The Sword and Laser discussion

How was your year (bookwise)

So 2012 is coming to an end (yeah I know it's only november, and no apocalypse puns here), and I was thinking about my the 2012 reading challenge.
How did 2012 turn out to be for you guys? Did you exceed your goals? Or perhaps you set the bar a tad too high this year?

For myself I can say that it's been a great year literary. I set out with the very much conservative hope of reading 35 books over the course of the year, last year I read 38 books, and so I though that 35 was realistic... but so far I've already far exceeded this. At the moment I'm at 54 books (a staggering 154 % according to goodreads), and a handful more will be added before the year is over I'm sure.

In number of pages the statistics is clear too. My bookcount of 54 books totals 25110 pages or 465 pages per book.
The genre I've been reading the most is by far fantasy, with more than half of my total books being in this genre. It's followed by Horror>Sci-Fi>Biographies....

As I can see on my rating statistics, this year have offered quite a few books I loved too. I've awarded no fewer than 22 books with the maximum of 5 stars (I still think the rating system on Goodreads could be more nuanced though), and 16 books have gotten 4 stars from me.

I would like to mention a few of the books on my list too. My reread of The Wheel of Time: Boxed Set has been very entertaining, although I'm not quite done with it yet (I still have 1½ months to read the rest).
Also I've at long last begun reading The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher ... And I absolutely love it!
This year has also introduced me to Brandon Sanderson ... and I've loved everything I've read of his.
I've been trying to read some of the Science Fiction classics I've missed over the years, and that they've all proven to be worth the hype (It's Roadside Picnic , Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? , Ender's Game and Flowers for Algernon which has all been more than just enjoyable)
2012 did offer some dissappointments for me, mainly 1Q84 , The Night Circus , The Passage and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War )

So what am I blabbering on about? I would just like to share my thoughts on the books I've read this year, and maybe be inspired by what you've read and what you think about this year's literary offerings.

The Best Book I Read This Year: The Way of Kings

Suprise of the year: Boy's Life

Dissappointment of the year: 1Q84

Wow, well done on the total number of books read. This year has been up and down for me. Starting off with Inheritance, a good read but not the best and a bit of a let down for the ending. However, it was entertaining and I still enjoyed the 4-book cycle. I agree about 1Q84, it was a disappointment. I'm a big fan of Murakami and own nearly all his books but this book fell short for me. Not too much really happened, despite its enormous length and I didn't find myself caring much about the characters.

I actually just finished reading Storm Front by Jim Butcher, what a great read and looking forward to reading the rest of the Dresdan series.

I have read more than 3 books this year...just those were the ones I thought i'd comment on.

I've upped my goal a few times, will probably up it again before the years out. Still plenty of time to read a few more.

But, so far:

Best I've read this year: The Things They Carried. Great book.

Surprise: Cloud Atlas. Didn't think I'd like it at all.

Disappointment: The Magicians. Friends loved it. I hated it.

I didn't join good reads until July. I didn't have a goal for myself at all. I have no idea exactly how many books I read as a result.

I've read at least 23 books so far (based on what I did enter from this year). Some of those are audiobooks, including the Harry Potter books which I've done several times before already.

My guess is that number is probably closer to 30, but I can't be sure. I expect to finish another 5 at least before the year ends.

Best Book I've Read this year: Ready Player One (by which I mean enjoyed it the most, certainly not the best written. I somehow missed it last year).

Surprise: Assassin's Apprentice. I'd never heard of/read anything by Robin Hobb. Now I'm almost done with my 6th Hobb book, and plan to read at least 3 more (Tawny Man) in the next few months.

Disappointment: The Dirty Streets of Heaven This had so much hype that I ran out to get it well before it was the club pick and found it pretty mediocre.

I've read 58 books so far this year. Thus far its stands as:

Best Book I've Read this year: Toss up between The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear. Both are favorites now and I've listened to them multiple times.

Surprise: The Handmaid's Tale. Not S&L, but I didn't expect I would enjoy this book as much as I did. I found it totally frightening, and it inspired me to read some of the other classics such as 1984.

