Bookish Epiphany Part 2: Devolution by numbers

Yesterday I posted Part 1 of this rather epic exploration of my dissatisfaction with my current relationship with books, as well as with other media that I use on a daily basis - namely, television and the bottomless rabbit hole that is the internet.  I talked about the way my ability to prioritise seems to fail me completely so that I miss out on a lot of the stuff I really used to appreciate, instead spending hours watching the same old telly and messing about online.

In Part 2 I want to delve further into the way my reading habits have changed.  For a while I have been using the collections feature on LibraryThing to add each book I read to a collection for the year (Read in 2011, Read in 2012, etc), but have never actually gone back and looked at them in much detail before.  Until this week my only real interaction with these little reading microcosms has been to idly scroll through them and vaguely feel that some of my previous years' collections contain far more interesting and memorable books than those from the most recent years.  Crunching the numbers over the past few days, looking more closely, I've learned a few startling home truths about my reading habits, which illustrate pretty clearly why my relationship with my reading has gone downhill over the past year or two...

So, here we go.  I started making some kind of record of my reading mid-2006, so that's where we'll start.  I've included university texts where I read them in their entirety (eg. some classic novels) but not if I just used them briefly (eg. for essay research), because there'd be too many to count.  I've classed 'YA and Children's Books' as a genre, simply because I tend to read YA fiction as a break from adult novels and so splitting them up would be beside the point.  The only exceptions to this rule are books like The Wizard of Oz and A Little Princess, which I've counted as classics. 

This may be the most boring post EVER, and if that's the case I do apologise, but I'll be honest... I'm laying this out as much for my own benefit as I am for entertainment value, so just run with it, okay?  Think of it as a chance to get to know me better, and have fun ringing the differences between the statistics here and what I've been reading and reviewing so far this year.  :)

2006 (23 books) 

Male authors: 12 / Female authors: 11

'Serious' books: 14 / 'Fluffy' books: 9

Adult books: 23 / YA and Children's books: 0

Fiction books: 7 / Non-fiction books: 16

By genre

Literary fiction: 5

Miscellaneous non-fiction: 5

Social sciences: 3

Humour: 3

(Auto)Biography: 2

Classics and Poetry: 2 

Travel writing: 1

History: 1

Chick lit: 1

Notes

2006 covered two thirds of my first year at university, and the first semester of my second year.  I read Between the Acts and The Waste Land for my course, and a book on flamenco from the library out of pure interest.  'Books about books' came in the form of Ex Libris and A Book Addict's Treasury, and I also ventured into literary fiction and the social sciences.  I alternated between reading fiction and non-fiction, supplementing heavier classics and ethical manifestos with gripping page-turners and humorous non-fiction.

Highlights

The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafón), A Book Addict's Treasury (Julie Rugg and Lynda Murphy), No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (Naomi Klein), The Highest Tide (Jim Lynch), Ex Libris (Anne Fadiman), Neither Here Nor There (Bill Bryson)

2007 (42 books)

Male authors: 20 / Female authors: 22

'Serious' books: 20 / 'Fluffy' books: 22

Adult books: 35 / YA and Children's books: 7

Fiction books: 15 / Non-fiction books: 27

By genre

Social sciences: 9
(Auto)Biography: 8
YA and Children's: 7
Chick lit: 4
Classics: 3
Travel: 3
Humour: 3
History: 2
Miscellaneous non-fiction: 2
Literary fiction: 1

Notes

Most of 2007 was spent at university, but actually, simultaneously not there.  A rather hideous depressive episode in the last semester of 2006 meant that I took the decision to spend the rest of the academic year away from my course, resuming my studies in September.   Despite this, I still lived in my uni house, worked locally to make up for my halted student loan, and still had all the perks of a student - like a university library card.  I read tons of non-fiction for pleasure, including lots of social science books (mostly on consumer behaviour and children's welfare), a rather obscure 'biography' of Saint Nicholas and the evolution of the Santa figure, Che Guevara's The Motorcycle Diaries, and a potted history of Eton.  This was also the year of the 'all seven Harry Potter novels' marathon, the year I first read the life-changing Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs, the year I finally reread Wuthering Heights, AND the year I discovered that Nicholas Sparks could make me cry even if I already knew the sad part.  In short, this was a great reading year.  One of the two I look back on and think 'yeah, that was the stuff'. 

