A Year in Review... plus a few graphs

Up until yesterday we had been planning this glorious year end video summarizing our reading exploits. We had planned to make you laugh, cry, and basically rethink your life's purpose as we reflected on 2011.  All this sounded great up until the point when we actually had to shoot the video... nothing.  At least nothing that could stir the aforementioned emotions.  Soooo, instead we’ve decided to bore you with some awesome statistics....

For those of you who have been following our (Evan’s) reading progress throughout 2011 with bated breath, the following graphs contain all the fascinating details that will help you nerd up your New Year a little more!!! 

First, let’s have a quick look at our (Evan’s) reading statistics by month.

The heavenly bodies aligned in October, however there was definitely room for improvement in July, November, and March.  Honestly, the entire second half of the year was a bit light compared to the first half... huh.  Overall, 126 books surpassed our wildest dreams (yeah, we have weird dreams).  But let’s take a deeper look at the gruesome details...

 

In 2011 we read 12,212 pages and listened to 989 Compact Discs.  March was the month we did the most actual reading and May was the month we did the most listening.   Not sure what that means, but the bars and lines look pretty neat combined together.  Also, assuming each CD was an hour long, (which most are longer) we spent 11% of 2011 just listening to books!  Awesome!  One more chart....

 

Our literary awakening was partially inspired by the BBC Big Read list, so in the shadows we continue to have our eye on the prize.  Come to think of it, maybe people really don’t win prizes for completing reading lists...  At any rate, we checked off 27 BBC Big Reads this year and given our current progress we should complete book 200 sometime in the year 2014.  The bounce house and balloons are already reserved....

And finally, below are the Two Bibliomaniacs Book Awards for the books we read in 2011 (Links available on any book reviewed):

Best Fantasy / Science Fiction: Well of Lost Plots (Jaspier Fforde)

Best Dystopian: The Hunger Games (Susan Collins)

Best Mystery / Suspense: Shutter Island (Dennis Lahane)

Best Laugh Generating Novel: Mort (Terry Pratchett)

Best Novel Involving a Boat and Three People: Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K. Jerome)

Best Love Story: A Town Like Alice (Nevile Shute)

Best Classic: The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)

Best Sleep Inducing Read: Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray)

Best non-Fiction: Love Wins (Rob Bell)

Best Book that’s a Fairly Popular Movie from the 80’s: The Princess Bride (William Goldman)

Best Movie Interpretation of a Novel:  Rebecca (Masterpiece Theater’s 1997 version)

Best Children’s Novel: Swallows and Amazons (Arthur Ransome)

Biggest Pleasant Surprise: The Looking Glass Wars (Frank Beddor)

Best ReRead: I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith)

Best Long Novel: Les Miserable (Victor Hugo)

Biggest Disappointment: Middlemarch (George Eliot)

Best Scary Novel Other Than Bag of Bones: The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson)

Best YA: Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones)

Best Novel Involving a Gentleman with Thistle Down Hair: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Susanna Clarke)

Author Most Deserving of a Flick in the Nose: Ulysses (James Joyce)

We offer our sincerest apologizes to anyone who may have inadvertently fallen asleep during the reading of this post and smashed their nose into their keyboard.  Hope your literary endeavors were as enjoyable as ours!

God bless and here’s to a great 2012!