Category Archives: charts, charts, charts

Books of the Month – March 2011

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Book of the month

My book of the month ‘award’ has to go to the last one I finished reading, Denise Mina’s Exile. It has everything I look for in any kind of fiction: superb writing, complex and interesting characters, a credible and emotionally satisfying (if harrowing) story and a healthy dose of black humour. My only dilemma now is to decide whether to save the last book in this trilogy or dive in straight away.

An honourable mention must also go to Liza Marklund’s Red Wolf which ticks almost all the same boxes (no humour black or otherwise though) and is a brilliant read which combines investigative journalism with politics in an interesting way.

Books read this month

Just Because (i.e. not for a challenge)

Canadian Challenge (12 read, 1 to go)

Global Challenge (6 read, 8 to go)

Nordic Challenge (5 read, 6 to go)

  • Anne Holt – 1222 (Norway) (3 stars)
  • Liza Marklund – Prime Time (Sweden) (3.5 stars)
  • Liza Marklund – Red Wolf (Sweden) (4.5 stars)

Books acquired this month & Toppling that TBR

My overall challenge for this year is to reduce the number of books I have on hand to read from 200 (as at 1 January 2011) to 80. After a promising start to the year I lost forward movement with respect to this challenge. As of the end of March I had exactly as many books to read as I did on 1 January. Sigh. However last year I was acquiring books at double my reading rate, whereas I have reduced that to keeping pace. That’s an achievement, right?

Some of this month’s acquisitions that I’m most looking forward to…

What’s up for April?

April is Aussie Authors Month so over at Fair Dinkum Crime Kerrie and I will be celebrating as many Australian crime writers as we can squeeze into 30 days. We’ve launched a new author spotlight feature to help with celebrations and Western Australian crime writer Felicity Young is the first to undergo our probing. We’ll be posting reviews, spotlighting more authors and holding a quiz too (just as soon as I do my share of the questions).

Next week I’ll also be helping to celebrate amateur sleuths. Jen’s Book Thoughts is hosting Moonlighting for Murder, a week devoted to the amateur sleuth. In the lead-up to the week there have been a series of voting rounds to nominate the world’s favourite amateur sleuth (the final round of voting between the last two candidates standing will start next Monday). My contribution will be a feature on Annika Bengtzon, Liza Marklund’s journalist sleuth.

Among the books I hope to read and review are these, several are borrowed and need to be returned to friends & libraries.

Chart of the month

A simple chart this month which shows how my reading has increased in recent years. The single biggest fact sitting behind these figures is that I discovered Book Depository early in 2008 which meant I could afford to buy all the books I wanted for the first time ever. It’s a figure that I use whenever people accuse me and others like me of adversely impacting Australian retail by buying the bulk of my books overseas. The reality is I wasn’t buying books locally before I was able to access affordable books online so my change in habits hasn’t impacted Australian booksellers one jot.

2010 – The Favourites

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It has become a tradition for me to list my top ten reads of each year since starting this blog (yes I know it’s only 2 and a bit years but traditions have to start somewhere) but it is becoming harder to do as I read more books each year (the official tally this year is 162 finished books and 8 DNFs) and a higher percentage of them are really very good. So this year I have the top ten list plus the honourable mentions/just missed outs list plus the ‘hey, we were good too’ list.

The top ten (in alphabetical order by author)

  • Belinda Bauer, Blacklands (audio book)
  • S J Bolton, Awakening
  • Ken Bruen, The Dramatist (audio book)
  • Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death
  • Elly Griffiths, The Janus Stone
  • Adrian Hyland, Gunshot Road (Australian Author) (when pressed on most days I will say that this is my favourite book of the year, it is hard to separate from the others but the writing does set it slightly above – sheer poetry)
  • Arnaldur Indridason, Hypothermia (translated) (this is the second book I have said on several occasions is my favourite for the whole year)
  • Simon Lelic, A Thousand Cuts (a.k.a. Rupture) (this is the other book I occasionally say was my favourite for the year)
  • Deon Meyer, Thirteen Hours (translated)
  • Johan Theorin, The Darkest Room (translated)

These books missed out by the merest whisker from inclusion:

For those who care about such things you’ll note that my halfway through the year list was reasonably accurate, containing 6 books that ended up on the top ten for the year. The other four books were edged into the honourable mentions/just missed out list.

