Tag: 25 books

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reading

Reading Goals 2013

Every year I tweak my goals a bit – we’ve have 25 books, 6000 pages 2010 and 2011 and RED –  and this year will be no different. Except perhaps that it’s more than “tweak”.

This year I do have a number of goals but I also have a guiding principle and I’ve decided that my goals are all things to aim (note the “try to”s below) for but the guiding principle is what over-rules everything. So here goes…

Goals

  1. Try to read 40 books this year. 50 was a stretch but I managed 34. 40 will be another stretch but doable I hope.
  2. Try to reduce my To-Be-Read (TBR) list by 16. It’s currently at 251 so that will make a nice round 235.
  3. Try to finish all the books I start. May be harder and this goal is likely to be most in conflict with my Guiding Principle.
  4. Try to reduce my Goodreads “Currently Reading” shelf to 1 (or 2,3… if I’m genuinely reading them at the same time). Ever since I started using Goodreads I haven’t taken a book off my CR shelf unless I put it there in error or I finished reading it. This includes books I started, stalled on and later re-started from scratch. So essentially this boils down to “finish/re-read books I previously started”.

Those are the goals and the only goals. No page-counts, genres or other factors involved.

The Guiding Principle

In pursuing these goals I will abide by the following principle, especially when taking action which may appear to conflict with one of the goals (like abandoning a book, or increasing my TBR):

Reading is supposed to be fun, try to enjoy it.

Taking it a Step Further

Thinking about the Guiding Principle has made me wonder about being even more radical. Let’s just review how we got here.

This all started really because of  Harry Potter. Remember “Am I Crazy”? I wanted to re-read all the HP books before the new one came out. The need/desire to figure out if I was on track gave birth to my first tracking spreadsheet – crude and simplistic compared to what was to come. The next significant event was in 2009 when I realised that I’d only read 4 books in the whole of 2008. So “25 Books” was born and an improved version of the spreadsheet was created.

As 25 Books turned into 6000 pages I found that I needed/wanted a better spreadsheet to track what I was reading. This is essentially what I still use today, although even in the last couple of days I’ve been improving it further.

Now let’s be honest, there’s a geeky pleasure in the tracking itself. I like setting up the spreadsheets. I like watching the effect as I record time spent reading, comparing my pg/hr rate for my current book to previous ones or the overall average, working out roughly how long it will take to get to the next chapter, or next book, how far behind target I am and so on. All this is its own kind of fun but it’s not really about reading. Worse it’s possible it even detracts from or is displacement for actual reading.

It’s odd to think – it’s become so normal for me – but for the last four years whenever I’ve picked up a book to read I’ve also been making a note of how long I read for and how many pages I read. It’s not that big of an overhead and since I mainly read ebooks any device I’m reading on is automatically also a device I can record this info on. But the fact is that it doesn’t have that sense of just picking up and starting to read and maybe, just maybe it’s one of those barriers to entry that I was talking about in a previous post.

So here’s the idea: maybe I’ll give up the spreadsheet this year. I’ll still keep a note of which books I read, and I’ll certainly put up reviews but I’ll pass on the slightly obsessive recording part.

At least that’s the idea. I’d be giving up the geeky fun part in the hope of getting something else in return. That something I guess would be a sense of it being a lighter, simpler fun activity rather than a chore or an assignment. But there’s a part of me that will miss using my shiny new spreadsheet.

So that’s what I’m thinking but I’m still not sure if I’ll do it. Ultimately having fun whilst reading is probably more about choosing the right books.

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25 books reading reviews

25 Books – 18 is *nearly* 25 right?

So this is the official “25 books“ 2009 wrap-up post. I nearly wrote it last night but in the end I only had time to collate the stats and work out the points. But we’ll get to that.

As you can see from the title the magic number was 18. I read 18 books in 2009. Not quite 25. Not even 20. But still quite a few more than I would have read and therefore an achievement. Instead of a book every two weeks I read one every three (roughly, on average).

Some Numbers

So since we’re talking numbers let’s do the stats thing. No point in keeping complicated spreadsheets and not doing the stats thing right? In 2009…

  • I read for a total of 98 hours and 23mins, or 16mins a day
  • My reading speed was 50pages/hour
  • I read a total of 4924 pages, or 13 pages a day
  • Since I read 18 books this means the books had an average of 274 pages each
  • I read one book every 20 1/4 days on average but…
  • I only read on 71 out of the 365 days meaning that…
  • I averaged 1hour 23mins on days I actually read
  • I read an average of 69 pages on those days
  • There were long gaps between bouts of reading. The longest was 54days. The next three longest were 40, 35 and 35 days respectively. So there really were isolated but intense periods of lots reading and literally weeks of not.

Enough Numbers What Have You Learnt?

Patience. How about I tell you about how well I did with regard to the “rules” of the challenge? You know the points?

