Goodreads has decided the year has finished, even though I’ve got a BFS book club book still on the go, and a definite plan to chill and read solely for pleasure like the Norwegians do on Christmas Eve.
Never mind, they’ve decided I’m done and have sent me some pretty graphics.
Yes, I suppose I do give a lot of 5 star reviews, but that’s for a couple of reasons: I research the books I want to read before I read them; sometimes I don’t finish the books I don’t absolutely love.
Anyway, I’ve worked on two anthologies this year, plus lots of novels for various publishers that I wouldn’t count here, so these stats are incomplete in truth. I’m still quite pleased with my year-on-year imcrease, even though I’m still hardly managing a third of the books I was reading before I moved to Northampton. If I compare my life now with what it was like then I can see why I don’t read quite as much as I used to.
- Sixteen years ago I was working fewer hours and my commute was a 45-minute walk to work each way – or I’d get the bus, which gave me more time to read.
- I didn’t have a smartphone, just an iPod.
- Facebook was around, but nothing to write home about. I spent more time on Livejournal if anything, and that would be checking in perhaps every other day. Definitely no more than once a day. That, and a few Birmingham bloggers, was about it for social media.
- Terrestrial TV only! And no recording options on my old telly. I would watch my carefully curated DVDs while doing the ironing. No random new series watching.
- YouTube wasn’t really a thing either.
- I’d only had two comedy gigs before I moved to Northampton. Room 21 in Kettering, with Gareth Berliner, Steve Day, and Liam Mullone, and then the legendary Hollybush, where I met Al Grant and Ben Davis.
- Younger brain, obviously.
Anyway, I find this an interesting bit of data visualisation. Look how down with the kids I am, reading all those just published works:
I think maybe I should try reading more stuff published between 1775 and 1950 next year, which is a big old chunk of time. With a busy editing year looming, I think the best way for me to achieve that is probably to go harder on a digital detox – tricky when you have to use social media to let the world know what you’re doing, but I have some ideas of what I can do.
2008 me has some books she hasn’t finished yet. Best get on with it, then!
