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Athena's Reading List 2017


Athena

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I read Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones 4: Bridget Jones's Baby. I watched the film the evening before I read the book. I quite liked the earlier books in the series, but unfortunately didn't get on so well with this book. I have to say I much prefer the film.

 

The book didn't seem as funny, it seemed more predictable (though the fact that I had seen the film might have something to do with it), and because in this book Daniel is one of the male important characters rather than Jack, it puts a different spin on things and some of the scenes didn't seem to quite fit his character. You'd think after certain things that are referred to in the beginning of the book, Bridget would learn. Jack in the film seemed much more genuinely interested in a future with Bridget.

 

Overall I didn't enjoy this book as much as the film, or indeed as much as the earlier books in the series. That doesn't mean it's not worth reading, if you've read the first three books and enjoyed them, it might be nice to finish off the series. But be prepared it might be a disappointment.

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As a side-note, unrelated to the above review, I feel like there are more books about women getting pregnant and wanting the baby, and women not wanting children at first but want them by the end of the book; than there are books about women who don't want children the whole book long and where it's a focus, or a book in which due to situations a woman by the end of the book doesn't want children. Or a man who doesn't want to be a father for that matter! There are lots of books of course in which you have a man and woman falling in love, without children, but it's not often the focus of a book. More often it is implied they will have children in the future, or the book ends with her being pregnant (at least, in the books I've read). Does anyone know of any books where the not wanting children part is somewhat important to the story but where it doesn't turn out that the woman wants children by the end of the book? I don't want children, I wouldn't mind reading about that aspect and recognising myself in someone. Prefably it be a book you think I'd like, as there are some genres and types of book I prefer reading over others.

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I have to be honest, I haven't noticed that trend myself, but then I tend to mostly read thrillers. That said, I can't recall any memorable examples of childless couples or females in the books I read. On average, the victims have children. Sometimes the protagonists don't, like Matilda Darke in my recent read of her series, but she also has a broken home life, and didn't opt for childlessness.

 

I too would like to read a book wherein childlessness is a noted topic in the story and remains that way by the end, as I also do not want children.

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21 hours ago, Nollaig said:

I too would like to read a book wherein childlessness is a noted topic in the story and remains that way by the end, as I also do not want children.

 

It's nice to know I'm not alone :friends3:.

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I'm glad your partner doesn't want them either. My boyfriend is okay with not having any, as well. Both my siblings want to have children eventually and I think so do their partners, so maybe some years from now or such I might become an aunt.

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I suspect my brother will probably always be single, he has no interest (or ability) to establish social relationships. So the family line will end with him, as even if I did ever have kids it'd likely be under a new surname. I don't think I will, though. Nothing about the idea appeals to me, I like my freedom, the world is already over-populated and I don't care about passing on a 'legacy' of any kind.

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I had a friend in high school who was adamant she didn't want kids.  A lot of people told her she'd change her mind or regret it later.  In her mid 20s she fell pregnant accidentally (was married to a guy who also didn't want kids).  People started tell her she'd see how much she did really want kids when the baby was born.  I saw her when her daughter was about 8 and she told me having a child hadn't changed her mind.  She loves her daughter, but still wishes she'd never had kids, and knows for certain that's what she would have preferred.

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@Nollaig Those are very understandable reasons and make perfect sense to me. I have multiple reasons too, not the least of which is that I get extremely tired being near a child for about half an hour; I could not be with a child the whole day, let alone a large part of the day for many years. It's hard enough for me to deal with being with most other people for a longer amount of time and understand them, I do not understand children at all and they cost me lots of energy with their, in my eyes, unpredictability; I don't really have the ability to get into their world and their mind.

 

Babysitting a child for a few hours would be extremely hard on me and I could not do that without help from my boyfriend (not that I've done so in any recent years). When I was younger I babysat my brother and sister but they were much closer to me in age at the time, I could understand them much more easily, and they were (are) my siblings of course. I have watched over other people's children occasionally when I was a teenager and in my twenties, and the children (and their parents / family) were here at my house for a birthday or another reason, but I always found it quite difficult.