Fair Enough – So How Did You Score?

Here’s those rules:

“1. Read at least 25 books before the end of 2009”

I read 18 books.

“2. No more than 3 (of the 25) can be books you’ve read before. If you read more than 25 can you re-read others.”

I didn’t re-read any books.

“3. You should read at least 3 books by authors you’ve not read before.”

Of the 18, 12 were by authors I’d never read before – Richard Matheson (I am Legend), David Almond (Skellig), W.E.Bowman (Rum Doodle), Stieg Larsson (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), F. Scott Fitzgerald (Great Gatsby), Brian Aldiss (Hothouse),Cally Taylor (Heaven Can Wait), J.D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye), John Lindqvist (Let the Right One In), (Beowulf), David Peace (1974), Paul Torday (Girl on the Landing)

“4. This should include at least 2 new authors (i.e. not just 3 books by 1 new author)”

See above

“5. At least one book must have been published (for the first time) in 2009”

Heaven Can Wait, Juliet Naked and Girl on the Landing were all new in 2009.

“6. For each of the targets 1-5 deduct a point if you miss it.”

Even though I only read 18 books that’s only one target missed so

-1

“7. If you read a book from a genre you’ve never read before add a point”

I read Horror, Travel Parody, Literary Fiction, Chick Lit., Crime/Thriller, Espionage. That’s six

+6 = 5

“8. If you read a book that you wouldn’t have read but for a recommendation add a point.”

My sister recommended Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I bought and read Skellig because it was on a display advertised as “recommended by Nick Hornby”. Rum Doodle was a secret santa present I wouldn’t have bought for myself.

+3 = 8

“9. If you read a book that can only be bought second-hand add a point.”

Hothouse is out of print.

+1 = 9

“10. If you read a book first published more than 50 years ago and still in print add a point. For books first published more than 200years ago add 2 points. For books published more than 500 years add 3 points and for books written over 1000years ago add 4 point.”

Beowulf dates from somewhere between the 8th and early 11th century. 1026 is the latest date associated with the manuscripts. I’m going to go with the probabilities and call it a 1000+ book.

+4 = 13

I had no 500+ or 200+ books. (Though I would have had if I hadn’t set aside Persuasion) but I had 4 50+ ones – Great Gatsby, I am Legend, Rum Doodle and Catcher in the Rye.

+1 (x4) = 17

So I scored 17points. Which is a fairly meaningless number without something to compare it to.

Speaking of Scores…

Almost forgot, the average score a book received was 7.0 – which means I basically enjoyed most of the books. That’s a little higher than I expected. I guess I remember the few low scoring ones.

So Any Conclusions?

I’ve learnt that given where I am right now, it makes more sense to read stuff I know I’ll enjoy rather than try to force myself to expand my horizons too much. Having said that I also learn that I enjoy genres I didn’t think I would like crime and horror. I also learnt that I tend to read a lot in little bursts – a few hours a day for a few days. I’d like to spread that out a little but honestly I think some of that coms from the way reading works – if you get into a good book you want to read it more.

All in all I feel pleased. By setting myself targets I read more that I would otherwise I and enjoyed most of what I read. I also read things I might not have considered.

I was going to wrap this up by setting out goals for 2010 (no, they’re not the same) but this post is long enough already.

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25 books reading reviews

25 Books, Book 11, Juliet,Naked – Nick Hornby

Juliet, Naked is the latest novel by Nick Hornby who, as you know, I tend to quite like. Which is to say at his best I really enjoy his work (High Fidelity, Slam) but even his lesser books are very readable (How to be Good, About a Boy).

The Juliet of the title refers to a seminal album by a slightly obscure singer-songwriter, Tucker Crowe, who hasn’t written or recorded anything, or even performed in twenty-odd years. The book follows one of his more obsessive fans, Duncan, Duncan’s girlfriend Annie and Tucker himself. When Annie and Duncan split up, Annie writes a scathing review of a newly released CD of demos “Juliet, Naked” and posts it on Duncan’s fan-website. Tucker reads it, agrees with it and emails Annie. An unlikely and slightly odd friendship develops.

It was strange reading this on the heels of Starting Over because it covers some of the same ground – middle-aged regret and soul-searching – but I hadn’t consciously decided to read books with those themes. It was interesting that of the three characters I mention above it’s Duncan – who is in some ways is another music-nerd straight out of High Fidelity – who gets the least time in the book (though he has a pivotal scene near the end). It’s interesting because it’s as if we’ve gone back to High Fidelity but are now looking at the same things through different eyes. This book is nowhere near as forgiving of the fan-ish behaviour. Instead we follow Annie, who at best tolerated Duncan’s fandom and Tucker who has a messy life the reality of which is almost unconnected with his fans’ perceptions.

