Friday Funnies: The book edition

I’ve been thinking.

Here’s where, if you are my mom, warning bells are sounding, because rarely has any good followed that short phrase. At least when coming from me.

When I “signed up” for the 2013 book challenge, I had some reservations that I didn’t mention to anyone. Then, last weekend while browsing the local bookstore, my friend put those reservations into real, live words.

I loved the book challenge. I don’t know that I actually read more than I did in previous years, but I liked that I kept track of the books I read. I am a numbers girl, as you may know, so seeing that bar move, and getting status updates (oh no, I’m a book behind!) was really motivating.
But, I noticed near the end of last year that I started to gravitate towards shorter books to fulfill my “quota”.

A double-edged sword, this got me reading different kinds of books (and solidified my love of YA novels), but there were longer books that I would probably have read, if I wasn’t working towards that 50th book.

So I’d been thinking about how I could remedy that, and my friend mentioned that she wanted to do a page challenge.

Perfect, right? Well, almost.

See, the problem is that there are many editions of books, some of which have more words on a page, bigger margins than other editions, etc. Not to mention that some ebooks don’t even have page numbers.

Still, even with these challenges, I think a page challenge is a better representation of how much I read.

Of course, there is no such thing though.

After poking around on my Goodreads site, I saw that you can look at an overview of the books you’ve read in a given year, by number of books, by number of stars (the review), and….BY TOTAL PAGES!!

So, I’ve decided that I’m still going to do the challenge, but I’m amending it. I’m going to try to beat the total pages I read last year. I’m not putting a specific number on it, because of the aforementioned constraints. But, an average over time is still a fairly accurate representation.

Sometimes, a book will count as “more” pages than the actual edition I’m reading, sometimes less. Over time, it should average out.

You know, the law of averages and all that.

So, how am I doing so far? Great question!

Last year, I read 53 books or 14,604 pages, or an average of 275 pages per book. So far this year, I’ve read 8 books, or 2174 pages, for an average of 271 pages per book. (Told you I’m a numbers girl.)

Apparently, I’m fairly consistent in my chosen book length. It will be interesting (to me, but probably not to anyone else) if this new “challenge” makes a difference in the books I read.

So, if I want to “beat” my page number for next year, I have to read about 41 pages a day. That’s easy.

Especially if I cancel my 8 bajillion magazine subscriptions….which, yeah. I should.

Okay, it’s easy-ish. Some days I can read all day long and finish an entire book. Other days, I’m more inclined to sit on my couch with my crocheting and watch 18 episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

Which, wow. That makes me sound SUPER cool, doesn’t it?

Oh, and I finished another book, which is why I;’m here yammering about books. Here’s my latest review of The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight.  

Do you tend to read short books for the satisfaction of finishing them fast or do you really like to immerse yourself into a long story?

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