 

I don't find having children appealing at all. I do find it interesting to read about parenting in fictional books or to read about child psychology, but I don't want them myself. Pregnancy alone would be extremely tiring, and that's just the start. I've never been interested in having children, unlike my sister. She used to babysit more than me and she enjoyed it and got along with the children much better than me. I think she would make a great mother. And likewise I think my brother would make a great father.

 

I remember how hard it was for me when Boris, my dog, was a puppy, and he was asking for attention every few minutes. It drove me a bit crazy and for a long time I didn't get along with him so well (note: my parents decided to get this dog, not me. But I was the one who was home more often, trying to do my university work). I wasn't really mean to him (I could not be mean to a dog!), but I'd sigh when he asked for attention again and didn't grow to like him until he was older and I didn't need to tend to him every few minutes. Now though, of course, I love him very much. It's nice to pet him, but he's also okay just lying down or walking around in the garden on his own for a while. Which is just how I prefer it, I don't have the energy to tend to another being for long, I have enough to deal with on my own. I need to spend most of my time on my own (though I don't mind my boyfriend being in the room and I like spending some time with him).

 

@bookmonkey Oh wow, that's a difficult situation. It must be quite hard on your friend. It's, in a way, nice to hear though, as often in books and movies the character does change her mind and decides she (or he) does want to have children. it's nice to see it also happens (in real life) that having a child does not change the mind of someone who doesn't want children (if that makes sense), and that she didn't change her opinion despite what other people told her. I do feel bad for her though as it can't be easy on her (nor her child).

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I read Kathryn Allan, Djibril Al-Ayad, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Nicolette Barischoff, Comebab, Sarah Pinsker, Margaret Killjoy, Fabian Alvarado, Joyce Chng, Samantha Rich, L. E. Badillo, Sara Patterson, Kate O'Connor, Rachel Keslensky, Tony MacNutt, Louise Hughes, Vincent Konrad, Jack Hollis Marr, Petra Kuppers, Pandalion Death, A. C. Buchanan, A. F. Sanchez, Jane Baker, Rachael K. Jones, Tostoini, David Jón Fuller, Derek Newman-Stille - Accessing the Future.

 

This is a disability-themed speculative fiction short story collection. There are 15 stories and 9 illustrations (each of which tells their own story as well). I didn't get on well with 2 short stories; one I couldn't get through, I found it too confusing and thus I abandoned it; the other I read fully but I found it confusing and didn't care much for it. I liked the rest of the stories. There were a few I really loved. The illustrations were nice too, though I liked some more than others.

 

It was really great to see the disability representation in this book. I loved how the disabilities were portrayed. I also liked the diverse characters in the stories. We need more books like this.

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@bookmonkey That's awfully sad to hear about your friend, and I've read very similar stories before. On reddit, there was a man who reposted once a year for like four years, documenting his relationship with a daughter he only had to sustain his relationship. He began to get on with her more as she got older, but his core message was, never compromise your personal preferences on the kids thing for anyone, because you'll always regret it. I would never, ever compromise on the subject, and if I got accidentally pregnant (I hope not, with this yoke in my arm) I wouldn't keep it.

 

It's not just about whether you end up loving the child or not, having a child (for someone who doesn't want one) completely curbs and alters their life's path. Putting education, or career on hold, putting personal goals on hold, etc etc. While very possible to wind up loving a child you didn't want, you may always regret not having the life you really wanted because of them.

 

Athena, I feel very much the same as you - I find children draining and simply cannot relate to them.

 

Sorry for hijacking your book thread - interesting conversation though :)

 

The collection of disability-themed short stories sounds really interesting!

 

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I agree with you too, Athena , when I used to go to my friend for one of her children's parties I'd only be there for a few hours and be completely exhausted -the constant attention-seeking, having to smile inanely at the slightest thing the child did - another drawing, hooray! - I don't know how parents manage being with them all the time!  I've never been maternal either (as you can probably guess from what I've just said), maybe it's a selfish thing and if I'd met the right person, but I don't think so.  Give me a dog any day, although they can be exhausting as well.

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I recently bought the latest Bridget Jones book. Sorry to hear it wasn't an enjoyment for you. 

