One Last Look Back at 2006 or Ripping Off Someone Else's Brilliant Idea

Others are much better at coming up with interesting ideas than I am, but I figure as long as I give them credit, it isn’t stealing when I take their terrific ideas and run with them . Thus, I’m giving Dorr (better known as Dorothy W. to those who don’t insist on coming up with nicknames for everyone) credit for analyzing the books she read in 2006, providing us with some great statistics. What a wonderful thing she did. I couldn’t get it out of my mind until I’d analyzed my 2006 list, changing it a tiny bit to make it my own. So here are the results:

Total number of titles read: 63
Total number aborted after reading at least 30 pages: 2
Total number of pages read: 17146 (You may wonder how I manage to have this number. Well, it’s a definite sign that I’m weird and/or that I work in publishing. When I record the books I read, I give a full bibliographic record, including copyright date(s), publisher, and number of pages. You can assume this number is a bit misleading, because some of the books I read had indices, and I promise you, even I’m not enough of a geek to read through all those. But it’s a close approximation. I thought about doing a “number of publishers” category as well, but I didn’t want to have to bother to look up all the various imprints, and I figure that since most trade books are published by imprints of one of the big three publishers, the number would probably just be 3. We’ll ignore the fact that I read quite a few books that are old and were published by houses that no longer even exist.)
Number of books written by women: 33
Number of books written by men: 29
Number of books that were written in the 19th century: 3
Number of books that were written in the first half of the 20th century: 10
Number of books that were written in the second half of the 20th century: 22
Number of books that were written in the 21st century: 27
Number of books of poetry: 6
Number of children’s books: 15
Number of books written by American authors: 34
Number of books written by non-American authors: 27
Number of collected works that included both male and female authors, as well as works from various centuries: 1
Number that were listened to as opposed to being read: 4 (we have big debates in our house as to whether or not this counts as reading a book. I claim it does. After all, the art of storytelling has been around far longer than the accessible written word has been, and the accessible written word is just a form of storytelling for the masses. The question should really be: does reading a book count as listening to a story?)
Number that were re-reads: 4

And now, I’ve realized, based on these numbers, there’s a lot of b.s. I may need to rethink next time I start spouting it off, such as:

“I read books all the time.” The better statement is, “I have no idea what the hell I’m doing with all my free time.” I mean, 7146 pages? I know I’m a slow reader, but even at my rate, that’s at most about 45 minutes of book reading a day. That’s not all the time. That’s about how long it takes to cook and eat dinner, and I don’t go around saying, “I cook and eat dinner all the time.” I’m scrapping all my other New Year’s resolutions in exchange for one: increase this number to at least an hour a day.

“I don’t read much written past 1950, and forget anything written since 2000.” Well, that’s certainly a bold-faced lie, isn’t it? In fairness, when I make that statement, I’m usually referring to fiction, but I’m afraid to go back and categorize how many of those post-1950 titles were fiction, because getting caught in yet another lie would just be too depressing.

“I have no problem starting a book and deciding not to finish it, and I do it all the time.” Yeah, just like I read books all the time.

“I used to read mostly books written by men, but that’s changed, and now I much prefer to read books written by women.” So, have there been a lot of sex change operations going on in the world of writers lately or something?

“I don’t read poetry much.” Well, six out of 63 still isn’t all that much, but when I say that, I’m usually thinking, “maybe one collection a year, if that.” Then again, I’ve lately been saying “I’m going to make a concerted effort to read more poetry,” and it looks like I did so in 2006, so maybe there’s one lie I haven’t been telling.

“I need to expand my horizons, because almost everything I read is written by American authors.” That would be a completely true statement, if I’d add “…by American and British authors.”

“I read children’s books, but usually only ones I enjoyed as a child.” Well, this statement was skewed this year, because I discovered Alan Garner, and have a friend who happens to own almost everything he ever wrote, an author I would have loved as a child, if I’d known he existed, as well as Neil Gaiman, who wasn’t writing when I was a child, and I read the third Harry Potter book (yes, I’m very behind in reading Harry Potter, but mainly because every time I read one, I’m driven to go back and read things like the E. Nesbits I loved so much as a child, and which I find to be superior to Harry Potter. I mean, I dare you to find any character in children’s literature more wonderful than The Phoenix in The Phoenix and the Carpet. He's the Platonic kiddie lit character, much more enoyable as an adult than I remember him being as a child). But, I’ve now learned that it’s fun to discover children’s authors I’ve never read, and I’m hoping to read more in the future.

“I re-read books all the time.” Another flat-out lie, if this year’s statistics are any indication. Good thing I don’t, though. What a waste of my measly 45-minutes a day, when there’s so much out there yet to be discovered.

All right, and now we can finally put 2006 to rest, I think.