The Rodent's Reading for 2015: Year in Review
This year was one of varied reading, for sure. Mostly mysteries and a touch of romance. Mostly books by women (all but two, actually). Mostly new-to-me authors. A healthy dose of titles for young people. And no best-sellers at all.
I read books by eight novelists I know personally and four more with whom I've exchanged e-mail. (Usually that's me offering to send a list of typos I ran across in their published books.)
With 53 books on my list, I seem to have averaged around one book per week, which feels shorter than the reality. Too many books were really short, I think, because it seems to take me a week to ten days for an ordinary 250+ page novel. The longest book, Absolution, took me well over a month to read. The shortest books were mostly series short-stories of Lisa Shea, which I snacked on while engaged in other novels. (They taste good and are satisfying.)
I read 17 books in beta or pre-publication form, which is kind of amazing, even if most were short stories. This is something I love doing for a few special writers who've been generous enough to share their works in (the late stage of) progress.
Amazingly, only two of the novels I read this year were on paper: Dusssie and Small World.
In all, 15 of the novels I read were free (no cost) books. Most were indie titles obtained free through Bookbub, some were from Project Gutenberg or other public domain sources. And I'm not including beta reading.
But, sad to say, I have read less than one-third of the free books I've downloaded this year... Ghastly boy I am! That's partly because I just don't have time to read more, even if I'm interested in someday reading those free books, or at least attempting to read them. Obviously, I thoroughly understand why nobody reads my books... well, I mean aside from the fact that they're hard to get.
Among the "least popular" books of this year, I think I read 3 books with 1 or fewer ratings.
Only three of the 53 books were from a "large publisher", not including the public domain titles.
And only one e-book had DRM on it when I bought it. Yes, it was one of those from a large publisher. I even joined Netgalley to get it early, then decided Netgalley was too much of a hassle and only offered a PDF, so I waited for it to be released. LOL.
I think my rating of books may seem high—four stars on average—but that is in part because I tend to not even bother with a novel if the first few pages of the preview don't grab me.
Oh... And I published five books through Smashed-Rat-on-Press this year. One of those was an old never-published book, and it doesn't really count, so we'll say four. And of those four, no copies have been sold.
This year's most significant and enduring pillar of literature: Absolution (but you need to read the two previous books first to get it).
Cutest: Chef Maurice and a Spot of Truffle. (I loved the little pig!)
Most light fun: probably a tie between Murder Offstage and Death Goes to the County Fair.
Most squee-ful YA fun: the two Skylar Robbins books by Carrie Cross.
Most steadily nourishing: the Akitada series novels of I.J. Parker, and the Mae Martin novels of Amber Foxx.
Most eagerly anticipated novels: a tie between the two Sophia Martin titles: The Gamble and the Grave and After the Fall.
I read books by eight novelists I know personally and four more with whom I've exchanged e-mail. (Usually that's me offering to send a list of typos I ran across in their published books.)
With 53 books on my list, I seem to have averaged around one book per week, which feels shorter than the reality. Too many books were really short, I think, because it seems to take me a week to ten days for an ordinary 250+ page novel. The longest book, Absolution, took me well over a month to read. The shortest books were mostly series short-stories of Lisa Shea, which I snacked on while engaged in other novels. (They taste good and are satisfying.)
I read 17 books in beta or pre-publication form, which is kind of amazing, even if most were short stories. This is something I love doing for a few special writers who've been generous enough to share their works in (the late stage of) progress.
Amazingly, only two of the novels I read this year were on paper: Dusssie and Small World.
In all, 15 of the novels I read were free (no cost) books. Most were indie titles obtained free through Bookbub, some were from Project Gutenberg or other public domain sources. And I'm not including beta reading.
But, sad to say, I have read less than one-third of the free books I've downloaded this year... Ghastly boy I am! That's partly because I just don't have time to read more, even if I'm interested in someday reading those free books, or at least attempting to read them. Obviously, I thoroughly understand why nobody reads my books... well, I mean aside from the fact that they're hard to get.
Among the "least popular" books of this year, I think I read 3 books with 1 or fewer ratings.
Only three of the 53 books were from a "large publisher", not including the public domain titles.
And only one e-book had DRM on it when I bought it. Yes, it was one of those from a large publisher. I even joined Netgalley to get it early, then decided Netgalley was too much of a hassle and only offered a PDF, so I waited for it to be released. LOL.
I think my rating of books may seem high—four stars on average—but that is in part because I tend to not even bother with a novel if the first few pages of the preview don't grab me.
Oh... And I published five books through Smashed-Rat-on-Press this year. One of those was an old never-published book, and it doesn't really count, so we'll say four. And of those four, no copies have been sold.
This year's most significant and enduring pillar of literature: Absolution (but you need to read the two previous books first to get it).
Cutest: Chef Maurice and a Spot of Truffle. (I loved the little pig!)
Most light fun: probably a tie between Murder Offstage and Death Goes to the County Fair.
Most squee-ful YA fun: the two Skylar Robbins books by Carrie Cross.
Most steadily nourishing: the Akitada series novels of I.J. Parker, and the Mae Martin novels of Amber Foxx.
Most eagerly anticipated novels: a tie between the two Sophia Martin titles: The Gamble and the Grave and After the Fall.
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