The Irresponsible Reader in 2020: Thoughts, Thanks and Stats

Programming Note: Over the next few days, I’ll be looking back over 2020—but I’ll trying to come up with some new material, too. Many/most others have already done their best-of/year-end wrap up posts, but I’m a stickler—I can’t start doing this kind of thing ’til the year is over—a few years ago, pre-blog, the last thing I read (finished on 12/31, as I recall) just blew me away and was easily the best thing I read that year. Ever since then, I just can’t start to think about it until January 1.

As we kick off 2021, as is my custom, I wanted to take a glance back at 2020. 263 books finished (plus comics, picture books, short stories, and the like that I don’t know how to count)—and that’s with pretty much taking one month off! I exceeded my goal (nothing like exceeding an arbitrary number to boost the ol’ ego), too; around 80,000 pages; with an average rating of 3.77 Stars. I only DNF’d one book, which is nice (and man, it was bad).

On the blog front, I put up 480 posts128 more than last year!! (and again, that’s with some time off). I had some strong gains in trafficviews and visitorsactually, strong gains doesn’t quite cut it. Consider my mind boggled. I’m also seeing good growth in followers here and on various social media fronts, which is encouraging as all get outnot just growth in numbers, but the level of and amount of interaction is up to the point that my socially awkward self doesn’t really understand it.

I didn’t finish two of my projects for the yearmy trip through The History of Tom Jones and my survey of the first twelve Spenser novels. I’m getting back to both of those in the coming days (and I might lengthen the Classic Spenser series by three or four, we’ll see).

In addition to the changes in lifestyle brought on by the global pandemic (perhaps you heard of it), I moved my blog to a self-hosting platform. That created more headaches than I want to think of (comments went down at least 3 times, for example). But I think it’ll be worth it in the long-run. And not just because I can save some money. And then, my family had to move, which was a lot more disruptive than I expected. I know I’ve talked too much about it already, just a little more…in the first decade or so that my wife and I were married, we lived in 6 different places, moving was just a thing that happened. In the next 13 years, we lived in one place and planned on at least two more years there. That’s a lot of inertia to overcomebut we’re almost settled, most of my books have a place to be, and I’ll soon shut up about it all.

As is my habit, here’s my breakdown of books by genre (and I’m going to have to change things soon, this chart doesn’t show up well anymore, I just like showing the trends). Genre labeling is more difficult lately as I’m reading a lot of hybrids (most of us are, they’re being produced more), but I tend to go with the overarching genre. Basically, everything’s the same, with just a percent or two of adjustment. It’s been forever since I’ve read a Western or a Horror noveland “humor” is pretty useless, as a lot of things I read could be considered that. Once again, for someone who doesn’t plan too thoroughly, the percentages stay remarkably consistent from year to yeartastes (and series I follow) apparently stay the same.

Genre 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012
Children’s 5 (2%) 7 (3%) 11 (4%) 7 (3%) 5 (2%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Fantasy 35 (13%) 28 (10%) 30 (11%) 7 (3%) 31 (13%) 17 (9%) 11 (7%) 15 (8%) 12 (6%)
General Fiction/ Literature 16 (7%) 21 (8%) 22 (8%) 29 (10%) 27 (11%) 17 (9%) 7 (4%) 30 (16%) 30 (14%)
Horror 0 (0%) 1 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (.4%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Humor 2 (1%) 4 (1%) 3 (1%) 1 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (1%) 3 (2%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Mystery/ Suspense/ Thriller 90 (34%) 105 (38%) 107 (38%) 102 (37%) 61 (25%) 64 (34%) 62 (37%) 63 (33%) 73 (35%)
Non-Fiction 28 (10%) 25 (9%) 22 (8%) 10 (4%) 11 (5%) 8 (4%) 4 (2%) 2 (1%) 11 (5%)
Poetry 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Science Fiction 20 (8%) 30 (11%) 25 (9%) 27 (10%) 37 (15%) 16 (8%) 17 (10%) 14 (7%) 11 (5%)
Steampunk 2 (1%) 1 (0%) 3 (1%) 1 (0%) 2 (1%) 7 (4%) 3 (2%) 3 (2%) 11 (5%)
Theology/ Christian Living 23 (8%) 34 (12%) 25 (9%) 30 (11%) 33 (14%) 42 (22%) 42 (25%) 37 (19%) 10 (5%)
Urban Fantasy 42 (16%) 25 (9%) 29 (10%) 45 (16%) 36 (15%) 19 (10%) 20 (12%) 26 (14%) 48 (23%)
Western 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (0%)

Thanks to the nifty spreadsheet made by the Voracious Reader, I was able to get a few more stats. I find them interesting, maybe you will to.

I keep saying I want to re-read more, I’m doing okay on that front, but want that to get higher.


I knew I was listening to more audiobooks this year (just the nature of my work enables me to do a lot of these, plus gym timebefore March, anyway), but that it’s the majority of what I “read” in 2020 is pretty surprising. A lot of the “Borrowed” and re-read slices above are tied to that.

Enough about me. I want to talk about you, who keep me going and show an interest in what I’m doing here and give some thanks to people for their impact on The Irresponsible Reader (the blog and the person) in 2019:

 

Have a great 2021, hope you find plenty of good things to read!

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10 Comments

  1. Waaa hooo! Thanks buddy, and Happy New Year!

  2. WS_BOOKCLUB

    That’s so nice of you to mention me! You’ve had quite the year. Here’s hoping for a calmer one with even more great books!

  3. Robert T Germaux

    263 books? Color me impressed, H.C.

  4. You have definitely had a tumultuous year. Moving, online and in RL are both big things and to do them both in the same year, whew.

    Congrats on the stats. Just how many places do you interact/post/whatever on?

    Here’s to a smoother ’21!

  5. Pretty impressive stats. And I agree, I can‘t do this sort of post before the year is well and truly over, either — or at least, not the reading statistics part (and the other bit, this year, only because I knew what was still on the menu for the final part of the year and I had a reasonably fair idea what to expect of it).

    I hope your “moving woes“ (both RL and digital) are going to be well and truly laid to rest this year.

    Happy reading, and Happy New Year … may it be filled with great books aplenty! I‘m looking forward to following along your continued adventures with Tom Jones … and the odd exchange on the crime fiction of Michael Connelly and Ian Rankin and their ilk!

  6. Happy New Year!

  7. No, thank you.
    Wishing you the best for 2021!

  8. Seeing your comment about the challenges of moving to self hosted platform has confirmed that this is something I will defer for another day 🙂

    • HCNewton

      It is a pain. Be sure you’re ready when/if you decide to stop deferring.

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