2011 Reading Statistics

Well, another year down.  In terms of reading it was very similar to last year and that surprises me after all of the lows I have had this year in my personal life.  I would say if I was at my full potential this year I would have accomplished so much more reading.  But that being said, it wasn't a bad reading year.

Here are some statistics:

I read 68 books this year - the same exact number as in 2010!  I was a little surprised because I thought I had read more than 2010.  But alas...

Out of those 68, I reviewed (or will be finishing up reviewing in January) 55 of those.  The others are mostly audiobooks from the contemporary genre that I don't really review.  So overall that is 10 more reviews than 2010.  I credit this to my desire to review more of the books I read as well as listening to some historicals on audio.  I read 15,053 pages and listened to 294.81 hours of audio.

To look at the book formats, genres, and settings I created a couple of charts (much more interesting than lists of numbers!).  Some of these statistics overlap.

 My book formats were pretty evenly split between audiobooks, paperback, and ARCs.

I did spread my horizons a little this year and read from a wider variety of genres, even if it was only a book or two in some of them, but clearly historical fiction reigns supreme.  I was pretty impressed with my non-fiction stats!

I actually read across a wide number of settings - noticeably missing is Asia - I still haven't really explore that setting yet.  Maybe that will change in 2012.

Male to female author ratio - 16:44.  This is an improvement in male authors over last year, and I contribute that to the emergence of more male authors in historical fiction who I am willing to take a chance on.

In my own personal reading quest of reading First Lady and President books I manged 2 of each - quite an accomplishment seeing as I only stated in the last quarter of this year.

The authors that I read the most this year include: Janet Evanovich (3), Christy English (2), William Shakespeare (2), James Patterson (2), Kate Quinn (2), Elizabeth Chadwick (2), and C.S. Lewis (2).

Alright, time for my favorite reads of 2011 - just a note, not all of these were published in 2011, just read in 2011.  All of these I reviewed and you can click on the links to read them.  These are in no particular order.

The Tudor Secret by C. W. Gortner
India Black by Carol Carr
The Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan
Prima Donna by Megan Chance
Mistress of Rome by Kate Quinn
New York by Edward Rutherfurd
The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin
1906 by James Dalessandro
A Race to Splendor by Ciji Ware
The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel.

Honorable Mentions that didn't make the Top 10


The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons
First Family by Joseph Ellis

There are 5 books that I really didn't love this year - and they were significant enough to continue to stand out in my mind throughout this year.

Blood and Silk by Carol McKay
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Broken Promises by Elizabeth Hoffman
The King's Daughter by Christie Dickason

In 2012 I hope to meet my goal of reading 75 books - a manageable number if I don't get down with a really bad cold or other disasters.  I'm also hoping to increase my number of non-fiction reads and maybe journey into Asia a little.  Hope you will continue to stick with me in 2012!




Copyright © 2012 by The Maiden’s Court