Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered.
About how many books do you read in a year? Do you want to read more? Or, less?
I used to read anywhere from 10 to 20 books a year. Maybe 25 or 30 once I added audio books to my commute to work. As I finished, I wrote them as a list in a journal. The past few years I've tracked my reading solely through Goodreads.
About six or seven years ago, I saw some posts on a message forum where people tracked their books, and they read between 50-100 books a year. I used to think reading 50 books a year was impossible! Since I started writing a few years back, I've doubled the amount of books I read in a year. I've made a commitment to reading reading more, and I make sure to take a book with me everywhere; I usually have a print book, ebook, and audio book going at all times. This year I adjusted my goal to 70 books. I'm about six shy, but I'm working through two books now and have a few more I'd like to finish. The more I read and the more writing I do, the more books I discover. Thanks to all the blogs I read, I will never be at a loss of what to read next.
How about you? How many books do you read in a year? Do you track them?
Also: Stay tuned to my blog tomorrow for a special guest post by Angela Ackerman, co-author of The Emotion Thesaurus, a really cool resource for writers.
Posts
Since I started tracking in 2006 I've averaged about 48 books/16,000 pages a year. Which is about what I'm on track for this year. I usually have anywhere from 2-8 books going at a time. Some are finished in days, others months, and some get set aside (though I often will finish them at some point).
ReplyDeleteI started tracking them in a notebook. Then I switched to a spreadsheet. Now I use both the spreadsheet and Goodreads. Goodreads has everything tagged, rated, and social while my spreadsheet keeps better statistics.
I think I've read... fifteen? Epic fail. But I did spend many months working on my third book. And I do plan on reading several more books over the Christmas break.
ReplyDeleteI go through fazes, but overall I actually read more now that I have an iPad. Not sure what that means...
Not a fail! I used to read about that many books a year, sometimes less. I've just purposely made efforts to read more recently and have time for it. I love how ereaders and tablets have made reading more accessible. Much easier to carry an ereader around than a heavy book (although I do both!)
DeleteI love my Goodreads account and the little reading challenge widget. I'll do anything if I can put a tracking widget in my sidebar (it's what got me through NaNoWriMo!) I can definitely relate to the decision to carve out more and more moments for reading--it's amazing how much you can read in stolen moments of the day!
ReplyDeleteYes, I track my books to prevent any awkwardness that might come with a deja-read. (Been there.) But it's also interesting to know how many books I've read in a given time period as well.I haven't read as many books this year as I would've liked because of morning sickness and the duties of taking care of a newborn.
ReplyDeleteI love Goodreads for this very reason...so nice to easily track what I've read year to year and see my count increase! (Though I'm still WAY behind you...lol).
ReplyDeleteI think my goal this year was 40? I'm a few shy but reading a couple right now, so I hope to atleast get *close* by the end of the year.
It amazes me how much my writing has improved with my reading. Not a coincidence. :)
I had no idea until I started blogging. I set my Goodreads goal for 100 books and had to keep upping it -- I'm at 192 and hope to make it to 200 by year's end!
ReplyDeleteI with everyone else, Goodreads and blogging have revolutionized my reading life. Good for you for meeting your reading goal!
ReplyDeleteGoodness. Keeping track? I don't tend to do that. I read so haphazardly and sometimes multiple books at once. I think I probably average somewhere around 20 books a month, so maybe around 240 to 250 books a year. That's actually down from when I was reading about a book a day, but those were shorter books and/or I had more time on my hands. I think I read a book and a half today. No, I finished the first one...at two this morning, but it still doesn't count since I hadn't been to bed yet.
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