Disappointment: It's between Vanity Fair and The Windup Girl. I typically enjoy Victorian era novels, and I greatly enjoyed the movie Vanity Fair, but I was let down by the book. In contrast, I had heard many great things about Windup Girl, but found that I couldn't connect to the story at all.

I've read 48* books so far this year. According to Goodreads, that puts me 3 books ahead of the pace I needed to set in order to finish 52 books for the year.

Best Book I've Read this year: Geekomancy was one of the few that had me staying up late to read more and got me to post a lengthy raving fanboy review.

Surprise: The Dragon's Path. In my opinion, the best thing to come out of Leviathan Wakes was the free book that came with it.

Disappointment: Dauntless. After doing the whole X-Wing series this year, I wanted to find another nice space battle laser series. I just couldn't stomach the supporting cast.

*Goodreads counts such things comic strip collections and individual issues of ongoing comic series. I'd be rather far behind if it didn't.

I've read 69 books from my target of 75. Some of those were shorts and novellas, so the page count is 15,672, for an average of 227 per book.

High points... I've discovered new authors and series: Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London trilogy being a particular highlight, but also books like Ready Player One, Mike Shepherd's Kris Longknife series, Thomas DiPrima's Galaxy Unknown, Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet... Michael Grant, Suzanne Collins, Scott Westerfield.

'Mainstream' authors like Jo Nesbø, Patricia Cornwell, Jack Higgins

Revisited old favourites: Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde, Brian Aldiss, Harry Harrison...

Discovered talented indie authors: Andrew Barrett, Darren Humphries, Mel Comley, Rosen Trevithick...

Only two books I lemmed: Hyperion (Dan Simmons) and The Stand (Stephen King)

So overall, a good year from a reading perspective. :) Good for writing too - I finished my own first novel: 92000 words, although it still needs editing and buffing up.

Next year the targets will be bigger... better... bolder... :)

Mummi wrote: "The Best Book I Read This Year: The Way of Kings"

Me too!

The best book I read this year is The Way of Kings, and Brandon Sanderson is my new favourite author. Currently reading his short story Legion :)

I'm one away from my goal of 40 which a majority of them have been graphic novels and photography books.

My favorites of this year are The Hobbit (really 1st time reading it) and Year Zero. Hands down the biggest frustration and disappointment was Cloud Atlas

Way of the Kings for me to with a close second being Ready Player One.

I've read 44 books from my target of 40. There are a couple of audiobooks in there. My page count is just over 20000. My most read genre is fantasy, followed by mystery and sci-fi.

I love this time of year because there are best-of lists for everything (music, books, etc), and I'll find lots of good stuff that I missed.

Best Book I've Read this year: Either The Wise Man's Fear or Leviathan Wakes. Both were really great books. A sentimental pick would go to Patriot Hearts: Inside the Olympics That Changed a Country (I love my country).

Surprise: I guess I'll say Reamde mostly because it was such a mainstream novel compared to Neal Stephenson's usual subject material.

Disappointment: I read a few mysteries that had terrible endings but those can be hit-or-miss when you stray from your comfort zone. I wish The Hunger Games was better but my opinion may have been heavily weighted to the audiobook reading. And Micro was disappointing but we'll just leave that one be.

Is there any easy way to get word/page count? The stats page shows me the books I've read by year and rating. It shows my longest book, and a pie chart of my bookshelves. I didn't see anything for average word or page though.

There's no average of words or pages. Closest is just total number of pages read.

@Rob, for the page count, look at the top of the list just above the individual years. There are radio buttons for pages, books, and publication year.

My original goal was 60. I met that in August, so I upped my goal to 70. I'm at 73 (GR stats say 77) now and slated to finish at least four books by year end, hopefully closer to eight or ten.

My page count isn't that high: 19,700. Some things I read are comics and short stories, a few novellas sprinkled in there. At least one book I read didn't have a page count in the Goodreads details. Several comics that I read aren't on Goodreads so I'm going to say that the books that GR is counting as read even though I have them categorized as didn't finish have roughly the same page count as the book or two that don't have a page count listed.

