2011 Reading Stats

Statistics are important.  They give you a good idea of what your biases are, and they are raw numbers, particularly helpful in identifying patterns, etc.

Over the past 12 months, it's been most likely that I've been reading a book by a woman, by an Australian, by a white author, and in the genre of Romance.  This is not unrelated to the fact that my most-read author of the year is the white, female, Australian romance author Stephanie Laurens.

I am by far more likely to have been reading a female author than a male author.

I am by far more likely to have been reading a white author.

I am mildly more likely to have been reading an Australian author, and by far more likely to be reading an author of Anglo/American/European background.

Personally: I don't see the need to rectify the issue of gender.  I do think that it's been a particularly romance-focussed, white-intensive year.  In the coming year my stated aims are (and these will be in a following post) to work in particular on writers of non-white, female Australian background - and as much as I can, of authors who are not straight.  But of that, anon.

Via Goodreads, I've been keeping count of the majority of my reading across the years.  The results of 2011 are as follows:




As of 31 Dec:

Total: 77 books

Female authors = 57
Male authors = 20

Authors from other-than-white backgrounds = 15 (ouch!)
White authors = 62

A rough count of nationality (admittedly mostly by colonised country/current identification for purpose of passport etc):
Australia = 28
United States = 24
United Kingdom = 21
Canada = 1
France = 1
Japan = 1
South Korea = 1

A rough division by (assumed) ethnicity:
Anglo/American/European = 62
Indigenous Australian = 5
Chinese = 3
Indian = 2
Korean - 2
Iranian - 1
Filipino - 1
Japanese - 1

By genre:
Romance: 21 (or so)
Non fiction (general): 12
Historical fiction (not Regency romance): 10
Picture books: 7
Science Fiction: 7
General Fiction: 6
True Crime: 3
YA Adventure: 3
Middle Grades: 2
Graphic Novels: 2
Steampunk: 1
Junior non-fiction: 1
Thriller: 1
Military non fiction: 1