 

Nothing selfish about not wanting children or even disliking them. There are too many overly spoilt children around. I don't know myself if I do or not. Possible in the future.

 

I can't be sure of books where a female character hasn't wanted children and it's stayed that way throughout. If I am honest it's not something I've looked for. However now I think it could be a very interesting and important part of a story. As it seems in society if you are a woman you must want children and if not then "what is wrong with you?!"

 

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22 hours ago, Nollaig said:

It's not just about whether you end up loving the child or not, having a child (for someone who doesn't want one) completely curbs and alters their life's path. Putting education, or career on hold, putting personal goals on hold, etc etc. While very possible to wind up loving a child you didn't want, you may always regret not having the life you really wanted because of them.

 

That's very true.

 

22 hours ago, Nollaig said:

Athena, I feel very much the same as you - I find children draining and simply cannot relate to them.

 

It's nice to hear you feel the same :).

 

22 hours ago, Nollaig said:

Sorry for hijacking your book thread - interesting conversation though :)

 

Don't be sorry! I started it, and I've been enjoying the conversation, so it's all good :).

 

22 hours ago, Nollaig said:

The collection of disability-themed short stories sounds really interesting!

 

That's nice to hear :). I didn't like two of the stories but the rest seemed nice to me, and it was quite refreshing to read stories that handled disability properly in a non-ableist way.

 

22 hours ago, Madeleine said:

I agree with you too, Athena , when I used to go to my friend for one of her children's parties I'd only be there for a few hours and be completely exhausted -the constant attention-seeking, having to smile inanely at the slightest thing the child did - another drawing, hooray! - I don't know how parents manage being with them all the time!  I've never been maternal either (as you can probably guess from what I've just said), maybe it's a selfish thing and if I'd met the right person, but I don't think so.  Give me a dog any day, although they can be exhausting as well.

 

I wouldn't call not having children, selfish.

I would also much rather have a dog than a child. But it's true, dogs can also be exhausting.

 

20 hours ago, Lau_Lou said:

I recently bought the latest Bridget Jones book. Sorry to hear it wasn't an enjoyment for you. 

 

I hope you like it more than I did :).

 

20 hours ago, Lau_Lou said:

Nothing selfish about not wanting children or even disliking them. There are too many overly spoilt children around. I don't know myself if I do or not. Possible in the future.

 

I can't be sure of books where a female character hasn't wanted children and it's stayed that way throughout. If I am honest it's not something I've looked for. However now I think it could be a very interesting and important part of a story. As it seems in society if you are a woman you must want children and if not then "what is wrong with you?!"

 

I agree with that, it does seem to be that way often in society! I think it could be an interesting book also. I googled for it and looked on Amazon, but could only find non-fiction books on the subject (written by people who decided not to have children). I wonder if anything fictional exists. It's good to see at least the non-fiction stuff is out there.

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June 2017 Summary

Books read: 11
Pages read: 3664

Most impressive / Favourite(s) of the month:
Maria V. Snyder - Chronicles of Ixia 2: Study 2: Magic Study (re-read)
Emma Donoghue - Room
Jasmine Warga - My Heart & Other Black Holes
Becky Chambers - Wayfarers 2: A Closed and Common Orbit
Kathryn Allan, Djibril Al-Ayad, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Nicolette Barischoff, Comebab, Sarah Pinsker, Margaret Killjoy, Fabian Alvarado, Joyce Chng, Samantha Rich, L. E. Badillo, Sara Patterson, Kate O'Connor, Rachel Keslensky, Tony MacNutt, Louise Hughes, Vincent Konrad, Jack Hollis Marr, Petra Kuppers, Pandalion Death, A. C. Buchanan, A. F. Sanchez, Jane Baker, Rachael K. Jones, Tostoini, David Jón Fuller, Derek Newman-Stille - Accessing the Future

Pretty enjoyable:
Carrie Mac - 10 Things I Can See From Here
Diane Carey - Star Trek: The Next Generation: Descent
Greg Jenner - A Million Years in a Day
Somewhat enjoyable:
Sarah Morton - Afwijkend En Toch Zo Gewoon

Biggest disappointment(s) / Least favourite(s) of the month:
Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones's Baby

Abandoned book:
None!