Between them the books in the above two lists were rated

  • 4.5 (= Wow, I feel lucky to have discovered this book and will badger you to read it too so we can talk about it) or
  • 5 (= Wow, I feel lucky to have discovered this book, will badger you to read it too and would want it with me if I were stranded on a desert island)

There are a further 43 that I rated 4 (= ‘wow I feel lucky to have discovered this book’) which I think you’ll agree is still pretty darned good. So if you are still looking for something to read…

Just in case you haven’t had enough charts yet I shall display my ratings in a couple of final charts for the year.

Book Rating Breakdown 2009-2010

Rating groupings 2009-2010

I like this second chart because it shows more dramatically that overall, 81% of the books I read fell into the 3+ rating which means I was glad to have read them and would happily read more by the same author. This is up from 71% on last year.

What a wonderful year in books I have had and, as always, my sincere gratitude to the authors who make it all possible.

If you’d like your own top ten crime fiction reads for this year to be included in Kerrie’s Mega List of Awesome Crime Fiction (that might just be my name for it, hers is probably more sensible) please head over to her blog and leave your top ten.

2010 – The Charts (well most of them)

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Paying homage to books via coloured charts is now one of my favourite things to do at the end of each blogging year and as I have finished the last book I am going to finish for the year here they are in all their chartish goodness.

I have only been keeping a close record of the books I’ve been reading for four years but even in that short time it’s becoming clear that I am reading more than I used to.

However my print reading has probably evened out over the past couple of years. Although I have finished 35 more books in 2010 than last year, only a handful of the extras have been in some version of print (physical + eBook). The rest of the increase is attributable to audio books (thank you audible).

I read a total of 35,890 pages this year but it doesn’t look very interesting on a chart. My total hours listened however does show one thing: I was pretty lazy in all months except January, April and December. I mainly listen to audio books while walking for exercise so you can see that I have more downs than ups when it comes to motivation.

This year I read roughly the same number of male and female authors, which is much more even than last year’s reading. I didn’t make a conscious effort to do this but it’s probably got something to do with the fact I read less cosy mysteries this year (which tend to be written by women*) and even selected some noir (which tend to be written by men*). The ‘other’ column is not (as far as I know) populated by trans gendered individuals but includes books by multiple authors and those written by authors in disguise :)

Countries visited virtually in 2010

Thanks in no small part to the Global Reading Challenge I visited 37 countries via my reading (up from 28 last year). Frankly with all the security theatre, snow delays and volcanic ash bringing the airline industry to a standstill I think my version of travel is a heck of a lot easier than the real thing (Australia is a wonderful place to live but it is a long way from just about everywhere and when you’re nearly 6ft tall spending 20 hours in a plane is not a bundle of laughs). I’m aiming to complete lots of location-based challenges in 2011 so I hope to be able to continue my virtual travel. Amy’s Eastern European challenge looks like it will provide the most…er…challenging spots to visit.

This final chart simply tells you that I buy a lot of books, mostly new. Which means bad things for my bank account but at least I am supporting my favourite art in some small way.

I will be posting my list of favourite books for the year tomorrow with another couple of charts included because once you start charting you can’t stop :)

*yes, I know this is a generalisation

Books of the Month – October 2010

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That Was Then

I finished another 15 books during October (a couple of reviews still to come). Although I didn’t have any 5-star reads it was a high quality month with nothing rating below a 3. My pick of the month has to be Jo Nesbø’s The Redbreast, a novel I abandoned on my first reading last year but picked up again after you all told me to and fell in love with the book’s protagonist, Harry Hole.

There are a veritable treasure trove of honourable mentions which I simply cannot separate. They include trips to Scotland, Iceland, Ghana, America, England, 1850′s Australia and Japan.

New Additions

Since buying my eReader I have curtailed my acquisition of printed books quite dramatically (good for the trees) but have been busy stocking up eBooks and audio downloads (bad for the bank balance). Included among my new acquisitions are the latest Belinda Lawrence mystery, a Harry Bosch novel (Maxine made me give Connelly another go), a flash fiction anthology of stories that involve a mythical ‘Mega Mart’, the second novel in Karin Fossum’s Inspector Sejer series (yes I know I’m behind) and a historical work that blends fact with fiction in what promises to be an interesting fashion.

Challenge Progress

It’s a good thing I had a whole year to complete the Global Reading Challenge as it looks like it will take me that long to finish it. This month I read another two books to bring my total to 19 of 21. Both Villain and Wife of the Gods made it to my honourable mentions for the month.