There was a lot that I liked about this book. Annie was an interesting female perspective to follow and someone I felt for. Tucker was also a character that I liked, though I was slightly exasperated with some of his selfishness. His charm tended to make me forgive him – which seems to be his impact on those around him generally. If there was humour in this book that I ‘got’ (and there was) it was usually from Tucker’s strand.

What I liked less was the ending. Without giving too much away, whether you feel it is a happy, or even just satisfying ending will probably depend on the degree to which you like and care about the different characters. The one(s) I most wanted a positive resolution for got a rather vague, possibly optimistic one, and the one(s) that got the ‘best’ ending I felt deserved it least. That’s a bit confusing but I don’t want to give it away because despite that I think it’s worth a read.

7/10 – not Hornby’s best and shame about the ending.

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25 books reading reviews

25 Books, Book 10 – Starting Over – Tony Parsons

Starting Over is another very readable, ‘funny’ book where I don’t quite get the humour but don’t mind. It’s by Tony Parsons who I’ve read before but can remember almost nothing about the last book of his I read. I bought Starting Over on the way back from a visit to M.’s to read on the train and partly out of frustration with my then current book (The Book Thief, now officially a Set Aside I guess).

Starting Over is the story of a forty-something man whose life is pretty good apart from his congenital heart problem. He has a good job, a lovely/loving wife and good relationships with his kids. Then he has a heart attack, a heart transplant and has to rebuild his life. He almost doesn’t manage it.

And the reason he has to rebuild his life is not because he has to re-gain his health, it’s because, having been given a new lease of life and health he almost wrecks what he has.

This book is all about what it means to be young, to be old and to ‘grow up’. Whether to ‘settle down’ means abandoning your dreams or whether ‘following your dream’ can actually be immaturity and lack of responsibility. It raises these questions and gives the answers that you probably think that it does – which is to say it doesn’t try to answer them to explicitly but as far as it does comes down somewhere in the middle.

I enjoyed this book, though it pushed some of my buttons given that I’m slightly younger than the main character and slightly older than his wife – but unlike him I’m pretty much on my own.

Anyway that aside, I think it’s a good book. It’s not terribly profound but it’s readable and occasionally funny. It feels like it has rather too many ‘meaningful’ scenes towards the end and the very end is a little predictable (or do I mean comforting?)

7/10 – good but not amazing.

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25 books reading

25 Books, book 7, Binary – The Vaccinator/Andy Warhol’s Dracula

This book is actually a slim volume containing two longish short stories – one from Michael Marshall Smith and one from Kim Newman. I bought it for the Smith one but have just finished both and so I’m including it in my 25 books list.

The Vaccinator

It’s hard to know what to say about this story. It’s about a guy living in the Florida Keys who hires himself out as a kind of hostage negotiator for a very particular kind of ‘kidnappings’ as he refers to them (you’ll probably know them by another phrase).

The main character is engaging – he’s one of those ultra-competent macho men that are up to any challenge. He’s not as entertaining as Stark – my favourite Smith character from Only Forward, but that would be a tall order. It’s fun and quirky and doesn’t take itself too seriously, though it’s not an outright comedy either. Worth checking out if you’re a fan or a Smith completist.

6/10

Andy Warhol’s Dracula

This is a vampire story set in the late 70s. It mixes a straight-forward narrative with excerpts from an academic paper on the life and work of Andy Warhol – who was a vampire. Or at least in this alternate world he was.

Considering that I’m such a huge fan of Buffy you might find it odd that I generally avoid vampire fiction whether in movie, TV or book form. There’s just so much of it and so much of it isn’t that original. Given that, and given that I didn’t really care for the interruptions to the story that the academic paper provides, I was a little surprised to find myself won over by this. Even more so because the writing generally was so ‘busy’ – the exact opposite of the kind of spare, simple prose I think I like. Florid descriptions and colourful word-pictures abounded.

In the end though it had an engaging main character and an intriguing concept. Johnny Pop is a vampire who at the outset kills a punk girl Nancy and frames her drug-addled boyfriend Sid for it. The story goes on to chart his rise in the 70s nightlife of New York as he creates the drug ‘drac’ which is a form of powdered vampire blood that allows you to feel the rush of being a nosferatu for a night.

This is an alternate reality where not only do vampires exist and are widely known about, almost accepted, but also is peopled with a wide variety of characters from fiction and celebrities from our world. I guess it makes sense – Warhol is someone who made art using figures from popular culture, someone who arguably ‘fed’ off the celebrity of others,  and so it’s fitting that in this world where he’s a literal vampire we bump into Travis Bickle and Tony Manero , as well as Blondie, Sid and Nancy and a whole host of others.

Spotting the references was fun – I had to look up a couple and I’m sure there’s ones I missed – but in the end it was the story that pulled me through. I did want to know what happened next.

8/10