My 2016 reading and watching didn’t quite go as planned. For the first time since I started having yearly reading goals, I wasn’t able to meet my goal. Unfortunately, it’s also tough to say how far off I was, since my primary reading site, Booklikes, has been on the fritz for weeks/months now. I haven’t actually added a review or book to that site in several weeks, and I imagine I’ll be dropping it completely in 2017. Despite my issues with Goodreads, I've gone back to using it, although I still consider LibraryThing my primary cataloging site.
Here’s how the numbers break down, according to my LibraryThing data:
Watching:
I watched 10 different TV shows and 16 different movies - 4 fewer TV shows and 3 fewer movies than last year. Of the 26 things I watched, 19 were live action and 7 were animated (only 4 Japanese anime). Most of what I watched (15) was streaming stuff. I got excellent value out of my Netflix subscription (12 out of the 15 streamed things), but should probably drop my DramaFever subscription (0 shows or movies) before it comes up for renewal. I broke down and used Crunchyroll for the first time in ages, but didn’t actually go so far as to get a subscription. I did start an Amazon Prime subscription, although I haven’t decided yet whether I like it. If I keep it past the one-year point, it probably won’t be for the streaming TV options, since I’m not wild about Amazon Prime’s selection.
Takeaways for 2017: watch more physical media and either start using my DramaFever subscription more or drop it.
Reading:
Average Ratings:
I don't include ratings on this blog, but I do in LibraryThing. Out of the 133 things I read in 2016 (4 fewer than last year), I gave ratings to everything, although I didn’t quite manage to review everything. My average rating was 3.15 stars (last year it was 3.25 stars).
Last year I figured out what my average star rating was for novels, novellas, and short stories vs. graphic novels, manga, etc. I’m going to skip that this year, because trying to get the numbers to work out is annoying. I have a feeling that something might be off in my data, and I know for certain that at least one or two things had to be counted in more than one category (for example, Another S/0 includes both a novel and a short manga).
Paper books vs. E-books vs. Audiobooks:
Of the 133 works I read and listened to, 94 were paper books (71%), 25 were e-books (19%), and 14 were audiobooks (11% - all streamed digital audiobooks, even the 2 library checkouts). If you take out the graphic novels and manga, I think it works out to 37 paper works (63%), 22 e-books (37%). That means that in 2016 my e-book vs. paper reading was actually the reverse of what it was in 2015. Since I was purposely trying to get through more physical stuff in the hopes of offloading it, that makes sense. I'm probably going to try to continue that trend in 2017, for reasons that will be clear once you read the "Offloading vs. Acquiring" section of this post (ugh).
Used, New, or Library?
Of the 133 things I read, 39 (29%) were checked out from the library (interesting thing here: 2 of these were things I had donated to the library at an earlier date), 1 (<1%) was an ARC, 56 (42%) were new purchases, 29 (22%) were used purchases, and 8 (6%) were freebies (neither ARCs nor library checkouts).
Some takeaways: it’s probably a good thing I don’t really review ARCs, since I’m bad about reading them, and I should really stop getting freebies. Also, as a librarian I feel kind of guilty that I didn’t check out more stuff.
Offloading vs. Acquiring
I had hoped to offload more than I acquired in 2015. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. I noticed I tend to buy more stuff when I’m stressed, so there was that. Also, Hastings went out of business and I ended up going a little wild with their final sales. Here’s how the numbers worked out:
Total number acquired: 342 (approximately - includes e-books, but I wasn’t always good about adding all my Humble Bundle acquisitions to LibraryThing)
Total number offloaded: 76
Shelf space used by up by newly acquired stuff: 166.77 inches
Shelf space freed up by offloaded stuff: 64.81 inches
Takeaway: I really need to do better in 2017 - either acquire fewer items (or at least fewer physical items) or offload more. Also, I buy way too many DVDs/Blu-ray discs (24) for someone who mostly watches stuff via streaming services.