Keeping track

Early in 2013 (I think it was in February), I decided to keep track of all the books I read. I wrote them all in a list in the Notes app on my phone. When 2014 started, I wanted to see how many books I could read over the course of the entire year. I didn’t exactly set a goal for myself, and I didn’t go out of my way to read more than I usually do, but I was super excited when I hit 100 books in early December!

I ended up with a total of 108 books. And that’s just books! That doesn’t count magazines, newspapers, long-form essays, anything online. No audiobooks. No fan fiction. No backs of cereal boxes. And that’s also not counting however many books I started but didn’t finish.

I wanted to capture some more information on the books I’m going to read in 2015, so I came up with a spreadsheet… yes, I’ve hit that level of nerdiness. That way I can see, at a glance, how much fiction vs. non-fiction I’m reading. (I think I’m skewing towards non-fiction, but this way I can be sure!) How many male authors am I reading vs. female authors? Am I spending more time reading new books, or re-reading old favourites? How many pages will I read in 2015, in total?

I would make a goal for number of pages, except that I have no idea where to start. I’m aiming to beat 2014’s total number of books, at least. I think 109 is doable.

I’m setting a goal too (and I’m setting it publicly!) to post more often about more of the books I read, whether I like them or not. And to update my Goodreads queue at least occasionally, both for my own benefit and anyone else who’s looking at it.

What about you? Do you keep track of what you read? Do you think the spreadsheet is a good idea, or do you think I’m perhaps a little OCD? Have you made a New Year’s Resolution to read more books, or have you made a goal of reading a specific number of books? Leave a comment and let me know!

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (2007)

This book confused me a bit — I’m not used to my fiction having footnotes. I was also a little confused because there’s a lot of Spanish slang going on here, and my Spanish is at the absolute most basic level. Google translate was less helpful than I had hoped, just because the narration was so slangy.

However, I can imagine other readers being even more lost than I was, because the narrator is such a huge nerd and kept dropping references to the classics: LOTR, Star Trek, Heinlein, Asimov, Herbert, old-school comics.

Here’s a picture of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”. This isn’t my picture. I refuse to fold books this way. (Photo credit: flickr)

That was actually one of the reasons I picked this book up in the first place; I’d heard (actually read) about the extreme nerdiness of the narrator, which — being a big nerd myself — appealed to me. It’s a good way into the story before you figure out who the narrator is or how he fits into the plot. There’s a lot of Dominican history for him to fill in, and luckily he does so with style.

I liked the protagonist, Oscar. He was an extremely sympathetic character (shy, fat, nerdy, a writer, a dreamer), and I found myself hoping that his life was more “wondrous” than “brief”… alas, I was disappointed.

I liked “The Brief Wondrous Life” and I was interested in it while I was reading it, but it still took me a while to get through.  It just didn’t hook me like some books do, so I didn’t experience that ‘can’t put it down, have to finish it right now’ feeling. You know the one — it’s like an adrenaline rush, but for the sort of people who like armchairs and that new book smell. No? Just me? Okay.