The year in reviews at the complete review

       It's been a busy year at the complete review: the 236 reviews posted mark the most in any year since 2000, and more than 10 per cent more than last year's total (212).
       That's also a total of 197,916 review-words (an average of almost 839 words per review, up from the 2011 average of 773); I don't keep as close a track of Literary Saloon-posting word-counts, but I figure, conservatively, there were at least 250,000 words worth here.

       Reviews of fiction dominated, as always: 190 of the reviews were of works of fiction (and 180 of those of novels) -- though that's a slightly lower percentage than in 2011. Interestingly, a majority of books by US authors were non-fiction -- 15, vs. only 9 fiction -- while, for example, books by authors from other countries were overwhelmingly fiction: France: 24 fiction vs. 3 non; UK 13 fiction vs. 2 non.

       Male-authored books were, as usual, predominant too ... 192.5 (81.57 %) ..... (Best balance: 3 books of 13 by Japanese authors reviewed were by female authors, 4 of 17 from the UK, 2 of 7 from Spain; worst: Netherlands: 0 of 6; US: 3 of 26.)

       Reviewed books were originally written in 33 different languages (up slightly from 31 in 2011, but still far below the 41 in 2010); the most common were:

1. English - 67 books
2. French - 40
3. Spanish - 23
4. Japanese - 12
5. Arabic - 9

       Reviewed books were by authors from 64 countries (up considerably from the 51 in 2011 and 2010); the best-represented were:

• 1. France - 30 books
• 2. US - 26
• 3. UK - 17
• 4. Japan - 13
• 5. Argentina - 7
• -. India - 7
• -. Spain - 7

       Rather surprisingly, I reviewed at least one book first published in each of the years between 1986 and 2012. (Note that I only count year of first publication, in whatever language a book was originally written in, not first US or English publication -- hence only 36 of the reviewed books are counted as having been first published in 2012; if the US publication date were the deciding one, that number would be about three times as high.)

       I reviewed at least five books from each decade since the 1910s except the 1940s (3) -- including 19 from 1910 to 1939 -- but only a very feeble four from before 1900.

       Only one title was graded 'A+' or 'A' (Gerald Murnane's Barley Patch), though 22 rated 'A-'. The most frequently assigned grade was 'B' (104), but four titles were rated 'C+' or lower.

       Except for the date-of-publication range there aren't too many numbers here that make me want to fundamentally change my approach to what I review. The pervasive sexism is embarrassing, but then it has been since day one at the site; I really don't know what to do about it (sorry, affirmative action isn't in the cards). But I would like to focus more on classical works -- that 98.3 per cent of the books reviewed were written in the past century (and hence less than 1.7 per cent before then) seems way too modern to me.
       As for the rest, the site will certainly remain as internationally (and multi-lingually) focused -- though I suppose I would like to extend the range of coverage of some other genres some as well: poetry (2 books in 2012), drama (1), etc.