2018 Reading Stats in Review

In 2018, I read a few good books. Find the full list of books at the bottom of this post.

Here are a few statistics and general observations gleaned from the list:

SHEER NUMBERS: Total pages read (or listened to) was 19,925.
RATINGS: I rate books out of 5, with 1 being a bust (and probably unfinished) and 5 being totally awesome. The average book rating was 3.8.
SERIES: 23% of books were in a series
AUDIO/VISUAL: I listened to nearly half of the list–just 49% were audiobooks. This is down from 2017 when nearly 60% of the list was an audiobook.
THOSE WHO DO NOT READ HISTORY: 19.6% of the books were history, while another 15.7% were biographies (or biographical). If I let myself, I could fill the list with all histories. It’s easily my favorite reading material.
- Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative Volume 1 and Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August were my favorite histories, though Grant by Chernow gets runner-up, along with The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
WORLDS OF WONDER: 29.4% were science fiction or fantasy.
LENGTH: The longest book was Grant (1,074 pages) by Ron Chernow, while the shortest was Of Mice and Men (119 pages) by John Steinbeck.
- 12% of books were over 500 pages long, and 6% were over 800 pages long.
BY SEX: the ratio of author gender was one female author for every three male authors, or 25% of the authors I read were women. I don’t make reading selections based on the gender of the author, but I do try to read across the spectrum when it comes to gender, ethnic background, perspective, and politics. All of the authors with multiple selections on this list–Barbara Tuchman and Naomi Novik–are women.
FOCUS ON THE CIVIL WAR: I read a bunch of Civil War histories–nearly one in 10 of the books I read this year. I’m halfway through two more Civil War histories that I’ll finish this spring.
THE FIRST AND THE LAST: One Man Great Enough by John C. Waugh was the first book completed (on January 16th), and Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari was the last (on December 29th).
FAMILY READING TIME: I read a few to the kiddos: Alcatraz and the Evil Librarian by Brandon Sanderson, The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling.
ROLLERCOASTER: Educated by Tara Westover was the most emotional read of the year. Each of the next three book I picked up after that was pure brain candy.
DARWIN’S LAW: I did not finish 6 of the books on the list. Life is just too short to waste time on books that aren’t worth reading.
Did I miss any stats you want to hear or see in this list?