Shortest books read this month:
Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones's Baby (219 pages) Kathryn Allan, Djibril Al-Ayad, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Nicolette Barischoff, Comebab, Sarah Pinsker, Margaret Killjoy, Fabian Alvarado, Joyce Chng, Samantha Rich, L. E. Badillo, Sara Patterson, Kate O'Connor, Rachel Keslensky, Tony MacNutt, Louise Hughes, Vincent Konrad, Jack Hollis Marr, Petra Kuppers, Pandalion Death, A. C. Buchanan, A. F. Sanchez, Jane Baker, Rachael K. Jones, Tostoini, David Jón Fuller, Derek Newman-Stille - Accessing the Future (233 pages)


Longest books read this month:
Maria V. Snyder - Chronicles of Ixia 2: Study 2: Magic Study (re-read) (419 pages)
Emma Donoghue - Room (402 pages)

Other Notes:
So far this year, June is the month in which I've read the least. I've read just as many books as in January (my previous lowest reading month), but I've read a lot less pages.

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January-June 2017 Summary / Reflection

Books read: 122
Pages read: 27972

Read in January 2017: 11 books, 4462 pages
Read in February 2017: 15 books, 4159 pages
Read in March 2017: 28 books, 4544 pages
Read in April 2017: 29 books, 4768 pages
Read in May 2017: 28 books, 6375 pages
Read in June 2017: 11 books, 3664 pages


Favourite books I read in the first half of 2017:
Jen Wilde - Queens of Geek
Rachael Lucas - The State of Grace
Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff - The Illuminae Files 2: Gemina
Allie Brosh - Hyperbole and a Half
Peter F. Hamilton - The Night's Dawn 1: The Reality Dysfunction (re-read)
Maria V. Snyder - Chronicles of Ixia 1: Study 1: Poison Study (re-read)
Maria V. Snyder - Chronicles of Ixia 2: Study 2: Magic Study (re-read)
A. S. King - Glory O'Brien's History of the Future
Nicola Yoon - The Sun Is Also A Star
Emma Donoghue - Room
Simon de Waal - Bureau Raampoort 1: Bureau Raampoort
Blake Charlton - Spellwright 1: Spellwright (re-read)
Blake Charlton - Spellwright 2: Spellbound
Vanessa Greene - The Beachside Guest House
Becky Chambers - Wayfarers 2: A Closed and Common Orbit
Diane Chamberlain - Keeper of the Light / Kiss River trilogy

Least favourite books I read in the first half of 2017:
Blake Charlton - Spellwright 3: Spellbreaker (abandoned around 25%)
Graeme Simsion - The Best of Adam Sharp
Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones's Baby
Chérie Carter-Scott - If Life is a Game, These are the Rules
Karin Slaughter - Ongezien (The Unremarkable Heart)
Marc Boada (ill. Pere Mejan) - Max 1: Max en de Slinger van Foucault (Max Picard 1: Max Picard i el Maleït Pèndol de Foucault)
Marion Pauw - Grijs Gebied
Carry Slee - Bangkok Boy
Stephenie Meyer - Twilight: Life and Death

Abandoned books in the first half of 2017:
Blake Charlton - Spellwright 3: Spellbreaker (abandoned around 25%)
Ava Dellaira - Liefdesbrieven Aan De Sterren (Love Letters To The Dead) (page 34 out of 334, 10%; I wasn't in the mood for this type of book, the book itself might still be quite good, I just wasn't in the mood for it and didn't feel like reading it (library loan))

Shortest books (=< 25 pages):
Maria V. Snyder - Chronicles of Ixia 1: Study 1: Poison Study Chapter One Valek's POV (re-read) (~6 pages)
Guido van Genechten - Klein Wit Visje: Klein Wit Visje Telt Tot 11 (16 pages)
Guido van Genechten - Klein Wit Visje: Klein Wit Visje Wordt Groot (16 pages)
Max Velthuijs - Kikker: Kikker is Bang (23 pages)
Max Velthuijs - Kikker: Kikker in de Wind: Het Schetsboek van Max Velthuijs (24 pages)
Max Velthuijs - Kikker: Kikker in de Kou (25 pages)
Max Velthuijs - Kikker: Het ABC van Kikker (25 pages)
Max Velthuijs (& Others) - Kikker: Kikker en het Slaapfeest (25 pages)
Korky Paul and Valerie Thomas - Hennie De Heks 5: Hennie De Heks En De Computer (Winnie The Witch 5: Winnie's New Computer) (25 pages)