I listen to an audiobook when I'm in the car and I have a book in each room of the house as well as an ereader and a paperback (in case I'm in a situation where I can't use the ereader or it runs out of charge) in my purse, as well as access to Kindle reader on my phone and tablet. So I tend to finish reading several things within days of each other.

My friend says I have ADD and that's why I have books in various rooms. I don't know if that's the case or not, but I was finding that I wasn't reading very much because when the mood struck me, I'd be too lazy to go get the book I was currently reading or I'd forget to put it back in my purse (I MUST have a book when I leave the house--it's a mood saver when I'm waiting in line, eating out, or waiting for someone). This tactic REALLY boosted my ability to get through books. Last year I got through 52 books and I spent a lot of time commuting, either driving or mass transit, and this year I didn't do a lot of either. Though this did affect my audiobook listening since most of my trips are 10 minutes or less.

Aha. I'm blind! Thanks.

I've set a goal to read 60 books this year. (My goodreads goal says 48 because I joined the site in March and had already read 12 books.) I've only got 6 more to read before the end of the year. No problem.

Best book I've read this year: That's a difficult one. I've read a few really good ones that left an impression on me. Ready Player One was excellent and I read some classics for the first time such as Frankenstein, Animal Farm and Oliver Twist. All fantastic.

Surprise: The Spider's Bride was a bit of a surprise. When I started it, I was tempted to put it down and forget about it. But I forged on and ended up really loving it.

Disappointment: The Great Stink. As its name would suggest, it's all about poo. I didn't get past the first chapter with this one before I put it down. The author is great with description...probably a bit too much, really.

The thing I love about this site is cataloging all of my books and being able to go back and see what I've read. I get a warm, fuzzy feeling when I remember a book that I really enjoyed. I can't wait to read more books!

I'm currently at 36 books of my 36 book goal. I'll reach 40 by the end of the year if everything goes to plan.

I read lots of great books this year, with my favorites being: The Wise Man's Fear,Among Others,The Emperor's Soul, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and the entire Trial of Blood and Steel tetralogy starting with Sasha.

And I still have some of my most anticipated books of the year waiting for me on my bedside table: Days of Blood & Starlight, Exit Kingdom, The Twelve.

My biggest surprise would be Among Others. This sort of book (award winning, "meta", more concept than real story, a critics favorite) usually ends up disappointing me. So I was surprised when Among Others not only grabbed me from the first paragraph but also left me mulling it over days after I had finished reading.

My biggest disappointment is Partials. I really liked Dan Wells' John Cleaver series, with its unique voice, evocative writing and creepy protagonist, so I had high hopes. What I got however was a paint-by-numbers apocalyptic YA with boring characters and situations that didn't make it past my suspension of disbelieve barrier.

Buffy wrote: "I've set a goal to read 60 books this year. (My goodreads goal says 48 because I joined the site in March and had already read 12 books.) I've only got 6 more to read before the end of the year. No..."

You know you can backfill your 12 already read books into your GR list - just remember to set the 'Date Read' field when you add the book, and it'll get automatically included in your totals. :)

Im not sure how many I have read but it has been a good year, I joined sword and laser so the amount of books I have explored has upped and the amount that I want to explore has tripled.
It has been a great year nearly every book I have read this year could be one of my favorites, Wise Mans Fear, Way Of Kings, The Farseer Trilogy, Hyperion, I think the Author I was most surprised by was Robin Hobb and maybe Dan Simmons absolutely loved the Farseer Trilogy and Dan Simmons even though a bit high brow in parts was amazing I was blown away at how clever Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion were.
All in all my reading experience has been enriched by being a part of this group, reading has become a lot more of a serious hobby for me now.

Tim wrote: "Buffy wrote: "I've set a goal to read 60 books this year. (My goodreads goal says 48 because I joined the site in March and had already read 12 books.) I've only got 6 more to read before the end o..."

