At some point during this year, I succumbed to peer pressure and joined a list of folks that said they planned on reading at least 75 books this year (note, that is much less than a couple of crazy women have planned on doing).
As you loyal readers (note the cocky attitude, making that word plural and all?) may have noted from the previous post, I have posted a full, or at least a mini, review of 72 books as of today. As we work through next week, and the rest of the world finds out how the Litblog Co-op has voted for Autumn, I'll be able to post my reviews of that trio of titles as well. I also have to catch up and post my reviews of Next Door Lived a Girl by Stefan Kiesbye, and Nothing in the World by Roy Kesey (two great novellas), and I'm holding off posting my review of Richard Powers' The Echo Maker until Ed Champion's roundtable discussion posts go up next week. So that pushes me up to 78 I believe. And I know there are at least two or three others I've yet to get online yet.
The breakdown has been fairly interesting for me to date this year - much heavier on poetry and works in translation than ever before:
38 novels 19 short story collections 15 poetry collections 5 works of non-fiction 2 novellas 1 collection of interviews
Of these works, 10 were works of translation, at least two would only be found in mystery sections, if you were shopping in Borders there would be selections from both the African-American, and Gay/Lesbian sections. There was probably even a title or two that would sneak under the “dreaded” Chick-Lit banner.
What I just discovered I've not done well at all at this year is diversity of the gender of the author - I'm currently at a 65-15 count male to female - part of this is due to reading nearly everything a few authors that happened to be male have written, and part is because a long list of authors I've previously enjoyed that were publishing in 2006 were also male - with really only Adichie and Wells being female authors I knew I'd read before the year began. Wow! Well, at least 2/3 of my interviews were with female authors.
I'm slowly working on moving all of those mini-reviews into full reviews, and hope to finish the year strong and get to triple digits - I certainly have the ammunition here with the boks I hope to get to soon.
Congrats on 75! I set a goal to read one hundred books, and just finished 83, which means I should be able to just barely finish. It's harder than it sounds, and has cost me some long books (those 500 pagers look like too much when the goal is 100 books). I think next year maybe I'll try to read a much smaller number, and spend more time on them.
Posted by: Matt | October 14, 2006 at 02:54 AM
From one of the crazy women to a guy who rocks the lit world... congratulations.
*Sigh.* I need to do more novellas. Send recommendations to me por favor.
Posted by: Kristin | October 17, 2006 at 05:43 PM
>I need to do more novellas. Send recommendations to me por favor.
The two that Dan read (by the K's: Kiesbye and Kesey) are both really, really great.
Posted by: aaron | October 17, 2006 at 06:29 PM
Congrats. What fun. Now what are you going to do with the remaining 8 or so weeks of the year.....
I shudder to list my reading for 2006. Ten books? Twenty? I am not even going to go there.
Posted by: Anne | October 18, 2006 at 12:37 PM
A) Aaron is right on Kristin with his suggestion for novellas. There are also the amazingly quick reads of Daniel Woodrell for you to look at - Give Us a Kiss, Tomato Red, The Death of Sweet Mister and Winter's Bone. I've also recently begun Magnus Mills' novels and they are also quick reads.
B) Anne - You must remember, I did not write a thesis paper on Virginia Woolfe as you have. That would have seriously cut into my reading time.
Posted by: Dan Wickett | October 18, 2006 at 01:10 PM