Hi, folks!
As promised, I explain here how I use my reading spreadsheet. Sorry in advance for the poor audio quality and for the lenghty video – I did not antecipate that I would have so much to talk about!
NOTES:
Timestamps
Inspiration
- Sarah @ Bookmarked: https://youtu.be/6dHY3QdTIvQ
- Brock @ Let’s Read: https://youtu.be/PCu2VoPa5lc
- Sophie @ Portal in the Pages: https://youtu.be/YDWdsiejTyg
As you can see, my spreadsheet is a work in progress, but I hope you enjoyed watching the video 🙂
My stats for 2018 so far
I cannot believe it is June already! Time for me to look back over the books I’ve read in 2018 so far. And you know what that means:
STATS!
I’ve read 59 books so far, comprising a total of 16.651 pages:
| Year | Number of books | Average of Pages | Min of Pages | Max of Pages |
| jan | 10 | 228,6 | 89 | 352 |
| fev | 10 | 266,6 | 80 | 448 |
| mar | 9 | 341,0 | 112 | 571 |
| abr | 12 | 317,9 | 86 | 607 |
| mai | 14 | 244,4 | 128 | 336 |
| jun | 4 | 348,5 | 150 | 506 |
Most of the books were contemporary titles, published in the 21st century. By publication date, The Scholars, by Wu Jingzi (1750) was the oldest book I finished this year.
| Year | Number of books | Percentage |
| 2018 | 59 | 100,00% |
| <1800 | 1 | 1,69% |
| <1900 | 2 | 3,39% |
| 1910-1919 | 3 | 5,08% |
| 1920-1929 | 1 | 1,69% |
| 1930-1939 | 2 | 3,39% |
| 1950-1959 | 4 | 6,78% |
| 1960-1969 | 2 | 3,39% |
| 1970-1979 | 4 | 6,78% |
| 1980-1989 | 4 | 6,78% |
| 1990-1999 | 5 | 8,47% |
| 2000-2009 | 3 | 5,08% |
| 2010-2019 | 28 | 47,46% |
I had 35 four-star and 8 five-star reads, which makes for a good semester.
| Rating | Number of Books | Percentage | Average for the year |
| 2 | 7 | 11,86% | 3,8 |
| 3 | 9 | 15,25% | |
| 4 | 35 | 59,32% | |
| 5 | 8 | 13,56% |
The longest book read was, once again, The Scholars (it is a beast of a book!), and the shortest was the poetry collection Ordinary Beast, by Nicole Sealey (2017).
| Page range | Number of books | Percentage |
| <100 | 3 | 5,08% |
| 100-199 | 10 | 16,95% |
| 200-299 | 22 | 37,29% |
| 300-399 | 14 | 23,73% |
| 400-499 | 7 | 11,86% |
| 500-599 | 2 | 3,39% |
| 600-699 | 1 | 1,69% |
I read books from 17 countries, mostly European:
| Origin | Number of Books | Percentage |
| Africa | 1 | 1,7% |
|
1 | 1,7% |
| Asia | 5 | 8,5% |
|
2 | 3,4% |
|
1 | 1,7% |
|
1 | 1,7% |
|
1 | 1,7% |
| Europe | 31 | 52,5% |
|
1 | 1,7% |
|
16 | 27,1% |
|
1 | 1,7% |
|
4 | 6,8% |
|
2 | 3,4% |
|
1 | 1,7% |
|
5 | 8,5% |
|
1 | 1,7% |
| North America | 20 | 33,9% |
|
1 | 1,7% |
|
19 | 32,2% |
| Oceania | 2 | 3,4% |
|
1 | 1,7% |
|
1 | 1,7% |
As for the gender split in authors, more than 70% of the books I read were written by women:
| Gender | Number of Books | Percentage |
| Female | 46 | 77,97% |
| Male | 12 | 20,34% |
| Both | 1 | 1,69% |
I read mostly novels, but 30% of the books I read were non-fiction books:
| Genres | Number of books | Percentage |
| Non-fiction | 18 | 30,51% |
| Novel | 31 | 52,54% |
| Poetry | 5 | 8,47% |
| Short-stories | 2 | 3,39% |
| Novella | 3 | 5,08% |
More than 40% of the books I read were paperbacks, but I “read” a fair amount of audiobooks, too:
| Format | Number of books | Percentage |
| Audio | 17 | 29% |
| Ebook | 9 | 15% |
| Hardback | 9 | 15% |
| Paperback | 24 | 41% |
Almost 80% of the books I read came from my TBR:
| Source | Number of books | Percentage |
| Library | 11 | 18,64% |
| Review copy | 1 | 1,69% |
| TBR | 47 | 79,66% |
That’s all for now, folks! I’ve been thinking about writing a post on my favourite 2018 reads so far, so stay tuned for that.
À propos, do you keep a reading spreadsheet? Tell me about it!
And if you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know in the comments 🙂
Yours truly,
J.
the [blank] garden 
This is *so* impressive. I keep a basic list of what I read, when I finished it, when I reviewed it, date of publication and gender of author. I have a separate tab for purchases. I can just about cope with keeping that up to date……
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Thank you, Karen! I started this spreadsheet as a backup for Goodreads, and it quickly grew as my main way of keeping a record of what I read. I love playing with it. Does that make me weird? 😛
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Oh I had missed that you were on youtube now! I love seeing what kind of patterns/trends other readers have, as well as enjoying keeping track of my own. I think I have a similar nonfiction rate, as well as the preference for paperbacks, to you. I use Sophie’s spreadsheet, with slight adjustments – for example, I don’t use star ratings so I keep that blank. I wish I was more apt with excel, but sadly I’m not skilled enough with the program to make major changes or my own from scratch. I wish I had a way to incorporate the publication date timeline thing that Goodreads has (with the dots spread out) into my spreadsheet, since I’ve been reading more classics lately I think I would’ve liked to see it more visually represented (but again, I’m not apt enough to create this myself, haha). Enjoyed seeing your spreadsheet and how you track your reading! 🙂
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Thank you, Natalie! I am slowly making my way into youtube, but it takes so much time and effort to film and edit a video! I guess it is still easier for me to simply sit and write a review. 🙂 I will take a better look at Sophie’s spreadsheet – I am pretty sure we can build a timeline in Excel, and I will check how to do it with a table like hers. Once I figure it out, I will let you know. 🙂
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I understand, it’s definitely a bit of a time commitment. Oh, that’s wonderful! Thank you so much!
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I think this might work: 1) On the worksheet where you have your graphs, click on an empty cell; 2) Then from the Excel Menu on the top, select the Insert tab and navigate to the Charts section; 3) Select Scatter Chart, which will insert a blank white chart; 4) Right-click the blank white chart and click Select Data, which will bring up Excel’s Select Data Source window; 5) Click on the Add button to bring up the Edit Series window; 6) Click into the field named Series X values; 7) Go to your book survey table and select the column for the date you finished reading the book; 8) Click into the field named Series Y value; 9) Go to your book survey table and select the column for the book’s publishing year; 10) Right click on the horizontal axis of your chart, and select the option Format Axis; 11) Click the option Number at the bottom, select Category – Custom; 12) Then type aaaa in the option Format Code, and click Add; then, the values on your horizontal chart will be the years you read the books; the values on your vertical axis will be the years the books were published. 🙂
That sounds more complicated than it is. I can try to make a video about it, so as to make more visual.
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While I admire your organization, and the benefit of looking over one’s reading accomplishments, this smacks a bit too much of Math for me. Xo
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Thank you, Bellezza! It sounds more complicated than it is, really 🙂
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