Yeah, I know, but it wasn't worth the hassle to me. That's why I decided to do it on a pro rata basis. Also, I have a horrible memory and am not sure if I could have remembered which 12 books I'd read. I just knew that I had to read 48 more. That's what got me into goodreads in the first place. I wanted to keep track of how many books I could read in a year but knew that I'd end up fudging the numbers by the end of it. :D

I set my goal this year at a book every 10 days, so 36 books total. Currently I have just finished 52 books and will probably reach 60 by the end of the year.
52 books only shows up in Goodreads as 15,353 pages (average 295 per book) because it doesn't count pages for most e-books or audiobooks.

The Best Book I Read This Year: The Way of Kings (Me too!)

Suprise of the year: Stardust

Dissappointment of the year: Tigana

I've set my goal at 40 books and will, depending on how The Pillars of the Earth and Hyperion treat me, reach it somewhere this week or at the beginning of the next.
I just got really back into books this May, when I discoverd audio books in a major way. They just fit much better into my schedule than actual reading.
Also I find myself to be much more forgiving on audio versions than I would be, if I were looking at the actual text.

Best Book I Read This Year: Grail
(excluding all things Pratchetty, I have a completely irrational love for everything he writes)

Surprise of the year: Steven Brust Vlad Taltos series

Dissappointment of the year: The Dirty Streets of Heaven

I'm hoping to do some real reading during the holidays and finish up The Quantum Thief, Runelight and Pandemonium on all of wich I'm stuck in the last 3rd.

There are 48 books on my "2012" shelf, 47 of which Goodreads seems to consider "books" towards my goal of 52 this year. The longest book was The Stand, but I think The Way of Kings was a close second. Not all of the books I've read this year have been that long, though, as my total page count is 15,266 making the average length per book about 325 pages. Admittedly, some of the books have been less book-ish, such as Penny Arcade and xkcd collections, but I'm still counting them.

The best book I read this year was definitely The Way of Kings (my review).

The biggest letdown, which I did not finish, was The Dirty Streets of Heaven. The page count for this one isn't included in the total, since I lem'd it after about 100 pages or so. Oddly, other S&L picks are some of my lowest-rated this year, Rule 34 and The Lies of Locke Lamora (though I would like to re-visit that one at some point). Inheritance was also low on my list this year, among others...

So it looks like I have about 5 books left to get to my goal of 52 this year. I'm about 1/5 through Dark Pursuit: The Lost Shinmahs, plus I have The Hobbit for the S&L pick, and I'm also listening to Blackbirds, so I'm well on my way to 52. I figure the holidays will give me audiobook quality time, too...not a bad year, all in all.

So far I have read 48 books this year, way more than last year because I wasn't gaming as much.

Best book was the Winter Palace, I've read a lot of books set in Russia this year and although it wasn't sci fi or fantasy it was still a really good read.

The book that suprised me would have to be Kushiel's Dart, I'm not into BDSM at all but I really enjoyed the characters in the book.

The book that disapointed me the most alas was Secret of the Sands, I really enjoyed the author's first book but this was so bland. :(

My page count is: 22,392

This does not count fan fiction, manga or web comics I have read though. :)

I always do an end of the year round up about the books I've read, so I'm hesitant to post anything with two holidays of reading time still left in the year! So far I have read 177 books in 2012.

Jenny wrote: "I always do an end of the year round up about the books I've read, so I'm hesitant to post anything with two holidays of reading time still left in the year! So far I have read 177 books in 2012."

Now I feel like such a slacker!

Rob wrote: "Jenny wrote: "I always do an end of the year round up about the books I've read, so I'm hesitant to post anything with two holidays of reading time still left in the year! So far I have read 177 bo..."
Eh, I've enjoyed your reviews. Numbers aren't everything.

Jenny wrote: "Rob wrote: "Jenny wrote: "I always do an end of the year round up about the books I've read, so I'm hesitant to post anything with two holidays of reading time still left in the year! So far I have..."

Well I glad someone does. Lol.

Joining good reads/this club has really increased my reading at least. I'd guess last year I read closer to 20 books.

I've read 52 so far, and had 50 as my goal; I expect to hit 20,000 pages by the end of the year.

Favorite that weren't rereads or short stories: Embassytown (interesting aliens!) and The Apocalypse Codex (book 4 of a series--cold war vs Cthulhu).

