I never posted my reading stats for April, mostly because I didn’t read more than two books that month, so I didn’t feel like there was a point to it. In May, however, my lust for reading came back with a vengeance. The monthly total for May ended up forty books, and I don’t know about you, but I think that’s quite a lot of them. True, May was also a month for YA and kiddie lit, which meant that a lot of those forty books were quite short, but all the same! It’s a personal record.

I have all of June off (actually, that’s not quite true—I go back to work on the 30th), which is going to leave me with a ton of time for reading. In fact, I went to the library today and picked up fourteen books (seven of which I have now finished) for some summer reading, and I’ve got a parcel of twelve books due to arrive in the post sometime next week. Not to mention all the books already on my TBR shelves, of course.

May books:

58. Rockabilly; Josefin Ekman, B
59. 102 Minutes: The Story of the Fight to Survive inside the Twin Towers; Jim Dwyer & Kevin Flynn, B
60. I Am America (And So Can You!); Stephen Colbert, B
61. My War: Killing Time in Iraq; Colby Buzzell, B
62. Hästen från Porten; Carina Burman, B
63. Atonement; Ian McEwan, C
64. Kometen kommer; Tove Jansson, B
65. Bögslungan; Per Alexandersson, C
66. KÃ¥rnulf Was Here; Josefine Adolfsson, B
67. Allting som är trevligt är bra för magen; Tove Jansson, C
68. Bananflugornas herre; Fredrik Eklund, C
69. Does My Head Look Big in This?; Randa Abdel-Fattah, C
70. Drakvinter; Elvira Birgitta Holm, D
71. Ior och hästarna; Renata Wrede, C
72. Lugn för dej, Gelika; Olga Wikström, D
73. Marsmädchen; Tamara Bach, B
74. Trollkarlens hatt; Tove Jansson, A
75. Farlig midsommar; Tove Jansson, A
76. Trollvinter; Tove Jansson, C
77. Tjuvlyssnat; Damon Rasti & Gloria Hedman, B
78. Det osynliga barnet; Tove Jansson, C
79. Pappan och havet; Tove Jansson, C
80. Den som inte tar bort luddet ska dö; David Batra (not reviewed)
81. Sent i november; Tove Jansson, C
82. Doctor Who: I Am a Dalek; Gareth Roberts, C
83. Daddy-Long-Legs; Jean Webster, B
84. Dear Enemy; Jean Webster (not reviewed)
85. Knappt lovlig; Katarina von Bredow (not reviewed)
86. Strong Poison; Dorothy L Sayers, B
87. Doctor Who: The Feast of the Drowned; Stephen Cole, B
88. Heart of Darkness; Joseph Conrad, C
89. Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride; Helen Halstead, D
90. Språket; Lars-Gunnar Andersson & Anna Lena Ringarp (not reviewed)
91. Persepolis: volume 1; Marjane Satrapi (not reviewed)
92. Persepolis: volume 2; Marjane Satrapi (not reviewed)
93. Persepolis: volume 3; Marjane Satrapi (not reviewed)
94. Persepolis: volume 4; Marjane Satrapi (not reviewed)
95. Bögjävlar; Stefan Ingvarsson (ed.) (not reviewed)
96. Han sa ja!; Bo R Holmberg (not reviewed)
97. Älskar han mig?; Bo R Holmberg (not reviewed)

Challenge stats:

• A-Z Reading Challenge: 39/52
• Back to History: 5/12
• Decades ’08: 8/8 required (11/30 planned)
• First in a Series: 6/12
• Here Be Dragons: 2/4
• Russian Reading Challenge: 0/4
• To Be Read Challenge: 2/12

My reading slump really made a difference in the amount of books I read during March. It started somewhere around the middle of the month and only two of the total fourteen I read, I read after the 15th.

March books:

42. När kommer du tillbaka?; Marika Kolterjahn, C
43. Tenderness; Robert Cormier (not reviewed)
44. Dragon’s Bait; Vivian Vande Velde, C
45. True Stories of Pirates; Lucy Lethbridge (not reviewed)
46. True Stories of the First World War; Paul Dowswell (not reviewed)
47. True Stories of the Second World War; Paul Dowswell, C
48. Lost in Austen; Emma Campbell Webster, C
49. Nu heter jag Nirak; Peter Pohl, C
50. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew; Daniel Pool, B
51. Unnatural Death; Dorothy L Sayers, A
52. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club;Dorothy L Sayers, B
53. Hey Nostradamus!; Douglas Coupland, B
54. Linas kvällsbok 2; Emma Hamberg, C
55. Making History; Stephen Fry, A

Challenge stats:

• A-Z Reading Challenge: 35/52
• Back to History: 4/12
• Decades ’08: 7/8* required (8/30 planned)
• First in a Series: 6/12
• Here Be Dragons: 2/4
• Russian Reading Challenge: 0/4
• To Be Read Challenge: 2/12
• Young Adult Challenge: 12/12 — completed

*I’ve read eight books for this challenge, but the eighth book is not chronologically near the other seven, hence the 7/8.

February wasn’t as good a reading month as January, but then I have noticed that January is nearly always my best month. I am at least keeping up with my personal goal of reading four books a week, and that’s always something.

