I read 37 books in 2017. Here are a few thoughts and stats on them.
Number of books reviewed: 37. Yes, I reviewed all of them. As the reviews were made on Goodreads using their four-star system, I couldn’t award half-stars, though sometimes I wanted to. Most were three or four stars. There were no stinkers, though a few rated two stars.
Number of paper books read: 0. Yep, I was all-digital this year. I don’t really miss reading paper books and never needing bookmarks is nice.
Every book was bought on either amazon.ca or kobo.com and almost all were on sale. I didn’t mean to keep buying only sale-priced books, but I ended up with more than I could read (I have a backlog now, though not as massive as my Steam backlog, which would require living to the age of 280 to get through) so there was little reason to buy full-priced books as they came out. I also have few authors I consider must-buys and even those I do I can wait for the prices to drop because apparently I’m cheap. I’m sorry, authors! I promise to buy more full-priced books in 2018. Possibly.
On the plus side, this approach exposed me to a lot of authors I hadn’t read before. On the negative side, there are several I am confident I will never read again. I may need to be a tad more discerning.
Genres break down like so, though some books fit into multiple genres:
| Self-help/pop psychology | 3 |
| Biography | 2 |
| Horror | 13 |
| Science fiction | 7 |
| Literary fiction | 2 |
| Writing | 6 |
| Non-fiction | 3 |
| Classics | 0 |
| Fantasy | 1 |
A few things to note this year:
I only read one Stephen King novel and it was one I’ve read before and one that isn’t considered among his first tier of work (or even second or maybe third tier, depending on who you ask)–The Tommyknockers. I had a strange desire to revisit the book, mostly for its theme of “buried UFO drives town crazy.” I agreed with King’s own assessment that inside this 700 page novel was a good 350 page novel. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
I didn’t read any classics. I usually read one or two. I vow to do better next year.
I read more books on writing, which is ironic, given how my writing sputtered out by year’s end. Given the uneven quality of the books, I may have been better off spending the time writing.
Horror dominated, as always, mostly due to a binge toward the end of the year. Good horror can be hard to find. I will probably read any new work by Sarah Lotz.
Three of the science fiction novels dealt with time travel, alternate dimensions or both. I greatly enjoyed all three, as I’m a sucker for these themes.
The full list of books can be read under the 2017 heading found here.
