Wednesday Reads and My Reading Statistics

Ahhh, my last post for 2015. Nice to end on a reading day, too.

It appears that my total books read this year is 92. I do not expect to finish the book I’m currently reading, mainly because I’m binge-watching “Gotham.” If it weren’t for that, I could easily add another book. Here’s what I read this week:

Dec 23: “Blood Kiss” by J.R. Ward, first book in the Black Dagger Legacy series, a paranormal romance at 397 pages. Blurb from book: Paradise, blooded daughter of the king’s First Advisor, is ready to break free from the restrictive life of an aristocratic female. Her strategy? Join the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s training center program and learn to fight for herself, think for herself…be herself. It’s a good plan, until everything goes wrong. The schooling is unfathomable difficult, the other recruits feel more like enemies than allies, and it’s very clear that the Brother in charge, Butch O’Neal, aka the Dhestroyer, is having serious problems in his own life. And that’s before Paradise falls in love with a fellow classmate. Craeg, a common civilian, is nothing her father would ever want for her, but everything she could ask for in a male. As an act of violence threatens to tear apart the entire program, and the erotic pull between them grows irresistible, Paradise is tested in ways she never anticipated—and left wondering whether she’s strong enough to claim her own power…on the field and off.  Oh wow! As soon as I started reading this, I got sucked back into this world and had a hard time putting the book down. I loved it. This is a spin-off of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. It features a brand new couple (Paradise and Craeg) and revisits Butch and Marissa. Simply wonderful. I can’t wait to read more in this series.

I love statistics and comparing reading from year to year. Goodreads helps me do that (one of the reasons I like it so much). According to Goodreads, the average length of book I read this year was 313 pages (those novellas didn’t really diminish that number so much, now did they?). And while reading 92 books in a year is a goodly number for me (I only read 88 last year, missing my goal of 90), it’s not the most. That would be in 2013 when I read 93 (which was why I thought I could reach 90 in 2014!). The 26,620 pages I read this year aren’t the most, either. That would be in 2012 when I read 30,966 (from only 87 books—bet I didn’t read many novellas THAT year!).

I started keeping track of my reading in 2010. Would you believe I only read 39 books that year? Then again, I did have a day job. The following year I began taking the reading challenge (my goal was 50 and I read 59). 2012 was the only year I adjusted my goal (from 50 to 80) and that was because I had lost my job and knew I’d be reading more (I did; I read 87).

So… Do you like setting reading challenges low (knowing you’ll blow right over that number), realistic (because you’ve done it in the past), or high (just to see if you can do it)? I still haven’t decided what I want my goal to be next year. I don’t think I’ll go low, but I really don’t want to fail another challenge (and I refuse to adjust the number lower). I hate losing. Especially to myself!

I will most likely post something on Friday. If I can figure out what I want my goals to be, I’ll list them. Of course, it would help if I actually thought about what goals I want to achieve next year, huh?

Happy Reading and have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve!

Stacy