The year in books: 2013 edition

I'm going to just go ahead and ignore the fact that I haven't posted anything on this blog in 3 months (as well as the fact that I only have one reader left (Hi, Anon!)), and I'll launch right into my annual recap of the books I read over the past year. 2013 was a record year in book consumption for me, with 54 books read or listened to. Yes, you read that right: 54! (And I was all psyched when I reported reading 51 books in 2012. Pssh.) It seems that as I age I only get better, like a fine wine...except I don't really mellow out with age, I just read more and more and more, so maybe not like a fine wine at all. In any case, check this out--talk about (self-)improvement!*:

Sadly, aside from the raw numbers, 2013 wasn't a terrific year for me in terms of book selection. Would you believe I rated zero books 5 stars in 2013 (on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is best)? Usually I have at least one 5-star book, if not more, but nope, not in 2013, when the top rating I gave any book was 4.5 (though there were two of those). Another six books got 4 stars from me in 2013. Contrast that with 2012, when I gave one book 5 stars, three books 4.5 stars, and twelve books 4 stars. I'm gonna have to make some better choices in 2014!

Key: Books I loved = 4.5; Books I liked a lot = 4; Books I liked OK = 3;
Books I didn't like very much = 2.5 or lower

Over half of the books I consumed last year were Kindle books (59%). Just seven (10%) were real, honest-to-goodness, paper books. That's kind of sad, because I really, really love physical books. But damn if it isn't way more convenient to read books on my Kindle--or to read Kindle books on my iPad or my phone. No need to plan ahead or to lug big heavy blocks of paper around in my already-too-heavy bag. With the magic of Kindle, I'm never without my current reading material! If someone is late or if I have to wait in line, out pops the phone, and bam, I'm edjumucating (or edifying) myself! (Note to self: you sound like a Kindle infomercial. Note to Kindle: I am available to host an infomercial.)

The Kindle has virtually ruined my dream of having a room in my future
house stocked full of books that I have read (pun intended).

Speaking of edjumucating (or not), I didn't do terribly well in 2013 in terms of reading non-fiction. A paltry five of the 51 books I consumed were non-fiction (that's 9%, versus 22% of the books I read in 2012). Interestingly, though, three of the books I liked best during 2013 were non-fiction. This seems to be a trend with me--I mostly read fiction, but my favorite books of the past few years have been non-fiction (cf. here and here). And yet, I don't regret for an instant reading all those made up stories (I only wish I had read more non-made-up stories). Hm. I'll have to think about what that says about me.

Man. And two of the non-fiction books were about food, too,
which I already kinda know about.

I read a lot of medium-length books in 2013 (average page count for Kindle and paper books: 331; median page count: 320).

Chart shows page counts for Kindle and real books only.
Page counts are based on the print copy (paperback if available
at time of calculation, hardcover if not).

Similarly, I listened to a lot of medium-length audiobooks. Average audio length: 14.1 hours; median length: 12.9 hours. My audio books ranged in listening time from 8.1 hours (blessedly short, thank goodness, I didn't like that one**) to 32.5 hours (thankfully, I did (mostly) like that one). Interestingly, in their paper form my audio books tended to be longer than my kindle/real books (average page count for audio books: 416, median: 384).

This data surprises me, because I usually try to pick audiobooks
that are as long as possible. Apparently I couldn't find many long
books I was interested in. Oh god, what if I've listened to them all?

Perhaps because I didn't consume very many super long books, I finished almost all of my books in a month or less--and I finished half of them in less than 10.5 days (average length of time reading or listening: 14.5 days; median: 10.5 days). Surprisingly, my audiobooks tended to be consumed faster than my reading books (average length of time to consume audio books: 13.2, real books: 15.1 days)

If you're wondering how this math works, know that I always have
two to three books going at once.

More fun book trivia...but no graphs. I'm tired of making graphs.

• Average rating for all of my 2013 books: 3.0. Average rating for audio books: 3.2, for non-audio books: 3.0. I apparently do a better job picking my listening books than I do my reading books.
• My favorite books of the year: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves; This Is Not Your City. Though I wouldn't necessarily recommend either of them to other people; they are both best suited for particular tastes--especially the latter, which is depressing as hell.
• My least favorite books of the year: The Angel's Game (I will never read another Zafón); Every Contact Leaves a Trace (that will teach me to accept a suggestion from Audible.com); Promise Not to Tell (not even worth the bargain price I paid for it years ago)
• Books I might recommend to others: Going Clear (holy smokes fascinating); The Curfew (weird and wonderful); Salt Sugar Fat (also fascinating, but more I-kinda-already-knew-that fascinating versus holy smokes fascinating)
• Number of short story collections read: 6 (average rating for short story collections: 3.5, versus 3.0 for everything else--I guess I do okay picking out short story collections as well).
• Months I finished the most books: April and May (6 in each)
• Month I finished the fewest books: August (2)
• Book that took the longest to read: The Idiot (124 days -- started in October 2012, finally finished in January, 2013)
• Book I read fastest: Thousand Cranes (1 cross-country airplane ride)
• Shortest book: The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (134 pages)
• Longest book (in pages and in audio time): The Goldfinch (784 pages; 32.5 hours).
• Number of dystopian*** novels consumed: 11. Number of dystopian-esque novels consumed: 3.
• Favorite dystopian novel: Love Minus Eighty (though it was only slightly above average)
• Favorite dystopian-esque novel: The Curfew (this one I liked a lot).
• Oddest books consumed: The Curfew and The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (tie for oddness, but I liked the former better than the latter)
• Number of books read for a book club: 2. Number of times I actually showed up at the book club: 1.
• Number of  books taking place in Spain that I read while on vacation in Spain: 2. Number of said books that I liked: 0. Chance that I will tailor my vacation book selection to the location of my next vacation: very low.
• Most common book length: 352 pages (n = 9. Nine! Wha???)
• Books I started in 2013 but which I am still reading: 2. 

And that's about it for my summary of the books I read last year. If you want to know more about my reading, you can (as always) visit my Goodreads page, and you can also peruse this Google spreadsheet I made, which includes my reading data from 2012 and 2013. Now: Bring on the books for 2014!

*Confession: if you look at the number of pages read each year, I seem to have peaked in 2011. But we won't talk about that; I'm not even sure how Goodreads calculates page counts.
**Which was really disappointing, because I read it after hearing about it on this awesome Radiolab Short and I had high hopes.
***Why does spell check want to turn "dystopia" into "utopia"? That's not at all what I'm trying to say!