Falconer's Library 2017 Stats: PIE! (Charts). Also Bar Graphs.

I like keeping lists. I just do. It's why bullet journaling, rather to my surprise, has been part of my life for a solid 10 months now. Every year since joining Goodreads nearly a decade ago, I've logged every single book I've read, minus a few picture books, plus several I read earlier in my life. I've looked back at my 5 star books and emailed out lists of my favorites from each year. As I got into blogging and the online book community, I started keeping track of more details. I've had a spreadsheet for a few years now, made easier through Google Forms. That also allows me to graph my data with the click of a button, which, let's face it, is the only way my data is going to get itself graphed.

Specifics should be taken with a grain of salt. Goodreads and my spreadsheet aren't exactly aligned on what I read. In the middle of the summer I added another layer of questions to my form in order to help organize books for consideration in my classroom. Sometimes I guess or estimate. But the overall trends and patterns are quite clear.

I read mostly books I like. 3.5 and above is a solid 75% of the chart. This is due to two factors: 1) I'm easy to please and b) I know what I like. With over a thousand books on my TBR, there's no reason for me to pick up a book I'm feeling "meh" about.

Still a library girl. There's not much real difference between "classroom library" and "bought new."  If I buy a book, read it, and THEN put it in the library, it's "bought new." If I bought it earlier, put it in the library, and then read it, it's "classroom library." 

This is very much a function of my job. I've never shied away from YA and even MG, but I used to fit in a lot more adult work as well, from mystery series to literary fiction.

I'm mildly surprised at how balanced this is. Especially considering this next one.

I guess women are still more likely to write male protagonists than the other way around. Shocker.

 Aaaand I'm still reading about a bunch of straight white people. (The reason why the chart has those last three categories is that there's an "other" option and clearly I described it differently each time I chose it. Same basic reason why "animals," "shepherd/poodle" and "wombat" are listed separately as well.)

 Every year I say I'm going to read more non-white authors and more non-American ones, and every year I read about 80% white American authors. Sheesh.

This is one where the totals might not equal 100%, since I could and did mark multiple choices per book. (I think I just answered my own internal question about why some of these are bar graphs and some are pie charts.) I think if you'd surveyed me throughout my life, the exact percentages might have changed, but you would have always seen a blend of contemporary, historical fiction, fantasy, and mystery, with a splash of sci fi, and most of my nonfiction in the biography/memoir area. 

There are other areas I'm not bothering to evaluate here, which means I will probably edit them out of my form for 2018. I'll share a blank version here for anyone who'd like it.