Books read, December 2011; also some statistics

We'll do the December part first, because it's going to be quite quick.

( I've either talked about these already, or will do so shortly. )

I said at the beginning of 2011 that I hadn't been reading much fiction (owing to the burdens of research), and that I was determined to change that. So, how did I do?

Well, my log lists a total of 125 books read (and 14 abandoned), of which only eleven are nonfiction. So I have successfully raised both the total number, and the proportion. :-) We might further break it down:

• Four were novellas, independently published.
  
• Sixteen were manga, graphic novels, or very short illustrated books.
  
• Four were my own books, read for editing purposes. (I only counted straight read-throughs.)
  
• Forty or so were YA or children's books, depending on where you choose to draw that particular line.
  
• Thirty-four were written by Diana Wynne Jones -- more than a quarter of the total. I'm not sure what the effect of that has been on the overall list. On the one hand, her books are generally short, so that may be inflating the number above what it will be in a year when I'm not spending so much time on a complete reading. On the other hand, the obligation to make progress on that undertaking sometimes means I don't pick up other books when my eye falls on them, because I feel like I ought to be reading the next thing on my to-do list. So we'll see what happens when I'm done with the project.
  

Any way you slice it, I'm pleased with the list. I really hadn't been reading as much as I wanted to these last few years; it's very satisfying to get back to it.