In 2014, 196 books were reviewed at the complete review, down slightly from the 203 in 2013, and just short of the soft target of 200.
I received 540 review copies -- considerably more than in 2013 (490) but fewer than in 2012 (579).
I often don't get to titles immediately -- three reviews were of titles received at least 2500 days before the review finally appeared .....
Books originally written in 36 languages (2013: 35) were reviewed, with books written in French again taking the top spot, ahead of books written in English.
The top ten languages were:
The terrible sexist bias continues, as men were the authors of 82.91% of the books reviewed (2013: 85.37%).
Only one title was graded 'A' -- Julio Cortázar's Fantomas versus the Multinational Vampires -- and none were graded lower than 'B-' (8). An even hundred titles were graded 'B'.
The average length of all books reviewed was 242.31 pages, with only two books of more than 1000 pages reviewed, and five more that were over 500 pages long.
Stunningly, the average review-length was identical to last year's: 888 words. One review was over 3000 words, three more over 2000 words.
21 books first published in 2014 were reviewed, tied for the most of any year with 2012 (but only 14 2013 titles were reviewed). 15 books first published in the 1990s were reviewed, 7 from the 1980s, 8 from the 1970s, 14 (!) from the 1960s -- and none from the 1950s. 7 titles from the 1930s were reviewed; 5 nineteenth century titles, and three from before 1800.
(Recall that for our purposes we record date of first publication as the date it was first published anywhere -- i.e. in the case of translations, the date when the original came out, not the English translation.)
Looking over the statistics it's tempting to 'correct' future reading-trends and consciously try to review more ... X. In some case this seems obvious -- clearly I should be reviewing more books authored by women, right ? -- but such efforts, or the contemplation thereof, quickly devolves into foolishness: I want to read more novels (which hardly seems possible) ! more different languages ! more classical literature ! more poetry/drama/non-fiction (yeah, no, I'll never want to read more non-fiction, though, of course, I should, my anti-non-fiction bias is far worse than my sexist one ...) ! more English-language books ! more foreign books ! more long books ! more short books ! more ! more ! more !
Instead, I fear, I will just stay the course that comes naturally to me -- the one I convince myself is more or less random, fortuitous, unplanned. So look for more of the same in 2015. As always.
I received 540 review copies -- considerably more than in 2013 (490) but fewer than in 2012 (579).
I often don't get to titles immediately -- three reviews were of titles received at least 2500 days before the review finally appeared .....
Books originally written in 36 languages (2013: 35) were reviewed, with books written in French again taking the top spot, ahead of books written in English.
The top ten languages were:
- 1. French 43 (21.94% of all books) (2013: 43)
- 2. English 32 (16.33%) (2013: 35)
- 3. Spanish 14
- 4. Italian 13
- 5. Japanese 12
- 6. German 10.5
- 7. Chinese 8
- 8. Russian 7
- 9. Dutch 5
- -. Portuguese 5
- 1. France 33 (2013: 39)
- 2. Italy 13 (2013: 10)
- -. UK 13 (2013: 7)
- -. US 13 (2013: 17)
- 5. Japan 12 (2013: 20)
The terrible sexist bias continues, as men were the authors of 82.91% of the books reviewed (2013: 85.37%).
Only one title was graded 'A' -- Julio Cortázar's Fantomas versus the Multinational Vampires -- and none were graded lower than 'B-' (8). An even hundred titles were graded 'B'.
The average length of all books reviewed was 242.31 pages, with only two books of more than 1000 pages reviewed, and five more that were over 500 pages long.
Stunningly, the average review-length was identical to last year's: 888 words. One review was over 3000 words, three more over 2000 words.
21 books first published in 2014 were reviewed, tied for the most of any year with 2012 (but only 14 2013 titles were reviewed). 15 books first published in the 1990s were reviewed, 7 from the 1980s, 8 from the 1970s, 14 (!) from the 1960s -- and none from the 1950s. 7 titles from the 1930s were reviewed; 5 nineteenth century titles, and three from before 1800.
(Recall that for our purposes we record date of first publication as the date it was first published anywhere -- i.e. in the case of translations, the date when the original came out, not the English translation.)
Looking over the statistics it's tempting to 'correct' future reading-trends and consciously try to review more ... X. In some case this seems obvious -- clearly I should be reviewing more books authored by women, right ? -- but such efforts, or the contemplation thereof, quickly devolves into foolishness: I want to read more novels (which hardly seems possible) ! more different languages ! more classical literature ! more poetry/drama/
Instead, I fear, I will just stay the course that comes naturally to me -- the one I convince myself is more or less random, fortuitous, unplanned. So look for more of the same in 2015. As always.