From High [Fidelity] to Low[boy] (and All Between): My 2014 in Books

Well, I failed to meet my goal two years in a row now, as I only read 31 books of a planned 40 (there are only 30 reviews on this blog, since it turns out I forgot to post one back in November). It's rather disappointing because I thought I was a bit closer to my goal, but it turns out I fell pretty drastically short. I did happen to read the first ten books in a manga called Blue Exorcist so if we're counting those as individual books, I actually did meet my goal, but I'm not sure I'd be able to equate manga and novels so I left them out.

I suppose this inability to keep up should make me rethink my goals, but I'm not for 4 reasons:
1) I came closer than I did last year, despite averaging a higher page count
2) I read the longest book I've ever read in my life this year (almost 1200 pages) and that took almost a month
3) I took an entire month off from reading
4) It's really just a bad idea to lower your expectations... I'm sure I'll make it eventually... 2015 FTW!

Like last year, my reading pace slowed down in the summertime. I was actually right on target at the halfway point. It didn't help that I also set reading aside for the entire month of November to attempt NaNoWriMo. I intend to focus on my writing a lot this year too, but I will still shoot for my 40 books.

And now for fun stats!

Number of books read: 31

First book read: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Last book read: Lowboy by John Wray

Oldest book: The 39 Steps by John Buchan from 1915
Newest book: Blackout by Rob Thurman from 2011

Shortest book: The 39 Steps by John Buchan at 142 pages
Longest book: The Stand by Stephen King at 1153 pages 

Favorite read of the year: Tough choice this year, but I'll have to hand it to Fool on the Hill by Matt Ruff

• (Honorable Mentions to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Stand, and Nightlife, which I still loved the second time around)

Least favorite read of the year: Also a tough choice:

• Orca by Arthur Herzog was the worst book I read

• But the least enjoyable was Eight Against Utopia by Douglas Mason

 Fastest read: About a Boy by Nick Hornby, which I read in a single day
Slowest read: The Stand by Stephen King, which took me almost a month to complete

Pages read: 9666 (8284 last year)
Average book size, by page: 311 (296 last year)
Percentage of quota met: 78%
Books I reread this year: 4 (the first four in the Cal Leandros series by Rob Thurman)

Most unexpectedly awesome: The Giver by Lois Lowry
Biggest letdown: How can it be anything but The Golden City by John Twelve Hawks? I expected nothing and I was still let down...

# of dystopic books read: 2

• 8 Against Utopia and The Giver

# of apocalyptic books read: 3

• The Stand, October the 1st is Too Late and A Small Armageddon
• + all 6 Rob Thurman novels if we're counting near-apocalypses

# of books about unlikely Christ figures: 2 (McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Victor Mancini from Choke)

Most depressing: It's a tie:

• Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow and Lowboy by John Wray

Most egregiously offensive: Bad City Blues by Tim Willocks
Most egregiously inoffensive: Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom


Quota for 2015: Well I guess I'll try 40 again!
First book up for 2015: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

I'm attempting something different this year. The first 26 books I read will be titles starting with every letter of the alphabet, in order. Should be fun! Thanks for sticking with me; now it's time to get reading... :D