Least favorite: When We Were Real (sexist) followed by The Long Earth (which wasn't awful, but I expected much better, from Pratchett at least).

Surprising was The Secret History of Moscow. Urban fantasy in contemporary Russia.

Until June I was updating Goodreads randomly, so it was hard to figure everything I'd read. Total of about 27 new books this year. About one third my usual (thank you, Skyrim), and I've also been reading comic books again, which is new. The thing is, this has been a great years for me bookwise.

I found two authors that are going into my "Must Read" category--Cherie Priest, and Kevin Hearne. The last person I added to that list was Brandon Sanderson, and that was more than three years ago.

I spent much of the year rereading as well. The Dresden Files, The Foundation series, and some of my favorites from the Wheel of Time.

My favorite this year was probably Hounded; I got both the print and audiobooks.

I had a pretty good years so my least favorite was the still good Heaven's Net is Wide.

Biggest surprise was Boneshaker. I was beginning to think there would never be a good long-form Steampunk novel.

All in all a good year. And it's not over. There's still new Wheel of Time, Dresden Files, and Iron Druid before the year is out.

My goal for the year was 55 which is 10 more than last year (since I finished grad school in May and figured I would have more time to read). I've read 52 so far so I should meet my goal. I don't count rereads, which I find makes me less inclined to reread books if I'm feeling behind in my stats. This may be the first year when every book I read was a kindle book. I've had a kindle since 2009 but I've typically had school/textbooks to read that weren't on the kindle.

Even though I've read many more books this year than last year, my page count is actually 3000 lower overall. Maybe I need to stop counting the kindle singles.

Best Book I Read This Year: Assassin's Apprentice

Suprise of the year: Never Let Me Go

Dissappointment of the year: The Red Tent

I set a goal for myself that was higher than last year's and l became obsessed with finishing. I reached my goal a month or 2 ago and just stopped reading. I was just so tired of it that l had to take a break from it. I read some great stuff, but l think l might skip the reading challenge next year; how many books l finish is not why l read.

On 156 books this year, so not too bad. SciFi/Fantasy from Coursera bundled me through quite a few I wouldn't have touched otherwise...

Best book this year: To Ride Hell's Chasm OR A Discovery of Witches

Surprise: Pushing the Limits - review copy received for work which I didn't expect to enjoy at all!

Disappointment: probably Frankenstein (forced re-read for Coursera) OR The Shadow Reader because I loathe love triangles :P

So far this year I have read 71 books, but it looks like I should be able to finish 4-5 more this year, so will beat my goal of 75 for this year.

Best book this year: Empire State by Adam Christopher or Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig, both are spectacular.

Surprise: Carpathia by Matt Forbeck, a great book, that I was not expecting.

Disappointment: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I could not stand the style or the characters, very close to being lemmed.

My year in books, as far as quantity, wasn't great. I really slacked off reading this year. Work and real-life scheduling at up most of my time.

Quality-wise, 7 of the books I read I absolutely loved and would consider rereading. Fifteen of the books I read were just okay. Glad I had the opportunity to read them, but nothing I might consider going back to re-read.

Twenty-two books? That's more than I thought I read this year (might be a few I forgot to record on GoodReads too.) But it's less than I usually read in a year.

Sue @35--that was why I set myself a low bar that I could easily hurdle. Not being in school anymore, reading should be fun and freeing, not stress-making! By all means skip the count next year.

Ive been mostly doing short stories this year, discovering lightspeed and f&sf and sffaudio and horray so much more. The best short story authors i found were Mike Resnick, Ken Liu, and connie willis, for a start...

As far as novels, i would say my surprise read (and best read) was lies of locke lamora, and my dissapointment was power play by ben bova.

I challenged myself to read 100 books I had never read before (I re-read alot) and I just finished #99 last night, which was awesome - Extinction Machine it comes out in March of 2013. I probably read about 140 total.
I think Angelmaker is probably one of my favorites for the year. Other highlights include Polly and the Pirates, Volume 2: Mystery of the Dragonfish, Partials, The Rook, The Hollow City, and Legends of Zita the Spacegirl

I set a goal of 50 books this year and right now I'm at 54. I'll probably try and reach 60 by the end of the year. My favorite book this year was Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri (which was a bit of a surprise since I didn't particularly care for her other book, The Namesake).

