Books of December 2017 and Beyond

Daily Ramble 121: Books of December 2017 and Beyond

Today I’m gonna take a bit of a look back to last month and forward to the current month by exploring what I read and what I plan to read. December was a busy month and while I planned on reading 4 books, I only managed to get through 3. That’s ok since it still turned out to be nearly 1500 pages (I almost made 20,000 for the year). Having said that, I want to start off the new year with a bang and set a goal for reading that while I think I can make it, it’ll be a push to get there.

December 2017 Reading

The three books I got through in December were American Gods by Neil Gaiman, The Stars, Like Dust by Isaac Asimov, and Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe. All three were pretty good, garnering a B+, B-, and B accordingly. The main reason I didn’t get through a 4th book was that the non-fiction entry about Marvel Comics was pretty dense. There was a ton of information about events and happening in the comics and publishing industry from the past 60+ years that I kinda got bogged down in things. I was listening to the audio book and had to keep going back and forth to see which artist was mad at which writer and how Stan Lee seems to have messed everything up. Actually, for something that’s currently so successful, I’m surprised at how chaotic is has been over the years. It seems like no one really likes anyone in the comics industry and while everyone seems to dislike Stan Lee, I still think that without him, we wouldn’t have the blockbuster movies and characters we have from Marvel. I find it really sad how everyone seems to demonize him when he’s been such a key figure in the industry.

Top Books from 2017

In any case, with the 3 books in December, I was able to complete 53 titles last year with one that I just could not finish. I really tried to read/listen to The Day I Died but it was just not something I could get through…oh well. Of the 53 books I read, I gave 5 books a rating of A and 10 an A-. The list is similar to what I had in November, but I’ll put it here again for future reference.

Rated A (5)

• Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (2007)
• Gateway by Frederick Pohl (1977)
• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (2014)
• I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (1950)
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick (1968)

Rated A- (10)

• Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (2009)
• Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
• Red Rising by Pierce Brown (2014)
• Beyond the Blue Event Horizon by Frederick Pohl (1980)
• Lock In by John Scalzi (2014)
• Heechee Rendezvous by Frederick Pohl (1985)
• Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel (2016)
• Arcadia: A Novel by Iain Pears (2015)
• Magician:Apprentice by Raymond Feist (1982)
• The Currents of Space by Isaac Asimov (1952)

Looking Back at 2017

Examining the 53 books I read, I think I did a good job spliting up my genres and I found that most of my books ended up getting decent ratings. While SciFi and Fantasy easily took the top two spots for genre, I read the same amount of each of them.

The average rating I gave out this year was a B, and I felt I was being hard on a bunch of the books so I think that’s pretty good. Most stories ended up with a B+.

I also liked my distribution for publishing date of the books I read. I think I put together a decent spread of years with most being more recent, but a nice showing from 40–50+ years ago.

Finally, while June and December were my slowest months, I was surprised at how consistent I was the rest of the months.

Looking Forward to 2018

Looking forward to 2018, I plan on doing a similar level of reading. I want to branch out a bit and add in more non-fiction titles, maybe some science or philosophy books as well. Along with that, I want to read a bit more in the self-development arena. If I can get better at things like Getting Things Done and the Pomodoro Method, I think it’ll help in a bunch of different areas of life. So I’m gonna try adding more books in these areas.

Since I managed to read 53 books last year when my goal was 48, I’m gonna up things by 10% and shoot for 58 books this year. That’s more than one a week so I’ll have my work cut out for me, but if I can get to 50, I’ll feel really good about my reading level.

Even though it’s the 5th of January, I don’t have my full reading list laid out for the month yet…that’s something I plan on doing this weekend, but I do have the first book already in progress. I’m moving forward in my reading of Raymond Feist and I already started the second book of his “triology” – Magician: Master. Pug and Tomas continue their adventures in Midkemia and we learn more about Kelewan in this one too.