A Reading Year in Review 2009 Pt1
December 29, 2009 in Blog
Ah, time for my favourite post of the year! I do so love working out the stats and deciding on my reads of the year (and changing my mind, then picking them again, and then working out how I can bend my own rules to include everything…) 
Apologies in advance as I’ve gone a little overboard and had to split this baby into three posts! 
Okay, so first up are the stats! And this post is all stats so feel free to skip it! I’ll post my challenge wrap-ups, tomorrow, and finally on Thursday I’ll announce my reads-of-the-year!
So, I managed to just beat last years final tally of 109 books by reading ??? this year! Let’s hope I can break 125 next year!
After no consideration at all! I’m using the same format as last year, which was in turn totally filched from Nymeth 
– the system has some overlap between categories so don’t go adding them together!
**Series reads do not count individual books for the series book count – so for example the seven books from the Harry Potter series would only count as one book.
- Total Books Read : 114
- Pages: 29128
- Fiction: 109
- Non Fiction: 5
- Audiobooks: 10
- Audiobook Hours: 113:04:37
- Graphic Novels: 12
- Young Adult: 78
- Novels: 97
- Written By Women: 39
- Written By Men: 74
- New Authors to Me: 62! (Really pleased with this one)
- Re-Reads: 4
- Series: 41**
- Short Story Collections: 1
- Best Reading Month: February: 18 Books | 4202 Pages | 41:35 Hours
- Worst Reading Month: July: 6 Books | 1818 Pages
And now some site stats:
Author Interviews/Guest Posts
- Author Interview: Mortimus Clay (author of The Purloined Boy)
- Author Interview: James Bow Pt2 – Peter and Rosemary Get Their Say!
- Author Interview: James Bow Pt1
- Author Interview: Ellen Potter
- Author Interview: Danielle Thorne
- Guest Post: Blackbeard Lives Again! by Danielle Thorne
- Author Interview: Kristin Callender
Top Ten Most Viewed Posts of the Year
- The Man Booker Prize 2009 Long List Announced
- The Man Booker Prize 2009 – Shortlist Announced
- Morganville Vampires #7: Fade Out – Cover Revealed
- Top 5 Dystopian Young Adult Novels
- TwentyTen Reading Challenge
- Pendragon Book 10 Cover Revealed!
- YA Dystopian Reading Challenge
- Update: Best Dystopian YA Novels Redux
- Marked (A House of Night Novel) by PC & Kirsten Cast
- Maximum Security (Cherub Book #3) – Robert Muchamore
Most Commented (Non-Giveaway) Posts of the Year
- My Read-a-thon Mini Challenge! (76)
- 146 Reasons to be Shameful (47)
- OMG! What Have I Done? (46)
- Virtual Advent Tour Day 8 (43)
- Read-a-Thon Mini-Challenge – Cover Quiz! (41)
- A Necessary Step (37)
- Oh, for Pete’s Sake! (32)
- Review: The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness (32)
My Favourite Posts of the Year
- Update: Best Dystopian YA Novels Redux
Make sure you check out the comments, because I’ve been a really bad blog editor and haven’t updated the list to show all the great recommendations. - Author Interview: James Bow Pt2 – Peter and Rosemary Get Their Say!
- Increase the Effectiveness of Your Next Review Request
- No. No. And Thrice No!
Top Ten Referring Sites of the Year
- Google Reader
- 24hourreadathon.com
- twitter.com
- astripedarmchair.wordpress.com
- blbooks.blogspot.com
- bookbloggerappreciationweek.com
- stainlesssteeldroppings.com
- yabookblogdirectory.blogspot.com/2009…
- bloglines.com
- mjmbecky.blogspot.com
Top Ten Search Terms of the Year
Adjusted to combine duplicates & similar searches
- man booker prize 2009
- pendragon book 10
- among the hidden
- the bloodline cipher
- dystopian novels
- kirsten cast
- hunger games
- morganville vampires
- greenmetropolis
- old coke bottles
The Years Baddest Bloggers!
No prize for this, as the winners of rounds 1 & 2 have both been announced, but I thought it would be fun to work out just who was most responsible for the shocking state of my T.B.R. pile! 
I bet nobody is surprised by the top 2…
- Chris – 14 Pts
- Nymeth & Her Avatar – 10.5 Pts
- Carl V – 3.5 Pts
- Eva – 2 Pts
- Karin – 2 Pts
- Becky – 2 Pts
- Fyrefly – 2 Pts
- Kelly – 1 Pt
- Natasha – 1 Pt
- Beth F – 1 Pt
- Dewey – 1 Pt
- Rob – 1 Pt
- Becky – 1 Pt
- Katie – 1 Pt
- Mrs S – 1 Pt
- Rhiona -1 Pt
- Dewey – 1 Pt
- Natasha – 1 Pt
- Bancroft Press! – 1 Pt
- John Scalzi – 1 Pt
Top Ten Commenters
Thank you to everyone who stopped by and took the time to leave their thoughts on any of my reviews or posts this year. But particular thanks to these people who came back time and again and really contributed to my site this year!
