My top three books from the past two years are:
Not surprisingly, these are the only three books that I gave 5 stars to out of the 24 I read over the past two years. Of course, they are highly recommended! If you're wondering, my top three picks from two years ago were My Antonia, My Name is Asher Lev, and These Is My Words.
In addition to the above three books, I also wanted to throw out a few honorable mentions (organized by genre):
Memoir: Angela's Ashes
Mystery: The Moonstone
Non-fiction: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
Non-fiction: Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness
What was the worst book I read in the past two years? Don Quixote. In retrospect, I can't believe that I suffered through 29 CDs (415,800 words!) of that book. No one part of Don Quixote was that bad, and some parts I really enjoyed, but it should have been 1/5th of the length. It just never ended. Not worth the effort.
Now, for the more numbers-oriented, here are some summary statistics of the 24 books. Keep in mind that I was only able to get number of words and reading grade level for 14 of the 24 books (I get both numbers through Amazon's "Text Stats" feature, which isn't available for all books), so it's a small sample:
Average Length, pages: 410.3
Average Length, words: 138,457
Average Reading Grade Level: 7.9
Average Rating: 3.7 stars
Average Rating by genre:
Classics (7 books): 3.8 stars
Memoirs (3 books): 3.7 stars
Modern (4 books): 3.8 stars
Mystery (1 book): 4.5 stars
Non-fiction (8 books): 3.6 stars
Young Adult (1 book): 3.5 stars
I was also curious to see how these stats look when I combine all of the books that I've read since 2006. When I combine these 24 books with the 31 books from my last "Books in Review" post, the stats look like this:
Average Length, pages: 370.3
Average Length, words: 108,581
Average Reading Grade Level: 7.5
Average Rating: 3.6 stars
Average Rating by genre:
Classics (15 books): 4.1 stars
Fantasy (5 books): 3.3 stars
Memoirs (5 books): 3.4 stars
Modern (8 books): 4.0 stars
Muckraker (1 book): 4.0 stars
Mystery (5 books): 3.0 stars
Non-fiction (13 books): 3.5 stars
Philosophy (1 book): 2.5 stars
Young Adult (2 books): 3.5 stars
So, it looks like I prefer classics and modern fiction to most other genres. I was surprised to see that my non-fiction average rating is only 3.5 stars, since I think I really enjoy most of the non-fiction books that I read. I guess I just like the fiction books better...
Lastly, I was also interested in whether I tend to like longer or shorter books, or books that are easier or harder to read. Here are some simple correlations:
Correlation of:
Pages with rating: 0.154
Words with rating: 0.077
Readability with rating: -0.103
Based on these numbers, I tend to like longer books slightly more than shorter ones, although when I use the number of words in the book to measure the length the relationship isn't as strong. I also tend to rate hard-to-read books a bit lower. I should note, however, that Don Quixote is a major outlier that skews these correlations because it is so long and also was the most hard-to-read book I've read, with a reading grade level of 15.8. Combine that with the fact that I gave Don Quixote only 2.5 stars, it can mess things up. If I take Don Quixote out, the numbers are,
Correlation of:
Pages with rating: 0.263
Words with rating: 0.260
Readability with rating: 0.012
Now the correlation of length with rating is quite a bit stronger, while the correlation of readability with rating is essentially zero. These numbers are probably more reflective of my true preferences.
Finally, here are the books that I've got on the docket, so this is what you've got to look forward to, if you're interested:
Little Women (about 2/3 done)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The Path Between the Seas
Happy reading!
1 comment:
You lost me on some of the correlations :) but I enjoyed the book list! I LOVED A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (one of my top three favs right now I think). The other ones I think you need to pick up are by Sharon Kay Penman. Start with any of her trilogys, but I started with "Here Be Dragons" and I was hooked. I've only got a few more books to go and I'll have read everything she's written (that's how good she is). Her historical fictions are better than her history mysteries, but those are fun for a lighter, faster read. After reading your post, I'm inspired to try to get back to reading more!
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