How Is Your 2021 Reading Year Stacking Up? (5/16/21)

[Marc]

How is your reading year going so far? If you feel like it, you can share your star distributions (on the desktop version of GR, go to My Books, and scroll down the left just under your shelves, hit Reading Stats, and then Details for 2021). Or, you can just let us know how you generally feel about it (reading more or less than you expected, reading a mix of books or returning to your preferred genres/authors, etc.).

[Marc]

I've been having a wonderful reading year with an embarrassment of riches. Currently:
- 5 star reads: 10
- 4 star reads: 18
- 3 star reads: 8
- 2 star reads: 2
- 1 star reads: 0
(it's rare that I rate something w/ 1 star; I usually give up first and just mark it unrated and abandoned)

Been trying to read 1 poetry and 1 philosophy selection per month in addition to continuing my fiction addiction.

[Hugh]

I haven't gone below 3 yet, because I have found at least something to like in all of the 66 books I have read this year. The average rating is easy to work out this time:
5 star: 12 (3 of which were rereads)
4 star: 42
3 star: 12
I am on course to surpass last year's record numbers (so far every year since I joined GR in 2014 has been a record, but that will have to stop eventually. Longest book is 1220 pages, shortest 80 (and that is despite a very generous GR page count - the text ends on page 65 and there are several blank pages before that).

[Marc]

Hugh, at one point, weren't you aiming for 50 pgs per day of reading? What are you up to now?!!

I actually set out to read fewer books this year, but if my current pace keeps up, it'll end up being more than last year (quite a few were very short and/or graphic novels, which always inflate the numbers). Like most of us, all I really care about is that I'm enjoying the reading and getting to the books/authors that most interest me.

[Robert]

5 star reads : 19
4 star reads: 36
3 star reads: 14
2 star reads: 2

At this point the reading year is shaping nicely. I have been very choosy and it is paying off.

[Lark]

I keep thinking and/or writing in my reviews: "this is going to be the best book I read this year."

[Nadine in California]

-5 stars: 3
-4 stars: 18
-3 stars: 7
-2 stars: 2

Last year I read 25 5-star books, so I'm not on track this year. But I think that part of the reason is that I'm taking more reading chances this year, so that's a good thing.

[Kathleen]

33 books so far
5 stars - 7 (and another one coming soon)
4 stars - 19
3 stars - 6
2 stars - 1

I think this is fairly typical for me. I made a push for more poetry for National Poetry month, and as much as I’d like that continue, I’m not sure it will. I’m also trying to read more non-fiction (5 so far) and short-stories (5 plus one collection so far). But novels are my greatest love. Best classic so far might be The Portrait of a Lady, and best contemporary, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo.

So yeah, I’m happy. :-)

[Luke]

After a decade and counting spent on GR, I pay more attention to the fulfillment of personal reading projects than to how my star ratings end up falling out. Alongside a combination of reading challenges put on by various groups, I do my best to prioritize older sections of my TBR, works by women and people of color, translations, and whatever monthly themes catch my fancy, as well as set for myself an official Long Read each year. As such, here are relevant stats for what I've read thus far:

Added 2010: 1
Added 2011: 6
Added 2012: 6
Translated into English: 19
Works by Women: 22
Works by People of Color: 20
Long Read: Complete (Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage sequence, totaling 2110 pages)

GR stats don't give an accurate read count for me due to one single work being a four volume set and another four works being contained within a single volume, but after accounting for that, I've read 40 works so far this year, with 30 more planned for my various challenges. As for my thoughts on my progress thus far, I've gotten to many a book I've long put off and/or that has mocked me from atop its respective ivory tower, as well as had some surprisingly positive experiences in areas I wouldn't have expected to. I can't ask for more than that.

[Tamara]

Thanks for showing us how to do this, Marc.

I set a goal to read a total of 80 books this year. I break the goal into different sub categories: 50 books by women authors; 25 books in translation; 24 books from the Middle East and Africa; 10 books of nonfiction; and 10 classics.
I’ve read 38 books so far—nearly half way through my goal.

5 star reads: 9
4 star reads: 19
3 star reads: 9
2 star reads: 1
Total= 38

The longest book is Dostoevsky’s Demons at 788 pages; the shortest is Olga Tokarczuk The Lost Soul at 48 pages.

[Stacia]

I've read 44 so far which is a whopping number for me, especially by this point in the year. (I often end up reading 50-75 books a year.) Mostly feeling decent/good about my reading year so far.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/stat...

My overall lifetime average rating for books is 3.43 so these numbers are generally in line with that...:
5 stars: 7
4 stars: 14
3 stars: 20
2 stars: 1
1 star: 1 (Usually don't have these as I tend to abandon books often.)
0 stars: 1 (Usually reserved for books that are very personal accounts where it feels wrong, somehow, to rate the person's experiences. This time, though, it was for a different reason. The book had two 1950s noir books in it, by two different authors. One story I thought was fine until I hated it; the other story was really good. So the first one I would have given 1 or 0 stars to, while I would have given 4 stars to the second one. It seemed wrong to average the two & pull down the good one while elevating the bad one.)

Both my longest & shortest books were 3-star reads for me: American Gods (640 pages); Eating Bugs as Sustainable Food (48 pages).

Considering books I've abandoned & those I'm currently reading, I think I'm averaging about 75 pages a day. Usually I'm more in the 40-50 pages-a-day range.

[LindaJ^]

This year to date, I've reviewed 82 books (there are a few others to which I have not yet gotten).
5 star -- 10 (12%)
4 star -- 42
3 star -- 27
2 star -- 3
1 star -- 0 (but I've abandoned a couple)
Longest -- 672 pages
Shortest -- 71 pages

Last year I read 206 with 46 (22%) 5-star rated, so it appears the 5-star reads are down but it could also be that I'm rounding down more than up. I've read more audiobooks this year than usual because I got an indoor bike and I listen to books while riding as well as when walking. (I do not listen while riding my bike outside, as drivers around me no longer stop at stop signs before turning right on red and fail to pay any attention to speed limits, so I need all my attention on the road!) I'm also reading fewer print books for covid-related reasons -- have not been able to sit at the coffee shop in the morning and read while having coffee and a danish and not been able until a week ago to go to my second home in another state, where the TV stays off, the radio on, and I read.

My biggest revelation in reading this year came while reading the Women's Prize longlist and realizing that I have a much different life experience than the many of the younger authors, making it hard to relate.

[Bill]

Well clearly I'm a leisurely reader in this crowd! And parsimonious with my stars.

4 stars: 8 (including 4 graphic works)
3 stars: 24
2 stars: 11
no stars (for various reasons, not because they don't deserve one star): 3

[Luke]

Bill wrote: "Well clearly I'm a leisurely reader in this crowd! And parsimonious with my stars.

4 stars: 8 (including 4 graphic works)
3 stars: 24
2 stars: 11
no stars (for various reasons, not because they do..."

Haha, your parsimonious stars and mine make good company.

5 star: 1
4 star: 13
3 star: 15
2 star: 12
1 star: 1

I never abandon works and always give read ones a star rating.

[Janet]

My reading year so far
To date, I’ve read 18 books
5 stars - 2
4 stars -15
1 unrated
15 were written in English, 3 in French
Most are novels. My goal is to read more in French, so I’m pleased with progress on that front.

[Danita L]

Marc wrote: "I've been having a wonderful reading year with an embarrassment of riches. Currently:
- 5 star reads: 10
- 4 star reads: 18"

TEN 5-Star reads! OMG, okay, I'm checking it out. I need to get out of my reading funk which I am still blaming on COVID, lol.