Citizen Reader

This was the year I totally dispensed with trying to act like I enjoy computers or understand Excel. As such, from the start of 2017 I simply recorded what I read in one of my favorite pieces of technology ever: the notebook.

Not only was it easy to keep up with, it was a total joy to leaf back through the pages and review my year in reading. In addition to titles, authors, and quick descriptions, I also recorded any little asides I wanted, like how the books made me feel and favorite quotes. In addition to recording titles, the notebook also made it easier to track books that I got from the library and either started, didn't like, and didn't need to get back, or books that I got, didn't have time to read, but I really want to read at some point in the future. What that told me was how many times in the year I was simply "not in the mood" to read certain titles. In addition to my eye wonkiness, there were several rough patches where I clearly didn't feel like reading books I normally would have loved. I noted these books by writing down their titles, noting "not in the mood" (and sometimes why I wasn't in the mood: "I may actually be done reading parenting books now."), and then circling them and writing "GET BACK" if I thought I would want to read them sometime in the future.

Let's face it. For me it's just more fun to flip through paper than to scan a spreadsheet. I know they're important and all but I hate spreadsheets. All that organization and tiny little cells trying poorly to hold more information than they can show. Bah!

So I don't have real scientific tallies for you, and I certainly don't have Excel-generated graphs. And you've already seen my Best Books of 2017 lists. So here's the big picture*:

I read 69 nonfiction books. 36 of them were by women. 3 of them were by "writers of color."

I read 15 novels, about half of which I hate-read (I'm still recovering from expending a lot of energy on hating Who Is Rich?).

I looked at and decided I didn't want to read or wasn't in the mood for an additional 15 nonfiction books.

I wrote down the titles of 41 nonfiction books that I didn't have time to read, but that I would like to "get back" from the library. This constitutes a partial TBR list, about which I can only say, "oof." This indicates to me that, as much time as I spend reading, I'd still be happy to spend MORE time reading!

I don't know what any of this means, and refuse to draw any conclusions from a half-assed notebook. You want big sweeping conclusions, you go talk to someone who has their act sufficiently together to make a spreadsheet.

Just kidding. My conclusion is this: I would be so lonely without books. And I would be very lonely without you, dear readers. Thanks for reading and thanks for spending some of your time in 2017 with me. I do so hope you will continue to honor me by visiting here as we all sail along into 2018.

*Which actually does not include the reading I did in December; I wrote this post in November. Fuck it. Close enough! There's my mantra for 2018, which is no big change, since that's been my mantra, basically, since graduating from high school.