{"id":497,"date":"2015-05-15T10:08:03","date_gmt":"2015-05-15T10:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chimneyrabbit.com\/?p=497"},"modified":"2015-05-15T10:08:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T10:08:03","slug":"so-many-books-so-little-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/?p=497","title":{"rendered":"So many books, so little time"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s an article on Medium.com<\/a> about the number of books people read in a year, which prompted me to have a look at my records.<\/p>\n

Since 2004, I’ve been keeping a list of the books I read in a spreadsheet. Yes, yes, I know, what a geek. But it’s interesting to look back and see, for example, what I was reading this time last year, or the balance of children’s books and adult fiction. Or the year I was addicted to manga and spent a fortune on Japanese comics.<\/p>\n

It turns out there’s an enormous variation in the amount I read. Since 2004, I’ve averaged 63 books a year, with a minimum of 35 and a maximum of 113 (which was the year I was addicted to manga – you can read a lot of manga in a short time, but your wallet won’t thank you).<\/p>\n

So far this year, I’ve read 43 books, which means I’m ahead of the average.<\/p>\n

But does the number<\/i> of books really matter? The year I read 113 books, 47 of them were manga. The year I read 35 included two Patrick Rothfuss, a George R.R. Martin, and a whopper of a Neal Stephenson book. Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White<\/i> took me all of May to read in that year, but I was reading it every day and thoroughly enjoying it.<\/p>\n

Does it matter if you read 50 books or a hundred, if you’re reading all the time, and enjoying the books you read?<\/p>\n

Since I started keeping my records, I’ve noticed a slight reluctance to start longer books, because I know they’re going to take a long time – should I read the next Song of Ice and Fire book, or a Joan Aiken, a Michelle Paver, and<\/i> the next Wells and Wong mystery by Robin Stevens?<\/p>\n

You see, the problem is: there are so many books I want to read. I read a lot – it’s a rare day that I don’t read for at least half an hour in bed – but still, my “to be read” pile is tottering.<\/p>\n

I suppose it means that my standards for long books have gone up. If it’s 250-300 pages, I’ll give it a shot – no harm done if it’s not that great. And I’ve taken a punt and discovered some brilliant books using that thinking. But if it’s 500 pages long, and it’s not particularly good, I start thinking about the other books I could have been reading in that time.<\/p>\n

Neal Stephenson’s new book, Seveneves<\/i>, is out soon, and it’s 880 pages long. Think of the number of books I could read in that time! Still, it’s not going to stop me. I’ve pre-ordered the Kindle edition.<\/p>\n

I’m just going to have to accept that, despite the speedy start in the first five months,<\/span> 2015 might be a bit of a below-average year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s an article on Medium.com about the number of books people read in a year, which prompted me to have a look at my records. Since 2004, I’ve been keeping a list of the books I read in a spreadsheet. Yes, yes, I know, what a geek. But it’s interesting to look back and see,… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p37h7H-81","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}