My only other open challenge is the Canadian Book Challenge which requires me to read 13 books by July next year. I read four books that counted for this challenge in October bringing my total to 7.

Isn’t it marvellous that Canada produces enough entertaining female crime writers that I can have a smorgasboard of them without even trying? Well I am assuming Wolfe is female though of course as it’s a pseudonym I could be wrong.

Reading Now and Next

I’m keen to finish the global challenge now that I only have 2 books to go so have started Southwesterly Wind which is set in Brazil and I’ll probably read my wildcard historical fiction straight after that. Then it might be time for my second Elly Griffiths novel I think. I’ve just started a new audio book, C J Box’s Three Weeks to Say Goodbye, which I am already enjoying and have no plans for what will come after that in audio format.

Chart of the month

So far this year I have finished 129 books which seemed like a statistically significant enough number to look at where they all come from. As you can see I buy most of my books in one form or another. Wonder what this will look like next year? Will I have a giant chunk of pie for pirated eBooks ( and if I do how will I hide it to avoid going to prison)?

What about you? What was your favourite book for October? Or your most exciting acquisition? Or is there something coming up for you in November that you can’t wait to get to?

Books of the Month – August 2010

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That Was Then

August was a hectic month involving the country’s most bizarre election (which had me watching far more TV than I normally would) and an invasion from overseas (i.e. family came to visit). Both of these activities left little time for reading let alone blogging about reading. So I only managed to read a paltry 7 books for the month and of those my pick is

  • Roseanna by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Although it was published more than 40 years ago the book is remarkably undated as well as being taut and intense. I would recommend it to all fans of the modern police procedural who want to know more about the origins of this sub genre.

Honourable mentions for August go to

New Additions

You would think that being as busy/preoccupied as I was during the month I would also have had less time available to acquire books but alas this does not appear to have been the case as 20 books still managed to find their way onto my never-shrinking TBR pile. Sigh. In my defence (should I need one) most of them were pre-orders, mooches and library holds that became available.

Among my new friends are my first Polish crime fiction, another new Australian historical mystery, the last novel I need to read to complete the African leg of my global challenge, a Japanese novel that I have heard many good things about and an Italian legal procedural that looks very promising

What to read next?

Anything really.

I have not finished a book for more than a week which is a real rarity for me and is starting to make me feel extremely crotchety. I have given up entirely on election-watch (we are into our second week of having no government and funnily enough the country hasn’t fallen into turmoil) and my overseas invaders will soon depart which should allow the noise levels to return to a dull roar and my duties as entertainer of young people during heavy rain will no longer be required thereby freeing my leisure time up for reading once again.

I have several books from the library which must be returned soon and I need to do some work on my remaining challenges so coming up you will hopefully see me talking about novels from Canada, Namibia, Ireland, Norway and Scotland.

Chart of the Month

I was curious to see how author gender is reflected in my reading this year as I haven’t made any conscious decisions about whether to read male or female authors. I was amazed to see that of the 100 books I have finished so far in 2010 the gender of the author is split almost exactly down the middle.

Even more interesting to me is that of the 42 top rated books (those rated 4, 4.5 or 5) author gender is once again split almost evenly (though of the six books receiving a 5 rating only 2 are by female authors).

I don’t know that this says anything at all but I found it worthy of a pie chart :)

So, what was your best book for August? Did you add any interesting titles to your TBR? And if you keep track of the books you read have you read more books by men? women? or is your reading even like mine?

Weekly Geeks 14 – Reading Globally

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The theme for this week’s weekly geeks is one I couldn’t pass up as it’s all about reading globally which is something I do try to do with my reading. Plus, it’ll give me a chance to include a chart and we all know how I love those :)

On to the questions

Do you deliberately read globally, and if so, do you track your reading in this area?

Yes and yes (tracking something means you might just get to create a chart sometime and … well…I love a chart).

I have finished 53 books so far this year set in 18 different countries (plus one set in multiple countries). As you can see I still read most of my books set in England and America but it was only a couple of years ago that I would have done all my reading in those places.

I’ll be adding another country to the table in a day or so when I finish my current book which is set in Italy.

Have you joined any reading challenges which encourage reading from around the world? If so, what are they?

