2011 in Lists and Stats

2011 is nearly over; it can't be avoided anymore. Christmas cards are finally in the post and we're all beginning to gather for parties and
final meetings before Olympics Year begins. Does anyone else feel better going into an even number year? It just seems so much neater to me. Before I run off to unwrap my presents and well let's be honest eat my weight in food I thought I'd join in with a blog tradition and post my top reads of the year.

I had a stellar reading year in 2011 and it was beyond easy to fill my top 10 lists for adult and young adult. Like last year these lists are in no particular order and there are two separate lists because that means I get to include more books, not because young adult can't hack a comparison with adult lit. I also stuck an honourable mention list in this year to highlight some of the books that would have made the top 10 if the competition hadn't been so fiendishly fierce this year.

Adult

1.'Map of My Dead Pilots' – Coleen Mondor (look out for a review of this one and a blogiversary giveaway next week)
2. 'The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms' - N K Jemisin
3. 'The Summer Book' - Tove Jansson
4. 'The Dispossessed' - Ursula K Le Guin
5. 'Dimanche & Other Stories' - Irene Nemirovsky
6. 'Tomorrow Pamplona' - Jan Van Mersbergen
7. 'The Night Watch' - Sarah Waters
8. 'Kraken' – China Mieville
9. Motherlines - Suzy McKee Charnas
10.Even the Dogs - Jon McGregor (review pending)

YA/books for younger readers

1. 'Will Grayson, Will Grayson' - John Green & David Leviathan
2. 'Huntress' - Malinda Lo
3.The Knife of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness (I will eventually post my review for this Ana)
4. 'Fury of the Phoenix' - Cindy Pon
5. 'Slice of Cherry' - Dia Reeves
6. 'Homicide Related' - Norah McClintock
7. 'Shipbreaker' - Paulo Bacigalupi
8.Spirit Walker – Michelle Paver (review pending)
9. 'The Body at the Tower' - Y S Lee
10.Behemoth - Scott Westerfeld (review pending, gah I wrote this three months ago, why haven't I put it up yet?)

Honourable mentions and re-reads

1.Iceland - Betsy Tobin (short review soon)
2.Persuasion - Jane Austen (reread)
3.Jazz - Toni Morrison (reread)
4.Strong Poison - Dorothy L Sayers (and I am definitely reviewing this in the New Year Ana, eeep)
5. 'Coconut Unlimited' - Nikesh Shukla
6. 'Dark Matter' - Michelle Paver
7. 'To Say Nothing of the Dog' - Connie Willis
8. 'What I was' - Meg Rosoff

I know that an honourable mentions list shouldn't be almost as long as my main lists, but what can I say? I'm just a huge cheater, who's had a
very good year of books.

I also thought I'd show you some significant stats for my reading year. I wanted to increase some of the things I read (male authors, sci-fi by women etc), but looking at my stats
I had some seriously mixed results.

Stats

Total Books read:66

Male author: 26
Instances of books written by same author: 2 books Scott Westerfeld
Female author:40
Instances of books written by same author: 2 books Toni Morrison, 2 books Y S Lee, 2 books N K Jemisin, 2 books Michelle Paver

I was doing really well at keeping the m/f ratio much closer than last year until about October and then I sort of let it go. I find it hard to feel too bad about missing this goal, but I would like to have done better.

GLBTQ characters (total): 25
The main character (where the narrator, or protagonist is GLBTQ): 12

I wasn't measuring how many novels I read with GLBTQ characters in them last year, so this is the benchmark I want to increase from next year.

Books by authors who are a different race from me: 19
Instances of books written by same author: 2 books Toni Morrison, 2 books Y S Lee, 2 books N K Jemisin

Last year I read 23 books by authors whose race was different from mine and I wanted to increase that total, but I didn't. Part of the reason I didn't read more books that fit this category was because I was trying not to buy new books, which meant reading from the bookshelves in my house and those as it turns out are predominantly full of books by white authors. I encourage you to check your own book shelves. We have a lot of books and I would have expected a small percentage to be by authors who aren't white. I was a little surprised to find only about 30 books, among hundreds. Next year, I'm planning on more trips to the library and more careful book buying, so that I can increase this total.

Non-fiction: 1

Not exactly unexpected. Next year I have a non-fiction plan. Hurray!

Translated fiction: 8

I wanted to read more translated fiction and it wasn't hard to increase this total, considering that I read 2 pieces of translated fiction in
2010. Goal completed and I hope I'll continue to read books originally written in a language other than English.

Scifi (total): 10
Male author:7
Female author: 3

I genuinely don't know how this happened. I bought a lot of science fiction written by women. I signed up for a challenge so I'd read more. Yet
I didn't read more sci-fi and I read significantly less sci-fi by women than by men. Changing things is tricky it seems. I have a plan to turn this around next year. Hurray plans! Definitely not too many plans made for 2012.

So, there you have it, things I liked and things I want to do more of next year. Bookgazing will hopefully be more active in the New Year than it has been in 2011 (I am counting on the balancing forces of an even numbered year) at least I have some reviews written up that I didn't manage to put up this year, so January will be full of me talking at least :) Have a lovely festive season everyone and see you in the comments section. I am out of blogging until the 30th!