January 1st, 2009 |
I’ll have a more detailed list and ranking of books at some point, but here are the highlights for 2008:
Top 5 books of the year:
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- Maus I and Maus II by Art Spiegelman
- The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
- Sofia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya
- Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
Best Of’s:
January 1st, 2009 |
See 2008 Stats Part I here
Awards:
- Nobel: 8 books from 5 laureates
- Booker: 5
- Pulitzer: 1 (ouch! I had 12 last year!)
- Pulitzer Special Award: 1 (Maus)
- Governor General: 2
- Newbery: 2
- Hugo: 2
- Nebula: 1
- IMPAC Dublin: 1
- Costa: 1
- Spur: 1
- Eisner: 1
- Caldecott: 1
Books:
- Total: 120 (Complete list is here)
- Fiction (encompasses everything): 111
- Non-Fiction: 9
- Audio: 24
- YA/Children’s: 30
- Fantasy: 12
- Classics: 10
- Graphic Novels: 10
- Sci-Fi: 5
- Mystery: 3
- Short Story Collections: 3
- Plays: 1
- Poetry: 1
- Re-reads: 1
- Longest book: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 896 pp.
- Shortest book: The Borden Tragedy, 80 pp.
- Oldest book: Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol (1830s)
- Newest book(s): A Mercy by Toni Morrison and Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card (11/11/08)
Reading:
- Best reading month: October, 18 books
- Worst reading month: August, 5 books
- Pages read: 31777
Challenges:
- 47 completed, the list is here
- 10 DNF
January 1st, 2009 |
See 2008 Stats Part II here
Authors: 102
Books read: 120 (See full list here)
Pages read: 31777
Avg pages per book: 265
- Female – 46 (45% in terms of authors, 49% in terms of books read)
- Male – 56 (55% in terms of authors, 51% in terms of books read)
- American – 41 (40% in terms of authors, 38% in terms of books read)
- Non-American - 61 (60% in terms of authors, 62% in terms of books read) (I’m very happy with this!)
- New-to-me – 90 (88%)
- Authors with multiple books
JK Rowling 7
LM Montgomery 3
Margaret Atwood 3
Toni Morrison 3
Roald Dahl 2
Sandor Marai 2
Imre Kertesz 2
Orson Scott Card 2
Marjane Satrapi 2
Art Spiegelman 2
Page Length Distribution:
- 0-149 pages: 21 (18%)
- 150-299 pages: 59 (49%)
- 300-449 pages: 29 (24%)
- 450-599 pages: 7 (6%)
- 600-749 pages: 2 (2%)
- 750-899 pages: 2 (2%)
Publication date:
- 2008: 39 (33%)
- 2000-2007: 34 (28%)
- 1990s: 15 (12%)
- 1980s: 9 (7%)
- 1970s: 4 (3%)
- 1960s: 7 (6%)
- 1950s: 2 (2%)
- 1940s: 1 (1%)
- 1930s: 2 (2%)
- 1920s: 2 (2%)
- 1910s: 1 (1%)
- 1900s: 2 (2%)
- 1890s: 1 (1%)
- 1830s: 1 (1%)
January 1st, 2009 |
I’m really happy with my results for literature in translation. Eleven languages were represented by 24 books. Here is the breakdown by original language:
- Japanese (5)
- French (4)
- Hungarian (4)
- Icelandic (2)
- Norwegian (2)
- Russian (2)
- German (1)
- Chinese (1)
- Italian (1)
- Swedish (1)
- Spanish (1)
The list below is by author nationality. If a book is set in a different country, it is noted. Also, some of the authors have moved from their original country, and if known, that is also indicated. Twenty-one countries were represented by 75 different books. I didn’t count the US authors at the bottom of the list in the totals, but I did note the settings of those books just for general interest.
Argentina
Australia
Canada
China
- Sky Burial by Xinran (set in Tibet; author now lives in Great Britain)
Czech Republic
- The Castle by Franz Kafka (originally in German)
France
- Snow by Maxence Fermine (set in Japan)
Great Britain
Hungary
Iceland
India
Iran
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (now lives in France)
- Persepolis II by Marjane Satrapi (now lives in France)
Ireland
Italy
- Silk by Alessandro Baricco (set in Japan)
Japan
Nigeria
Norway
Russia
South Africa
Sudan
Sweden
Zimbabwe
- Zenzele by J. Nozipo Maraire (now lives in the US)
U.S. authors with books in foreign settings
- The Only Road North by Erik Mirandette (Africa)
- Maus I by Art Spiegelman (set in WW II Europe and the U.S.)
- Maus II by Art Spiegelman (set in WW II Europe and the U.S.)
- Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (various world locations)
- Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman (Austria)