I am participating in the 2010 Global Reading Challenge and am aiming for the expert level which requires me to read 2 books set in different countries of Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America and South America plus 2 books set in Antarctica. My additional personal challenge is that all the books I’m going to count have to be by new-to-me authors and my personal preference is for crime fiction. So far I’ve read 8 books and am in the middle of my 9th (A Death in Tuscany by Michele Guittari)

I also recently started the 2010 Scandinavian Reading Challenge which requires me to read 6 books set in the countries that make up Scandinavia (which according to Wikipedia are Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden).

So far I’ve only read one book for this challenge but it was a beauty: Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indriðason which I rated 5 out of 5.

Do you visit bloggers who blog outside of your country? If so, what have you learned from reading their blogs? Consider sharing a couple of links to book bloggers who motivate you to read around the world.

Yes, although it wouldn’t be hard as I’ve only got a couple of other Australian blogs in my Google Reader, the vast majority of blogs I visit are by bloggers outside my country. However I’ll highlight a couple of great blogs from people who, unlike me, can read and blog in multiple languages:

Where do your reading around the globe book suggestions come from? Magazines? Web sites which feature books in translation? Publishers? Other bloggers? If you have a particularly great site for recommendations, give us a link!

These days most of my recommendations come from my fellow crime fiction fans at the Crime and Mystery Room in Friend Feed, many of whom also like to read and discuss books set all over the place.  A special mention must go to Maxine who blogs at Petrona whose reading recommendations I have come to view as my personal reading guide.

Taking a quick trawl through my Google Reader account here are some other great sites for finding crime and mystery fiction from around the world

Do you read books in translation as part of your global reading experiences? Share some of your favorite books in translation.

Yes. So far this year I’ve read 6 books in translation. Interestingly they have provided my equal highest rating and my lowest rating!

Is there a particular country, or countries, which you would like to learn more about? Why?

Not really. I love learning about all kinds of places. Once upon a time I did it for real with travel to all parts of the world while now I use my armchair a little more (‘cos backpacking is just not the same fun at 40 that it was at 20).

2009 – The Charts

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I started 131 books during the year and finished 126 of those (I’m not counting the two that I am still reading in 2010 as they’ll appear in this year’s stats). This is a huge improvement on last year’s 82 books finished. This year I thought I’d employ my passion for coloured charts to highlight some aspects of my reading.

2009 was for me the year of the audio book. I have always enjoyed them but the CD packs are impractical to transport and ludicrously expensive however this year I discovered audible which has made a significant improvement to my life. I can download two books each month for around $15AUS each which is less than half what I’d pay for a new release trade paperback here in Oz and about one-third the cost of an audio book on CD. This new found treasure has allowed me to listen to 27 audio books in the past 12 months (versus the two I managed last year) and several will appear in my list of favourite reads for the year. I try to spend at least an hour each day walking so being able to combine reading with walking has made me a healthier and happier book lover. I have a separate page here on the blog listing all my audio book reviews and for 2010 I have joined the Audio Book Challenge to help me maintain my motivation.

I like to think I’m getting better at selecting books that I’ll enjoy and a comparison of my ratings for the past two years does show this. As well as having a load more 5 out 5 ratings this year I have, in total, far more books rated 3.5 and above than I did in ‘08. A few real duds have still made it through my filters but they’re becoming rare enough that they make me appreciate all the brilliant books I read most of the time and they have provided opportunities for a rant or two. Or three.

I bought nearly half of the books that I acquired this year (in either print or audio format) which is about average for me. However my ability to mooch (swap) books has dropped off substantially during the later half of this year as fewer people are prepared to send books to those of us living down here at the bottom of the world. I’ll either have to increase my purchasing and/or library borrowing in future to feed my habit. Of course that’s after I get through my current TBR pile which should last me through 2010.

Towards the end of the year I made a concerted effort to do something about the ridiculous number of books I own (but will never read or refer to again) and put the brakes on my acquisitive nature while I have so many unread books lying about the place. In November and December I gave away over 200 books (either to friends or local charities) which freed up one and a half book cases (one of which I’ve also given away so that I don’t feel the need to fill it up again). I did almost stop acquiring books by December though some book vouchers for birthday and Christmas will need to be spent soon. Regardless of this Reduce The TBR will be my mantra for 2010.

I’m chuffed that more than half of the books I read for the year were by new-to-me authors. It was only a couple of years ago that I seemed to read the same few authors over and over again (all that were easily available from local stores and libraries) but since I’ve discovered book blogs a whole new world of writers has opened up to me. I’ve also managed a decent cross-section of author nationalities and book settings and being a participant in this year’s Global Challenge will help me maintain this kind of diversity in my reading.