Highlights

Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets (Joanna Blythman), Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë), The Story of Childhood: Growing Up in Modern Britain (Libby Brooks), Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier), Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs: The Left Bank World of Shakespeare and Co. (Jeremy Mercer), Hunger: An Unnatural History (Sharman Apt Russell), The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks), Shop 'Til You Drop: Consumer Behaviour and American Culture (Arthur Asa Berger - the chart comparing shopping malls to cathedrals and shopping to religion was particularly memorable)

2008 (42 books)

Male authors: 21 / Female authors: 21

'Serious' books: 26 / 'Fluffy' books: 16

Adult books: 36 / YA and Children's books: 6

Fiction books: 21 / Non-fiction books: 21

By genre

Literary fiction: 9
Social sciences: 6
YA and Children's: 6
(Auto)Biography: 4
Humour: 4
Miscellaneous non-fiction: 4
History: 3
Chick lit: 3
Classics: 2
Sci-fi, Fantasy and Horror: 1

Notes

2008 was a very... equal... year in terms of fiction and non-fiction, and male and female authors, leaning towards literary fiction and in-depth non-fiction.  This was the year I was at home, pretty much housebound, thanks to the onset of my agoraphobia.  Many of my favourite books of the year actually came courtesy of a couple of all-out trips to the big library in the next town, where I upheld my university love of taking a chance on all kinds of non-fiction in my quest to learn more about the world.  I read books on Ancient Egypt and Shakespeare, more social science books, and finally picked up A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve.  I discovered Alice Hoffman and Alan Hollinghurst, and reread childhood favourites Matilda and A Little Princess.  This was also the year Twilight hit our shelves (and screens), so I swallowed that whole as well!  This was the second of my two great reading years, I reckon, because I made the time to do what I love best - learn new things and devour great novels.  This, then, was the pinnacle of my reading pleasure. 

Highlights

A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens), Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century (Lauren Slater), The Swimming-Pool Library (Alan Hollinghurst), The Ice Queen (Alice Hoffman), Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You (Samuel Gosling), Tutankhamen: Life and Death of a Pharaoh (Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt), Nefertiti (Michelle Moran), Queuing for Beginners: The Story of Daily Life from Breakfast to Bedtime (Joe Moran), The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers and Family Life (Marie Winn), Good Omens (Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman), This Book Will Save Your Life (A.M. Homes), Year of Wonders (Geraldine Brooks), The Uncommon Reader (Alan Bennett)

2009 (55 books)

Male authors: 28 / Female authors: 27

'Serious' books: 32 / 'Fluffy' books: 23

Adult books: 49 / YA and Children's books: 6

Fiction books: 29 / Non-fiction books: 26

By genre

Literary fiction: 10
(Auto)Biography: 8
Chick lit: 6
Classics: 5
Social sciences: 5
YA and Children's: 5
Miscellaneous non-fiction: 4
Crime and Mystery: 3
Humour: 3
History: 2
Travel writing: 2
Science and Natural history: 1
Sci-fi, Fantasy and Horror: 1

Notes

This, for me, seems to be the year that my reading began to go downhill.  The numbers went up, sure, but the quality (or substance, might be a better word) seemed to go down.  The number of YA novels I read equalled the number of classics, for example, and three of them were the rest of the Twilight Saga.  I loved them, sure, but they weren't exactly high literature!  There was still a diversity there - fiction and non-fiction, male and female authors - but there was also a noticeable shift towards easier reading.  This was the year we refitted and opened the shop, and I found myself reading lots of frivolous incoming stock (humorous books on the modern family, for example), as well as more trashy fiction and lovely but undeniably frothy animal autobiographies like Marley and Me and Under the Paw.  This may also, if I'm not very much mistaken, have been the year I first started challenge reading on LibraryThing (the 50-Book Challenge, I think).  Play the numbers game and things start to slide - coincidence?  I think not. 

