Year in Review (Reading) 2017

Year in Review (Reading) 2017

I did again. I complete my reading goals and then some. Although my writing kept its usual pace, I was happy that neither suffered due to each other this year. Two years ago, I took down 52 books. Last year, it was 81. This year, I dropped a bit landing firmly at 75. All in all, not disappointing.

 

First of all, even though I read less books, my page count is roughly the same. This is due to reading less graphic novels and much bigger tomes. My classic reading goals were much larger this year. In fact, I hit every goal I wanted.

 

Read Life: A Manual: Done

The Fountainhead: Done

Here I Am: Done

Ship of Fools: Done

Tess D’ubervilles: Done

Atlas Shrugged: Done

Middlemarch: Done

 

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Again, because I choose to read difficult books, my accomplishments will never be in the hundreds. Of the younger books, they all took a day to read. With those listed above, the reading time range from two weeks to two months. Atlas Shrugged, in particular, was daunting. After having whizzed through Fountainhead in the spring, I thought Shrugged would be a breeze. I was wrong. The thing is thick—I believe somewhere near 600,000 words. I was over my head but pulled it off.

 

Unlike last year, where my beginning was heavy in YA, this year was well mixed year round. I never dove too much or too hard into one genre at one time. I even tried to balance the real books with the e-books, usually 3 for 3 each month, keeping relatively 6 books a month except for when a mass of free time fell in my lap.

 

Although one goal was to clearly off a lot of old books on my shelf, I only did a few. I was happy to see Ship of Fools go. I’ve been holding onto that one for a while. Also, I threw down Heart of Darkness, which made me happy. I hope to do more so next year.

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All in all, I’d have to say I’m a bit more upbeat compared to last year. All the horrible YA I read, compounded by that lack of interest in other writing, made me despondent and—yes—maybe a bit bitter. Despite the less than wonderful politics in America right now, I’m actually happy about this past year.

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