Of course 127 of the books I read were crime fiction or thrillers so in that way my reading could hardly be considered diverse but I’m not fussed about that. I’ve learned the hard way to read the books I want to read rather than the ones I think I ought to and at the moment it’s mostly crime fiction that piques my curiosity. If that should change (and it could easily do so as I pay attention to what people are saying about other types of books) then my reading will take a new direction and if it doesn’t I’ll be very content exploring all manner of human strengths and frailties through the eyes of great crime writers.

Mid-Year Report

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Yes folks it’s graphs and charts time again. I did a quarterly report in March and I’m sure you’ve all been holding your breath to see how things are faring.

09Q2-Books Read

I’ve read 63 books so far this year whicb means I’m well on track to reach my target of 100+. The vast bulk have been crime fiction. I used to fairly regularly intersperse some other genres amongst the murder and mayhem but these days I’ve got so many good recommendations in my preferred genre I don’t seem to find time for much else. I’m pleased with the amount of new authors I’m continuing to read (slightly more than half of my total) but I’d like to read more Aussie authors.

This next graph is more troubling as 09Q2 - Books owned & TBRit indicates how poorly I am doing with respect to reducing the size of my collection (if you can’t read the teeny print the larger bars indicate my total number of books owned and the smaller ones deal with the number of books I have that are unread). I have given myself a good talking to with respect to both of these issues and hope to address them in the remaining half of the year.

Other random, useless facts

  • I read 6 audio books this quarter (only 1 in the previous quarter). This is a direct consequence of trying to get more physically active (which in turn is a direct consequence of my hatred of public transport). I adore audio books.
  • I have give six books a 5-star rating (one was a non-crime so doesn’t appear below), though only two of those this quarter. However 37 of my 63 books have rated 3.5 or above which is a very pleasing figure as these are all books I would happily recommend to other readers.
  • Of the 82 (gulp) books I’ve acquired the majority were mooched or from other free sources (but I did buy 38 so I’m not leaving authors completely hanging in the wind).

Picking my top ten for the year so far has been difficult. I’m reading more than ever now (as my TV turns into a piece of art rather than something I bother to watch) and generally the quality is better (since I rely more on recommendations from people I trust rather than the drones who stock the shelves at my local chain stores). Largely the list is based on my rating scale although I did some weeding-out based on the book’s level of ‘stickinmymindness’ which is calculated from the length of time I can remember the important details combined with the number of times I bang on about it to friends and family after finishing it (a highly scientific process I assure you).

The list is in alphabetical order:

Quarterly report January-March 2009

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In my working life quarterly reports are mandatory and I have been drowning in bar graphs, pie charts and thinking up new ways to say the same thing as I said last quarter. I sometimes think it wouldn’t matter whether my team did the work we’re paid for as long as I completed the quarterly report templates well enough. Anyway, as reporting has been on my mind, I thought I’d report on something more interesting (to me). These statistics are just as meaningless as the ones I collect for work but I had more fun with them :)

09q1-books-read1

The graph to the right shows I’ve read 31 books (which if I keep up the rate will allow me to reach my target of at least 100 books for the year). I’m pleased with the ratio of new authors in the mix as I’ve been making a conscious effort not to stick to all my old favourites. I’m not nearly as thrilled about the number by Australian authors. I will aim to improve things during the current quarter.

The graph below shows I’ve been doing well at selection as I have rated 21 of them 3 or more out of 5 and only one was a DNF. All this means that I’m really enjoying more than two thirds of what I’m reading.

09q1-book-ratings1

My 5-star rated reads were

Echoes from the Dead, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Voodoo Doll and (non-crime fiction) The White Tiger.

  • The most troubling statistic though is that I’ve acquired 48 books during this period. Even though most of those acquisitions have come via bookmooch or other free sources it is worrisome because another goal for this year is to read more books than I acquire.
  • I have disposed of some books via bookmooch but my collection has increased overall by 30 (to now stand at 737 books).
  • And I still have 155 books unread, not counting the ones I have borrowed from libraries and friends. Nor counting the ones I’ve ordered via book mooch or from ARC sources. Clearly I’m going to have to read faster.
  • I did impose a ban on book buying at the end of February and at the time of posting it has been 33 days, 20 hours, 58 minutes and 23 seconds since I purchased a book (not that I’m counting).