Highlights

Running with Scissors (Augusten Burroughs), The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), Cinnamon City: Falling for the Magical City of Marrakech (Miranda Innes), Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel), Firmin (Sam Savage), The Complete Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby), Egypt's Golden Empire: The Age of the New Kingdom (Joyce Tyldesley), My Autobiography (Charlie Chaplin), Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey (Holley Bishop), Gold (Dan Rhodes), Biblioholism (Tom Raabe)

2010 (71 books)

Male authors: 24 / Female authors: 47

'Serious' books: 31 / 'Fluffy' books: 40

Adult books: 54 / YA and Children's books: 17

Fiction books: 53 / Non-fiction books: 18

By genre

YA and Children's: 17
Chick lit: 10
Sci-fi, Fantasy and Horror: 9
Literary fiction: 8
Classics: 5
Social sciences: 4
Humour: 4
Crime and Mystery: 4
Travel: 3
Science and Natural history: 3
(Auto)Biography: 2
Food writing: 1
History: 1

Notes

The bookshop was in full swing in 2010, and I started this blog around the time of our first 'birthday' in July.  This was also the year my reading really changed.  For the first time, lightweight books outweighed the more substantial ones, and fiction had a massive lead on non-fiction.  I think there were various contributing factors: ongoing adjustment to the shift from not working at all to working most of the week; boosting my LT challenge reading from 50 books to 75 books; being 'picked up' by Random House Children's Publishing and suddenly having far more YA novels on my shelves than ever before...  There was a massive increase in my consumption of YA fiction, chick lit and paranormal romance - some good, some bad - and a massive decrease in the amount of social science and history books I read.  The classics stayed steady, mostly during the blissfully quiet winter months.  I think this was the year that, for the first time, I wasn't especially gripped by much of what I read, and I was clearly prioritising quantity over quality.  Bad move Ellie, bad move.

Highlights

North and South (Elizabeth Gaskell), Eat Pray Love (Elizabeth Gilbert), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table (Nigel Slater), The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas), 84, Charing Cross Road (Helene Hanff), Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Sex and Science (Mary Roach), Forbidden (Tabitha Suzuma), Pet Sematary (Stephen King), Wesley: The Story of a Remarkable Owl (Stacey O'Brien), The Snow Goose (Paul Gallico), Bedlam: London and Its Mad (Catharine Arnold), The Snow Tourist: The Search for the World's Purest, Deepest Snowfall (Charlie English), Persuasion (Jane Austen)

2011 (60 books)

Male authors: 26 / Female authors: 34

'Serious' books: 32 / 'Fluffy' books: 28

Adult books: 42 / YA and Children's books: 18

Fiction books: 39 / Non-fiction books: 21

By genre

YA and Children's: 16
Sci-fi, Fantasy and Horror: 9
Literary fiction: 7
Science and Natural history: 6
Humour: 5
(Auto)Biography: 3
Social sciences: 3
Crime and Mystery: 3
Travel writing: 2
Classics: 2
Chick lit: 2
Miscellaneous non-fiction: 2

Notes

By this point we had really settled into shop life, but yet again my reading was suffering.  I hit the big library again over the winter and enjoyed some cracking science books from there, but only read three social science books, and no history at all.  My chick lit consumption was way down in 2011, but I also only read two classics all year, compared with the second set of high figures for YA and paranormal fiction.  Why is this?  I have a feeling it was a combination of laziness and the influence of so many new blogs that I leapt on during my first year of blogging without being particularly selective.  As with all new things, it took a while for the filters to kick in so that I could start paring down to the ones with the tone, information and books that really hit the spot for me.  Of course, it wasn't all bad - I also read some great books thanks to Adam's TBR Pile Challenge, which pushed me quietly towards some of the most neglected titles on my shelves, including The Princess Bride and (finally!) The Hunger Games.

