Ten years and two days ago, I began my own personal reading project: to read every book in my local branch library.
A lot has changed since then, but I’m still busy reading – and writing down each book I’ve read and closing categories as I go.
TOTALS as of Sept 5, 2016 (10 years or 3653 days)
| Category | Items Complete | Categories Closed | Items/day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Juvenile Picture | 1394 | 442 | 0.38 |
| Juvenile, Board Books | 125 | 45 | 0.03 |
| Juvenile, First Readers | 65 | 3 | 0.02 |
| Juvenile, Chapter | 92 | 7 | 0.03 |
| Juvenile Fiction | 310 | 25 | 0.09 |
| Juvenile Nonfiction | 213 | 1 | 0.05 |
| Teen Fiction | 43 | 4 | 0.01 |
| Teen Nonfiction | 5 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Adult Fiction | 454 | 70 | 0.12 |
| Adult Nonfiction | 839 | 41 | 0.23 |
| Audio CD | 639 | 64 | 0.17 |
| Juvenile DVD | 48 | 0 | 0.01 |
| Adult Fiction DVD | 93 | 0 | 0.03 |
| Adult Nonfiction DVD | 35 | 0 | 0.01 |
| Periodicals | 66 | 0 | 0.02 |
| Total | 4421 items | ||
| 1.21 items per day |
Looking at the “items per day” column, I see that the numbers are rather unimpressive – certainly nothing compared to what the numbers were when I first started. Perhaps I will knock that column off the next accounting. I’ve also determined that there’s information I’m interested in that isn’t captured by the above table (which I’ve been filling out since I first blogged about my challenge): how many items am I completing annually (on average and in the past year) and how quickly am I closing categories?
Last year’s reading (and the annual average completed)
| Category | Categories Completed | Items Completed | Annual Average Items Completed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Juvenile Picture | 9 | 59 | 139 |
| Juvenile, Board Books | 30 | 71 | 12.5 |
| Juvenile, First Readers | 0 | 1 | 6.5 |
| Juvenile, Chapter | 0 | 0 | 9.2 |
| Juvenile Fiction | 0 | 2 | 3.1 |
| Juvenile Nonfiction | 0 | 34 | 21.3 |
| Teen Fiction | 0 | 3 | 4.3 |
| Teen Nonfiction | 0 | 0 | 0.5 |
| Adult Fiction | 0 | 11 | 45.4 |
| Adult Nonfiction | 7 | 83 | 83.9 |
| Audio CD | 64 | 90 | 63.9 |
| Juvenile DVD | 0 | 0 | 4.8 |
| Adult Fiction DVD | 0 | 3 | 9.3 |
| Adult Nonfiction DVD | 0 | 1 | 3.5 |
| Periodicals | 0 | 0 | 6.6 |
| Total | 110 | 358 | 442 |
Notes:
- I didn’t even read one hundred (full-size) books in the past year. I find this shocking and somewhat ego-flattening.
- I need to get serious about closing categories if I’m going to complete this thing (but who am I kidding, it’s an impossible goal.)
- That said, I have quite a few categories that have just one or two more books in them before I can close them – so why don’t I just get them finished?
What I’ve found most fascinating this year has been to break down my reading into how many days (on average) it takes me to get through a library item (over the past year only).
| Category | Time to Read | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Audio CDs | 4 days | With the exception of Christmas music between Thanksgiving and Christmas, all of these are listened to when I’m driving with just myself and the kids. |
| Adult Nonfiction | 4.4 days | I read a lot of nonfiction. |
| Board Books | 5.2 days | It’s rather surprising I don’t go through these more quickly. Then again, I don’t count repeats. |
| Picture Books | 6.2 days | Ditto board books |
| Adult Fiction | 33.3 days | Not quite one a month. And here I’d been saying two a month. |
So concludes my report on the last ten years’ reading :-)
Impressive! Yes, it will be less now that you have children. It’s inevitable. My meager goal of 45 books is unimpressive but I am still working on a goal of 100 classics in 5 years. Get tired of classics so I jump around a bit (putting me behind in my challenge).
I have never considered reading every book in our library… some of them would bore me to tears! (js)
I recently went to the library again. This is probably a shocking statement to some but I can never seem to get my books back on time and always cringe at the fines I incur. Anyway, I went back and discovered my card needed to be renewed and I had a larger fine than I had realized. :P Corrected all of that, checked out books and….still managed to get them back late. I feel like I can never win for trying. :P