"So it goes."

I can't believe we're a quarter of the way through 2018. It sure feels like it's flying by, so I decided to round up the stats I have kept. I've already noticed the things I wish I'd kept, but I will just plan to do better next year.

According to my spreadsheet, I've read the following between January 1 and 31st March of 2018:

Total Read: 111 (not counting 2 reference-ish books that it's hard to actually "read.") 

Those 111 break down as follows:

2 were DNF'd at over 50%. I didn't count any DNF'd at less than 50%.

2018 releases: 23 total

88 were pre-2018.

(A few were rereads of classics I read when I was far too young, but most were books new to me.)

31 nonfiction

79 fiction

1 anthology that had both fiction and nonfiction

54 Borrowed

57 Mine 

This needs to change. After noting this, I stopped some holds in their tracks and decided I need to read my books for real, not just think about it. This means not reading all the new books right now. This usually happens in January when all the new book lists come out combined with resolutions to not spend so much money on books... I'm going to work on a box of books at a time from the ones I own. The bad ones hopefully, that I can give away after I read them ;-)

I read them in the following formats:

• hard cover: 42  (too many orders at the library is what this tells me)
• paperback: 29
• ebook: 25
• audiobook only: 15 -- some I read two ways, so I can't be sure about that stat.

Of those only 8 were in translation -- and I need to keep track of this stat next year, since I've been horrible about shelving my books here or anywhere. There's also an interesting translation issue I've sort of looked at below.

9 books were YA, 1 was middle-grade, I didn't count children's books read.

I've read 104 stand-alone books. (93.7%)

Of the ones in series, I've read 5 first books, 2 second books from 5 different series. (I should finish a series, maybe?)

Male/Female & People of color:

-- 65 books written by women

-- 45 by men

-- 1 book by a non-binary author

(One counted twice since it was a male/female writing team)

Those break down as follows: 

-- 35 books by white men

-- 9 books by men of color

-- 28 books by women of color

-- 36 books by white women

-- 1 book by a white man and a white woman

-- 1 book by a white person who doesn't identify as male or female

Counting "authors of color" is a tricky business, since not everyone identifies their race, and race is a very realistic construct that is impossible to divine by looking at a picture. I've basically counted those who identify as a person of color. I haven't counted books who feature a person of color - and I think I shall do so next year. So for this year, it means that I count Danzy Senna and Omar El Akkad but not Parnaz Foroutan, as she doesn't identify as a person of color. I am especially annoyed by this, as I myself am a woman of color, but I'm pretty sure most people who just looked at a picture of me would count me as "white." 

I haven't kept track of sexual identity, though I'm really not sure how I'd do that - not every author plasters "I am gay" on their profiles.

I also have not kept track of authors' nationality. A quick look-see tells me after American & British authors, the next highest number are Nigerian. Africa overall seems to be the continent covered 2nd only to North America, mostly because African authors tend to write in English. It's sad that people who live much closer but write in Spanish don't get translated or even marketed here. I look at the Spanish language books every time I go to the library, and most are the same books found in the English section, translated to Spanish, rather than being the other way round. I do read Spanish, but I only find a few books every year written in Spanish, and it involves me doing some searching and finding, rather than anything being marketed to me. Yet another reason Amazon & its many companies are not a good way to find my next read.

Here's hoping the next quarter looks a bit better than this one for authors of color and books in translation.