Highlights

Tipping the Velvet (Sarah Waters), How Reading Changed My Life (Anna Quindlen), The Princess Bride (William Goldman), Perfume (Patrick Süskind), Atonement (Ian McEwan), Long Lankin (Lindsey Barraclough), The Shallows: How the Internet is Affecting the Way We Think, Read and Remember (Nicholas Carr), To Touch a Wild Dolphin (Rachel Smolker), Faceless Killers (Henning Mankell), The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan)

2012 (50 books and counting)

Male authors: 24 / Female authors: 26

'Serious' books: 23 / 'Fluffy' books: 27

Adult books: 31 / YA and Children's books: 19

Fiction books: 42 / Non-fiction books: 8

By genre

YA and Children's: 18
Literary fiction: 10
Classics: 5
Humour: 5
Sci-fi, Fantasy and Horror: 3
Crime and Mystery: 3
Miscellaneous non-fiction: 2
Graphic novels: 1
Social sciences: 1
(Auto)Biography: 1
Chick lit: 1

Notes

Look at those statistics!  'Fluffy' reads outstripping more substantial ones, and my non-fiction reading outweighed by a ratio of around 4:1.  It's no wonder I've not exactly been engaging with the reading life thus far in 2012, is it?  I've read no science, natural history, travel or history books at all, and even the lone social science book was really an autobiography (Nina Here Nor There, Nick Krieger's transgender memoir).  At least my classics numbers have stayed steady, thanks in large part to Hanna's LXG Challenge.  A shocking proportion of my reading this year has been YA fiction, mostly due to spells of guilt reading when I've realised how many review copies I've got stacking up.  I've counted only twelve books so far in 2012 that I've really, truly enjoyed, and those were mostly library books!  These figures are the most devastating of them all, from where I'm sitting.

Highlights

On the Island (Tracey Garvis Graves), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson), In Cold Blood (Truman Capote), Rant: An Oral Biography of Rant Casey (Chuck Palahniuk), V for Vendetta (Alan Moore and David Lloyd), King Solomon's Mines (H. Rider Haggard), The Sisters Brothers (Patrick deWitt), The Snow Child (Eowyn Ivey), Dearly, Departed (Lia Habel), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky)


Conclusions

Looking at the figures year by year, it becomes very clear that my reading habits have pretty much done a full 180-degree turn since I started keeping my nerd-lists in 2006.  More importantly, as the numbers have shifted and my reading has veered further away from classics and non-fiction and further into the frothy end of the book spectrum, my satisfaction and enjoyment have waned noticeably.  I don't doubt that experimenting with new genres, and having a wider outlook thanks to the blogs I read, can only be a good thing, but if my favourite books of each year have remained very similar - non-fiction on subjects that really interest me, books about books, literary fiction, classics - then why have I allowed my reading choices to veer so far away from what I clearly love the most?  Likewise, it becomes apparent that the more reading obligations I have - challenges, numerical targets, lists, review copies - the less I'm reading of the things that really make me tick.  I'm reading to hit targets and cross off boxes rather than to learn and enjoy what my books have to offer.  The quality of my reading has been sidelined in favour of quick fixes, popular fluff, and the need to review 'often enough' on the blog.

In the last part of this Epiphany, Manifesto, Whatever You Want To Call It Thingy, I'll be pulling all these points together and working out where to go from here.  How can I start easing my reading back towards where my bookish satisfaction clearly lies?  What does that mean for the way I use my time, and for the way I think of my blogging responsibilities?  What can I do to quench my thirst for learning again and become the passionate reader I once was?

If you've stuck with this post through all the figures and notes, then congratulations!  I hope it's been interesting, or at the very least mildly entertaining.  Go have a nice lie down with a drink and a plate of cookies, you deserve it!  And if you have any thoughts to share or want to contribute to the discussion, then hit that comment box...  Until Part 3, amigos!