Hello friends!! Happy Saturday once again. I really should write up a proper account of mine and Dad’s Iowa adventure this week (which was truly glorious and wonderful) and maybe I shall at some point. For now though…wanted to chronicle a few book stats for the year 2018. I have been promising (or THREATENING) to do so for a little while now…and then last night was chatting with Rachel at Angela’s celebration dinner (hurrah for new job for her!! Also…yummy ramen is yummy) and we started talking about books and what our taste was in books…and she remarked it’d be much easier for her to know what books to recommend to me if I had a GoodReads account. Well. I actually do have one, and have had for many years, but I’ve never actually used it. This morning I had the bright idea…why not transfer all my 2018 book logs (conveniently kept here on livejournal!) to goodreads? And so this morning I have done so. (Actually this morning started with a quite delicious and encouraging breakfast at Las Locas with Earnie, Jake & Joe…) Spent a few hours just now updating my goodreads account and transferring and (sorta) sorting my books. I will shortly put my 2019 reads on there as well, but first wanted to just note my numbers for 2018. All blessings to God for the gift of so many good books…and for the pleasure He gives me in the reading of them:
2018
Total Books Read: 48
Fiction: 36
Non-fiction: 12
Non-fiction breakdown:
Christian – 8
Historical – 2
Science – 1
Biographical – 1
Christian breakdown:
Theology – 3
Ecclesiology – 2
Biography – 3
Fiction breakdown:
Fantasy – 15
Sci-fi – 16
Unclassified – 5
Takeaways? Well, it’s very tidy that apparently exactly 1/4 of my reading is non-fiction and 3/4 fiction. Only 8 books classified as Christian (I deliberately am not classifying any fiction as Christian, even if Narnia and a few others would most certainly count)…and while that disappoints me slightly, I think if I included page/word count, a slightly different story would be told. I am most definitely particularly thinking of Owen Works Vol. 3, which has many pages and many words and definitely slowed down my total reading last year. (But of course, oh so worth it. I am soon about to start Vol. 4!!) Also slightly amusing that my fiction reading breaks down pretty evenly – very narrow victory goes to sci-fi over fantasy this year! I am also slightly disappointed that I read *only* 48 books in 2018. I am hoping 2019 will be a better showing. I’m sitting at 12 right now, which is promising, but I also haven’t started any significantly long books as of yet, which will slow down my count. (Also have four recent reads that I need to log soon…maybe today or tomorrow?) I am just rambling now, but I thought it was interesting to look at these statistics. Interesting to me at least!
One more thing. Goodreads asks that you rate each book on a 5-star system. How did those break down for 2018?
5-star – 8
4-star – 30
3-star – 9
2-star – 1 (Poor Death’s End by Cixin Liu…)
1-star – 0 (thankfully)
Hurrah for reading books that I mostly like!! Which books got the coveted 5-star rating? Jonathan Edwards bio and Evangelicalism Divided by Murray. The Life and Diary of David Brainerd. Owens Vol. 3. Voyage of the Dawn Treader by Lewis. They Were Divided and They Were Counted by Banffy. And of course Lord of the Rings. Yup. Those books are worthy, methinks. Brings me happiness just now as I think on them.
I want to end this post by remembering yet again that when I read, I wish to glorify God in all things. Even the books that do not deliberately speak of Christ or the things of God, may they draw my eyes upward to heaven as I consider the beauties of this world and the wonders of humanity – the men and women that have so many hopes and dreams and songs and poems – love and light and varied things reflecting the longing in our souls for God, groping for Him in the sometimes darkness of this world. May my own thoughts and dreams be coloured by my desire to know my God ever more.
