Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Road Trip Wednesday: How Many Books Do You Read in a Year?


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. 

This week's topic
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.  

9 comments:

  1. 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).

    I 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.

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  2. 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.
    I go through fazes, but overall I actually read more now that I have an iPad. Not sure what that means...

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    1. 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!)

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  3. I 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!

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  4. Yes, 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.

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  5. I 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).

    I 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. :)

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  6. 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!

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  7. I with everyone else, Goodreads and blogging have revolutionized my reading life. Good for you for meeting your reading goal!

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  8. Goodness. 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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