Saturday, December 19, 2015

2015 Reading



With the year coming to a close, I took some time to analyze and categorize what I read this past year (cheating on the last book, which I haven't quite finished yet!).



Probably no one outside of myself and others who love to analyze their reading habits (or other things) will be interested in this post, But if you are one of the few who wants to check out an individual titles click on  My Year in Books on Goodreads. Thanks to Goodreads for providing pictures and most of the data:

Format

  • 35 out of 48 books I read this year were audiobooks (due to commuting)
  • 9 ebooks 
  • 4 paperbooks
  • 0 hardbacks finished

Literary Genre

  • 11 historical/biographical 
  • 11 fiction
  • 10 popular science/medicine
  • 8 other non-fiction
  • 6 Christian/devotional books
  • 2 mission/biblical studies


How Acquired

  • 14 out of 48 purchased, mostly from Amazon.
  • 34 borrowed from digital library or free downloads- what wonderful services for an English reader living in Asia!


Most Enjoyable (No particular order)

  1. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
  2. The Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis
  3. Truman
  4. What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
  5. Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God
  6. All the Light We Cannot See

Most Disapppointing

  1. Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves
  2. The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind
  3. Chiasmus in the New Testament: A Study in the Form and Function of Chiastic Structures
  4. All three titles I picked up by Oliver Sacks!

Keeping in mind the Goodreads rating system (1: did not like; 2: it was OK; 3 liked; 4 really liked; 5 it was amazing):
Of course there were other titles which so disinterested me that I did not read enough to justify them being registered on the reading list.