Longest books (450+ pages):
Peter F. Hamilton - The Night's Dawn 1: The Reality Dysfunction (1225 pages) (re-read)
Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff - The Illuminae Files 2: Gemina (661 pages)
Brian Selznick - De Wonderlingen (The Marvels) (647 pages)
Blake Charlton - Spellwright 2: Spellbound (564 pages)
Diane Chamberlain - Keeper of the Light / Kiss River 1: Keeper of the Light (507 pages)
Stephenie Meyer - Twilight: Life and Death (508 pages)
Cassandra Clare - The Mortal Instruments 3: City of Glass (495 pages)
Jodi Picoult - Harvesting the Heart (473 pages)
Catherine Ryan Hyde - Second Hand Heart (461 pages)
Cassandra Clare - The Mortal Instruments 2: City of Ashes (453 pages)

 

Some graphs:

 

Q1Q2_03_TBRvsR.png

(How many new books vs. re-reads)

 

Q1Q2_04_BookSource.png

(Did I own the book or borrow it from the library)

 

Q1Q2_05_PhysDigi.png

(How many books were physical vs. digital)

 

Q1Q2_06_BookFormat.png

(Hardbacks without dust jackets are usually, though not always, library books. Of my own books, paperbacks are my favourites.)

 

Q1Q2_08_GenderAuthor.png

('Both' in the case of when a book is written by multiple authors and there's at least one author of each genre. Other is for any writer who identifies themselves in a different way. Relatively okay balance for male vs. female authors.).

 

Q1Q2_09_NationalityofAuthor.png

(Mostly US, UK and NL, with some other countries. It's less US centric than last year, so I think that's good.)

 

Q1Q2_10_NewFamiliarAuthor.png

(How many books read by authors were already familiar to me vs. new authors. A combination is in the case of books in which I knew at least one of the authors but not (the) other(s).)

 

Q1Q2_11_StandaloneSeries.png

(How many books were standalones, vs. part of a series)

 

Q1Q2_16_Genres.png

(How many books did I read from which genre)

 

Q1Q2_17_PagesperGenre.png

(This means total pages vs. how many of those pages were read in books of that genre. For example, while a lot of the books I read were contemporary fiction, see the two graphs above here, pages-wise I read less of that genre than if you count the books (40 % vs 33%). Whereas for science-fiction it's the opposite (7 % vs 13 %).)

 

Q1Q2_18_FormatofBook.png

(Most of the books I read were 'text'books, but I also read some illustrated books, picture books and graphic novels.)

 

Q1Q2_21_AgeRange.png

(How many books did I read for which age range. I think this is relatively balanced, I'm quite happy with this balance.)

 

Q1Q2_19_GenrevsAgeRanges.png

(How many books did I read from which genre, and how many of those books were for infants (picture books), for children, for young-adults and for adults. Ie. you can see that quite a few of my contemporary fiction reads were picture books for infants, I only read YA paranormal, I read mostly children's horror, I read much more fantasy for children and YA than for adults, I read much more science-fiction for adults than for children, etc.)

 

Q1Q2_22_FictionvsNonfiction.png

(I read mostly fictional books, which are my favourite. I didn't read so much non-fiction but I've been enjoying my reading, so I think I'm okay with it for now.)

 

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(This is a pretty nice balance, in my opinion).

 

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(Most books were originally written in English, with some other languages.)

 

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(Most of the books I read were originally written in the same language I read them in, with just about a quarter being translations.)

 

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(I read mostly books published after I was born, which is also what I most like to read, so this makes sense to me).

 

Q1Q2_29_OriginalPublicationYears2.png

(Some of the books I read were re-releases of originally earlier published books.)