Chris
Kailana
Nymeth
Joanne
Beth F
Eva
Amanda
katrina
Shanra
FyreflyDon’t forget tomorrow’s post, where I’ll wrap up my challenge attempts for the year (including the big list of books read and links to their respective reviews) and on Thursday, the big one, where I’ll be picking out my books of the year!
One of the best things about this time of year is reading everyone else’s end-of-year wrap-ups! So, if you’ve posted one yourself, please feel free to post a link to it in the MrLinky below. (I’ve taken the opportunity to add a few I’ve already come across)
Kailana (37)
Clover (14)
Alyce (13)
Amanda (10)
Carl V. (10)
Nikki-ann (9)
I don’t know what it was about February…was there something in the air?
Looking forward to your list of favourites!
.-= Nymeth´s last blog ..2009: The Year in Review =-.
Yeah, considering it’s the shortest month as well!
WOW what a fabulous, detail post to recap 2009. You had a terrific year; Happy Reading in 2010 as well.
.-= diane´s last blog ..Tuesday Teasers =-.
Thank you! I hope 2010 is an excellent reading year for you as well!
You keep track of your time reading?? Wow. I couldn’t do that because I read in snatches all over the place. LIke I’ll keep a book with me (if I’m really into it) and read in the snatches of stories I’m less interested in during the nightly news.
It’s been great to get to know your blog. And would you believe it? I actually managed to get my posts down to 2 – one with the best/worst reads of 2009, the other with stats. Originally it was split into 4 or 5 posts.
.-= Amanda´s last blog ..Purge =-.
Oops I should probably edit that to make it clear… That’s audiobook hours!
Well done with bringing your posts down to 2
Aaah – I did wonder how on earth you tracked the reading hours. Congrats on a successful reading year. I’m going to do a recap before 2009 is out – but mine was rather lacking. I’m going to try harder in 2010 and might just filtch your layout to help me keep track. Don’t suppose you fancy sharing your google doc?
.-= Clare Swindlehurst´s last blog ..Shotgun Shopping – How to Materialize Anything You want Through the Metaphor of Shopping by Sheevaun Moran =-.
Woops, I need to read better…I went and added my site and you had already done so. Sorry Darren!
Impressive stats. It is fun to have read so many new to you authors, isn’t it? I know I enjoyed that I really branched out this year to folks I had previously not read.
Its an honor to be one of the top referral sites and to be one of the bad bloggers!!! Hooray for being bad!
I look forward to the next two parts of your list!
.-= Carl V.´s last blog ..2009: A Literary Year in Review =-.
Double entry in the links list? I don’t know what you’re on about Carl… I can’t see anything of the sort!
Third place in the Bad Bloggers league is most impressive, but you need to work much harder to overtake the two in front of you! If such a thing is possible of course…
.-= Bart´s last blog ..Review: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld =-.
Speaking of filching I may have to “borrow” this format so I can keep track of my stats for 2010. Impressive year, here’s to the next! Good luck
.-= Michelle´s last blog ..Join the Classic Reads Book Club =-.
Filtch away!
I’ve got a google doc that adds it all up and works most of them out for me!
.-= Bart´s last blog ..Review: Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick =-.
Looks like you read quite a lot of books this year!!
I found that fascinating! Nice work!
.-= Amused´s last blog ..Oh My Lola la-la-la-la Lola la-la-la-la Lola =-.
I really like the various ways people choose to do their year-end posts. Mine’s not up yet, and won’t be until the last day of the year, but I’ll be sure to link up when I’m done. I look forward to part 2 of your list!
.-= Aarti´s last blog ..Review: Wish =-.
Wow, I am surprised I was your second most prolific commenter! Look forward to your second half of this post.
.-= Kailana´s last blog ..7 Things I Love (Aside from Books) =-.
I enjoyed reading through your stats, and while looking at this post just realized that I still haven’t updated my blogroll like I had intended to before the new year. I guess I know what I’m going to be doing tomorrow (along with scads of other things).
Congrats on all of the reading that you got done this year!
.-= Alyce´s last blog ..Best Reads of 2009 =-.
What a fun post!! I’m a total stats nerd so this appealed to me way more than it should :p And I have to admit that I squealed with delight at being on the top of your bad bloggers list and your commenters list! But that’s only because you have such great content over here
Now here’s a list of 100 books that I think you’d really enjoy Darren…kidding of course 
.-= Chris´s last blog ..The Most Embarrassing Bad Bloggers Post EVAH! =-.
That’s okay! I had far too much fun putting the stats together!
I bet you didn’t think that you’d beat Ana to the Baddest Blogger, did you? ;P
Very cool. Next year (oops, this year) I'm going to keep track of pages read and hours listened. Glad to be a top pest (er, commenter).
[...] So without further ado – here’s what I’ve been up to this year (thanks to Bart’s Bookshelf for the template [...]
Great stats Darren! I love looking at everybody’s wrap-ups posts. You had a great year. Here’s to another one!
.-= Natasha @ Maw Books´s last blog ..Bloggiesta! Ready, Set . . . Let’s Fiesta! =-.
[...] Welcome to part 2 of my yearly review. (If you missed yesterday’s post, where I break down my reading and blogging stats, you can find it here.) [...]