Most surprising book was Cloud Atlas. I figured it wouldn't be worth all the hype, but it was actually quite good!

My most disappointing books were Shadow Heir by Richelle Mead, and The Magician King. I was eagerly awaiting the end to the Dark Swan series, but Mead really ruined the ending for me. As for the sequel to The Magician I don't know why I expected it to be good since I disliked the previous book, but I just was hoping for something more from that author. It seems like all of my friends loved The Magician/Magician King but I just can't get into them.

Other notable books that I especially enjoyed this year: Storm Front (1st in the Dresden Files series), Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, All Spell Breaks Loose (last in the Raine Benares series), and Poison Study (and the rest of that trilogy). I also can't wait to read Days of Blood and Starlight, which is a sequel to Daughter of Smoke and Bone.

I went ahead and bumped my goal up to 85 since I hit 80 yesterday. We'll see if I make it!

At last count, I was at 94 completed books on a goal of 85. But doing the usual grad student in the middle of a final project for a semester thing, I've got about another 10-15 that will be done by year's end and the specific chapters pertaining to my project being done by December 13.

I don't set goals for books read, but I first discovered S&L existed this year and joined up during the Lies of Locke Lamora month to try and force myself to read more. It seems to have worked, as Goodreads says I've read 30 books, almost as much as the last two years combined. And through S&L, I've read a few classics I've always been meaning to read but never got around to, and some newer acclaimed books as well.

Best book: The Blade Itself or Hyperion. Of all the new post-GRRM crop of "grim and gritty" epic fantasy starring a cast of anti-heroes, Abercrombie's was definitely the most fun. And Simmons' imaginative space opera reinvigorated my interest in that genre.

Biggest surprise: The Iron Duke. Felicia Day's Vaginal Fantasy book club did this one and I picked it not expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised at the great characters and the excellent world-building.

Biggest disappointment: The Name of the Wind. I can't completely put my finger on it. Rothfuss is a great writer and seems in every way the nicest of gentlemen. But this book was so lavishly praised everywhere I looked and it just fell flat for me. I still can't shake the feeling there's some complicated joke going on and everyone gets it but me.

Copy/pasting from the same thread at Fantasy Book Club: I set my goal this year at 52 and I'm currently at 74 and counting. If I can hit 80 by 12/31 I'll be pleased, but if not, I'm still happy. 20,928 pages thus far.

Granted some of them were actually standalone short stories that GR counts as "books", but others were omnibus editions of 3 or 4 separate novels, so it kind of averages out. Looks like I tend to rate almost everything at 4 stars, with 5 and 3 close behind and only two 2-star books, which means either I select pretty well or I just don't like saying bad things.

Highlights (and here I'm limiting myself to books I hadn't read before) were probably Seven Princes by John R. Fultz and The Giant Anthology of Science Fiction. Oh, and of course Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy.

And thanks to Fantasy Book Club, I finally got around to reading The Last Unicorn and Legend.

I'm so inspired by all of you! My challenge fell flat, though I also was overly optimistic about my plans. I challenged myself to 80 (80?!?) books, but so far have only finished 16, just passing 5000 pages. Good news? This matches what I did last year bookwise, though I'm about 800 pages shy. My goal now is to just get to 6000 pages by year's end. Maybe I should shoot for 40 next year?

Best book: Habibi by Craig Thompson. A mix of reality, fantasy, and sensuous mysticism. The highlight of the year was meeting him at the National Book Festival book signing and getting to talk to him afterwards for a bit. I'm still in awe of both him and the book.

Best Surprise: Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad. Although a non-SF or fantasy book and a pretty dense and melancholic novel set in the Faroe Islands, I picked this because I got his YA SF novel 172 Hours on the Moon at the same time and enjoy reading novels set in Scandinavia. I still need to read 172 Hours!

Biggest disappointment: not getting to read as much as I'd like!