 

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(Interestingly, while I read a bit more books by female authors than by male authors, I read more books with a male protagonist than with a female protagonist.)

 

Q1Q2_33_SeasonThemed.png

(Most of the books I read didn't have any seasonal theme in it. But a few were of these themes. Autumn themed are horror books, Christmas / Winter themed are books in which Christmas or Winter plays a larger role and summer themed are books in which summer or summer holidays play a larger role. I didn't read any books in which the season 'spring' was important.)

 

Q1Q2_34_CoverSpineColours.png

(I read more blue books than anything else! I wonder if that is because blue is my favourite colours, or whether it is because there just are more blue books, than say orange books. With this graph I assumed the dominant colour of the cover. 'Multi' is in the case that there is no one dominant colour, and N/A is for books that didn't have a cover and / or spine).

 

Q1Q2_35_WritingStyle1.png

(I read more 3rd person books than 1rst person books. When I was a lot younger I used to much prefer 3rd person, but I'm becoming to like 1rst person just as much.)

 

Q1Q2_36_WritingStyle2.png

(Most of the books I read were written in past tense, this is generally my preference though I do like the variation.)

 

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(I read mostly novels, but also some other types of books).

 

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(About a quarter of my reads were debut novels.)

 

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(I read a lot more shorter books this year.)

 

Q1Q2_41_PageNumbers2.png

(It seems I read more shorter books this year and not so many longer books.)

 

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(Because, I'm a geek :D. Sort of a Gaussian approach on this though).

Q1Q2_44_ReadingperMonth.png

(I read more in some months, than in others).

 

Q1Q2_45_BooksperMonth.png

(Amount of books I read per month.)

 

Q1Q2_46_PagesperMonth.png

(Amount of pages I read per month.)

 

Q1Q2_70_BooksPerGenrePerMonth.png

(Amount of books I read, per genre, and per month. For example, I read a lot of fantasy in May and a lot of contemporary fiction in April (perhaps those were partly picture books? The blue-grey line is the average and comes after all the months of that genre. Obviously the months July - December are missing, they will be present by the end of the year).

 

Overall I'm somewhat pleased with how my reading is going. It's different in some ways from the past two years - I've not been going to the library as often and I've been reading more of what I feel like, rather than because I had to, for example, finish my library loans. My reading did slow down a lot though, it seems I read less when I'm less pressured to read by the library or by myself! I feel I've been reading more of my favourite genres than of the other ones, but perhaps that's just what I've been in the mood for this year. I have been enjoying reading with less pressure and just reading what I feel like rather than reading almost due library loans or reading to match a statistic.

 

It should be interesting to see how my reading involves the second half of 2017. Thank you for reading this summary / reflection.

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That must have taken you ages to get together.  Interesting -  I tend to try to read according to season too, and yes you're right, there are loads of books around every season except spring, strange! 

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Wow! Great stuff :)

It is interesting to see you prefer reading in 3rd person. 

 

I would love to see all the details of books I have read. I like write down how many books I have read each month and from male or female etc.

 

How long did this take to do?  Also how did you organise all this is there a programme you use on your computer? 

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22 hours ago, Madeleine said:

That must have taken you ages to get together.  Interesting -  I tend to try to read according to season too, and yes you're right, there are loads of books around every season except spring, strange! 

 

It is strange! I have occasionally read books in which Valentine's Day plays a huge role, but the other seasons seem much more common, for some reason.

For long how it took to get the graphs together, see below :).

 

10 hours ago, Lau_Lou said:

Wow! Great stuff :)

It is interesting to see you prefer reading in 3rd person. 

 

I would love to see all the details of books I have read. I like write down how many books I have read each month and from male or female etc.

 

How long did this take to do?  Also how did you organise all this is there a programme you use on your computer? 

 

Thanks :).

Well I used to prefer 3rd person, but nowadays I find I quite like 1rst person too. When I was a child, 1rst person confused me. I thought that it meant that I was experiencing those things, because it said "I" on the page. I think it had to do with my autism. After a while I learned that just because it said "I" on the page, didn't mean it referred to me. It took me some time to really appreciate 1rst person but nowadays quite a few of my favourite books are written in 1rst person (and also a lot in 3rd, no idea which one is more prevalent there!).

