things in new books. But this wouldn't be much of a problem with a reread.

    Seriously, you have just solved a huge problem in my life. Thank you!!!

    Lauren @ Wordy Hughes

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    1. Oh, you're welcome! I'm the same way with audiobooks. I prefer to use them for rereads or books that do not have super complex concepts/plots or else I WILL get lost.

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  16. I have only one word- IMPRESSED. I mean, I know the year was busy for you, and you still managed to read a great 125 books! Wow. Keep rocking!

    Sarika @ The Readdicts

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  17. Love this!!!! What a neat idea, Eilidh! :D It's definitely interesting to see a breakdown of what you're reading, and you've definitely go some good diversity going on. You're right about POC and LGBT not being as common in non-contemporaries though, but I like that you're planning to find some books this year that have protagonists that are either POC or LGBT. I haven't read her books yet, but I know Malinda Lo's book often have LGBT characters in them, and I believe they're fantasy. Ash is the book of hers that comes to my mind first. It's one that I've been planning to read myself. I'll have to pick it up soon and let you know how it is. :)

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    1. Ah yes, I recall hearing about Malinda Lo's books. I may have to check out some reviews for Ash and see if I can get a copy from the library. Definitely let me know what you think if you pick it up! But at the very least, I would like to include more diversity into my reading, be it in the form of fantasy or contemporary or what have you. I read The Miseducation of Cameron Post recently and it was fantastic! It read like a memoir, it was just so genuine.

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  18. I love reading other people’s stats! And I love the pie charts! I think you were pretty well rounded actually with your genres. You can tell you have a favorite but you read a good variety of things. I’ve fallen out of love with eARCs too. I think a lot of people have. When I think about it, the review books often had the lower ratings for me as well.

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    1. Heh, thanks! I had fun making them :) And yeah, I am impressed that I am as well rounded with my genres as I turned out to be! Thank you!

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