This is data taken from my reading logs. Some of the data has been added retrospectively – as a prime example, I didn’t start keeping records until mid 2009 but having read few books in the prior months it was easy to remember what I’d read. As the years have continued and my goals and general reading interests have changed or increased, I’ve added categories of the sort that can be completed just from basic information, such as ‘Pre-1970’ – so long as the publishing date is online that one’s easy. There are many authors left out of this table due to writing as part of a duo or team – too many zeros in those categories to make it worthwhile.

It’s taken looking through these stats to see I’m not reading as I used to. As I started to add categories it became increasingly apparent that pre-blogging me and during-blogging me are rather different. Given there are 7 years in-between those times this sounds obvious – it’d be worrying, if I hadn’t changed somewhat, but some things stand out:

Taken as a whole, I have been reading far fewer authors of colour and far fewer books by authors white or otherwise that concern non-western countries. As I said previously, in the few years before blogging I read a lot of Asian authors and some books set in Asia by white authors. You can see that hike last year where I noticed the dearth of colour and made a decisive effort to improve. I tend to say yes when review copies are offered.

Without much thought, my reading is skewed towards women. It was before blogging, but not so much. I believe I have a tendency towards female authors due to the emotions/domestic/social versus political stereotypes. I prefer reading about individuals rather than great big armies, for example, and in my experience the likelihood that any one ‘army’ book will have been written by a man is high. Whether this will change as literary expectations of men and women change I’m not sure. I do reckon that if I wasn’t so big on historical fiction the number would be more balanced.

My translation number has increased and it’s mostly down to reviewing for Peirene Press and Pushkin Press. I’d read a few translated novels prior to blogging but it was by accident, so to speak, for example when I read Shan Sa’s Empress for the first time, I didn’t realise that the book had been translated from the original French. Translation is something I’ve worked my head around slowly – I’m very much an original language person.

As said in my goals post, I want to read more classics, and I’m including in ‘classics’ some pre-1970 books; this is my version of classics, if you will, including the likes of Du Maurier and Thirkell. I added pre-1970 as a category to my list retrospectively last year. 1970 was the date I chose as my then and now point, somewhere between my birth date and what would be considered historical. It’s far from perfect – it effectively renders my parents’ childhoods historical and that’s just weird – but for now it’s the best date I’ve found. This number, this ‘pre-1970’ is a ballpark figure – I use it as an initial sorting method – many will not end up on my Classics Club list because objectively they really aren’t classics.

My non-fiction reading officially needs help. I’ve found I love narrative non-fiction, there is often so much detail in it, but it’s often long. For the most part my reading in this genre is limited to review copies so it varies, and as contacts and publishers change, so too has this number. However I can’t deny that I’ve a few hardbacks I’m still putting off.

Poetry I’m keeping in mind but not making any plans for. I’m starting to enjoy it much more – Andrew McMillan’s Physical and Sarah Howe’s Loop Of Jade have been turning points for me – but it’s a bit like my feelings for anthologies – I prefer longer works and do feel sometimes that adding a book of poetry, with its white space and general shortness, is cheating. Perhaps if I wasn’t a slow reader I would feel differently.

So there’s a lot I’m working on, a lot I’m keeping in mind, and I admit to loving having all this data. I know many of you will empathise with that last one and I know a lot of posts both here and on others’ blogs would not exist without it.

How are your stats looking?