February books:

24. Eclipse; Stephenie Meyer, B
25. Sickened; Julie Gregory, D
26. Monty Python’s Flying Circus – Just the Words: Volume 2; Graham Chapman (not reviewed)
27. Dream Boy; Jim Grimsley, B
28. By a Lady; Amanda Elyot, F
29. Clouds of Witness; Dorothy L Sayers, B
30. A Countess Below Stairs; Eva Ibbotson, A
31. The Gum Thief; Douglas Coupland, B
32. Murder Must Advertise; Dorothy L Sayers, B
33. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept; Elizabeth Smart, D
34. Duty and Desire; Pamela Aidan, C
35. Profile of a Criminal Mind; Brian Innes, B
36. Den hemlösa sexualiteten: en antologi, D
37. The World According to Clarkson: And Another Thing…; Jeremy Clarkson, D
38. Standish; Erastes, D
39. Britta och Silver på ridskolan; Lisbeth Pahnke (not reviewed)
40. Postcards from No Man’s Land; Aidan Chambers, A
41. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead; Tom Stoppard, B

Challenge stats:

• A-Z Reading Challenge: 28/52
• Back to History: 4/12
• Decades ’08: 7/8* required (8/30 planned)
• First in a Series: 6/12
• Here Be Dragons: 1/4**
• Russian Reading Challenge: 0/4
• To Be Read Challenge: 1/12
• Young Adult Challenge: 10/12

*I’ve read eight books for this challenge, but the eighth book is not chronologically near the other seven, hence the 7/8.
**I decided to add another dragon book to my list, hence the 1/4 instead of 1/3.

I think I may have mentioned it before, but making my end of the year post, and compiling all those stats, is one of my favourite things about book blogging. I’ve toyed with the idea of doing the same after each month, but I thought that maybe that would be a little too much. Then I started seeing other bloggers doing it, so I figured that I’m not alone in my love of stats.

In January I read twenty-three books, which is great, because it means I met my goal of an average of four books/week. Let’s see if I can keep it up for the rest of the year (I hope so!). January is usually my best reading month, in terms of the number of books, but this is the first year in a while that the majority of books read in January hasn’t been manga or graphic novels.

January books:

1. His Majesty’s Dragon; Naomi Novik, B
2. Flambards; KM Peyton, C
3. The Edge of the Cloud; KM Peyton, C
4. Flambards in Summer; KM Peyton, C
5. Flambards Divided; KM Peyton, D
6. An Assembly Such as This; Pamela Aidan, B
7. Some Danger Involved; Will Thomas, B
8. The Princess Diaries V: Give Me Five; Meg Cabot, F
9. Who Moved My Cheese?; Spencer Johnson (not reviewed)
10. Boy Meets Boy; David Levithan, C
11. Twilight; Stephenie Meyer, B
12. A Tale of a Tub; Jonathan Swift, C
13. Duktig pojke; Inger Edelfeldt, A
14. Whose Body?; Dorothy L Sayers, A
15. Som jag vill vara; Katarina von Bredow, C
16. Det fattas en tärning; Johanna Thydell, B
17. The Smiths: The Early Years; Paul Slattery (not rated)
18. The Giver; Lois Lowry, B
19. Cliffs Notes on Lowry’s The Giver; Suzanne Pavlos (not reviewed)
20. Gathering Blue; Lois Lowry, B
21. Messenger; Lois Lowry, D
22. The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl; Shauna Reid, B
23. New Moon; Stephenie Meyer, B

I’ve made good progress on my challenge reads, though I haven’t started on the reading for all of them yet.

Challenge stats:

• A-Z Reading Challenge: 19/52
• Back to History: 2/12
• Decades ’08: 5/8 required (5/30 planned)
• First in a Series: 6/12
• Here Be Dragons: 1/3
• Russian Reading Challenge: 0/4
• Seafaring Challenge: 3/4 (ended)
• To Be Read Challenge: 0/12
• Young Adult Challenge: 9/12

I meant to post this a couple of days ago, but somehow never got around to it. I have to admit, though, that this sort of post is almost the highlight of my reading year — I experience a geeky sort of pleasure at seeing the stats written down. I also quite enjoy looking at other people’s stats posts.

In 2007:

• I read 140 books by 92 authors.
• I read 52 male authors, 40 female (which confirms my suspicion that I tend to go for the blokes. I thought there’d be more of a difference, though.)
• I read 56 authors I’d never read before, and 23 who were Swedish.
• I read 103 books in English, 36 in Swedish and 1 in French.
• I read 35 books that were re-reads.
• I read 108 books that were works of fiction and 32 that were non-fiction.
• The busiest reading month was January, when I read 31 books.
• I failed to reach my reading goal, which was 60 000 pages. I’d read 38 274 pages by the end of the year.
• Best books (no re-reads) were:
  • Finns det liv pÃ¥ Mars? by Inger Edelfeldt
  • The Virtu by Sarah Monette
  • The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (despite the epilogue which I have still not learned to like, and most likely never will)
  • Linas kvällsbok 2 by Emma Hamberg (more for nostalgic reason than it being a proper great book. And no, I’ve never read it before—the nostalgia stems from the fact that the main character goes to the same type of highschool I did.)
  • Now & Then by William Corlett
  • Leave Myself Behind by Bart Yates
  • Flying Colours by CS Forester
• Most disappointing was The Night Watch by Sarah Waters, which was really, really dull and I wanted to like it, but couldn’t. Every time I started to get into it and wanted to know what happened next, the story jumped backwards in time so it was like starting all over again.

For 2008, I don’t have any specific reading goals, except to try to complete as many as possible of the reading challenges I’m signed up for. I’d also like to try to read an average of four books a week. It won’t be a big deal if I don’t succeed, but I am at least going to attempt it.