 

That makes sense :). It didn't take me as long to do as you might think. I use the programme MicroSoft Excel on the computer. I have a spreadsheet and every time I finish a book I fill in its details - author, title, but also publication year, and all the other statistics I keep track of.

 

Here's a picture of a small part of it:

 

ScreenShotSpreadSheet.png

 

And another picture:

ScreenShotSpreadSheet2.png

 

Most of the graphs have been coded to be updated automatically, so whenever I add a new book I've read, the graphs get updated. Every year at the end of the year / beginning of the new year, I take last year's spreadsheet, save it as a new file, remove the books I read in the previous year and see if anything needs adding or changing. I've been keeping spreadsheets for a couple of years now, since 2015. Though clearly my first one wasn't as advanced as the one I use now.

 

At the bottom I have three separate sheets:

ScreenShotSpreadSheet3.png

I can choose between the list of books, the statistics and the graphs (that was a new change I made this year).

 

Then this is the Statistics sheet:

ScreenShotSpreadSheet4b.png

 

And this is the Graphs part:

ScreenShotSpreadSheet5.png

 

All I then had to do for my summary was copy and paste the graphs into new image files. I select a graph and copy paste it into a new image file, then press save and give it a name. Repeat for all the other graphs. I had to upload them all to the post and type the text and such. It took me a while, but not as long as I thought it would, beforehand.

 

If either of you have any questions, feel free to ask :).

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18 hours ago, Little Pixie said:

Ooh, great graphs. :) Those are really fun to look at, and see your reading represented pictorially. :D

 

Thanks, Sarah :D!

 

13 hours ago, Alexander the Great said:

I've never been great at maths or statistics, but this looks great. It's really interesting to see a mostly emotional experience/activity - reading books - represented so analytically.

 

Thanks, Alexander :). I never really liked the statistics (in chemistry) course I did at university (though that could have been because of the teacher) - but I love being busy with my reading statistics!

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16 minutes ago, Athena said:

I never really liked the statistics (in chemistry) course I did at university (though that could have been because of the teacher) - but I love being busy with my reading statistics!

 

And what nice statistics they are! I bet it was fun to play around with them :D    Gathering bookish data and stuff...  My boss's elbow was hurting this week and so I got to do a lot of her typing on the computer, for stuff (she has a business and works from home so it was pretty much business related).  I got to use this program where I just typed in all the client info and then all the work that had been done for them, and then just clickety click, and out came an invoice for the client, in this ready invoice-'formula'. It was so much fun :D   Boss said it took her a lot longer to do it, and I said I wanted the program as a Christmas present! She asked me what I was going to do with it. I said, I'd just type in stuff and bill people! :D   I think I should've been a secretary or something. 

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21 hours ago, frankie said:

And what nice statistics they are! I bet it was fun to play around with them :D    Gathering bookish data and stuff...  My boss's elbow was hurting this week and so I got to do a lot of her typing on the computer, for stuff (she has a business and works from home so it was pretty much business related).  I got to use this program where I just typed in all the client info and then all the work that had been done for them, and then just clickety click, and out came an invoice for the client, in this ready invoice-'formula'. It was so much fun :D   Boss said it took her a lot longer to do it, and I said I wanted the program as a Christmas present! She asked me what I was going to do with it. I said, I'd just type in stuff and bill people! :D   I think I should've been a secretary or something. 

 

Thanks, it was a lot of fun to play around with them :D. The program on the computer sounds like fun too :D!

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I read Matthew Green - Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. This is the story of Max, an autistic boy (at least, I think he is). The story is told from the perspective of Budo, Max' imaginary friend. Max is in danger and it's up to Budo to save him. I thought this was a very interesting and unique way of telling the story. I enjoyed learning about the imaginary friends Budo meets. I also enjoyed getting to know Max. It took a bit of time before the book got really suspenseful but I quite enjoyed reading the book anyway.

Note: The author's name is Matthew Dicks in the US, that's his actual name. They changed the name for the UK edition of the book.

 

 

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