The To Read List

Being the sort of reader I am and being an IT geek as well, of course my to read list is a database. It's also ... long. Long enough that I can do some statistics on it which I thought might be useful sharing on the blog.

Total: 91

Yes, 91 books. I even have a separate list of books that are in a queue to get on my to read list. There's nearly 400 books on that list.

Genres:

Science Fiction: 31

Fantasy: 31

Urban/Contemporary Fantasy: 23

Steampunk: 4

Other (Non-Fiction, Crime, Romance, Thriller): 7

The first thing I'd notice about that list is that it doesn't add up to 91. There's obviously some genre crossover. It's also got to be considered best-guess and subjective, particularly in the Urban Fantasy category as there is considerable crossover with Paranormal Romance.

A slippery slope

The second thing you'd probably notice is that I've got Romance in my to read list. I blame the Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance crossover problem. Basically it got me reading the odd Paranormal Romance book, by mistake initially, but now I'll make a conscious decision to read one now and then and sometimes that choice will skip the Paranormal part and just go to a straight Romance book. That actually feels like a confession of sorts, which I think deserves unpacking a bit in a later post.

Also on the Urban Fantasy category, why do I distinguish it from Fantasy? I don't have a category for Medieval/Epic Fantasy and that's at least as separate a category. I make the distinction because booksellers often do and also because reviewers also seem to make that distinction, and in my opinion, are being snobby while doing so.

You'll also note that I don't have Young Adult as a genre.  I count 9 books in the 91 that I've seen referred to as YA, but it's not a separation I tend to agree with. I'll have a chat about YA as a categorization in a later post as well.

Authors:

This one's a hard one; I only know so much about most of these people and crossing genders in pseudonyms is common in certain genres. For example, I really enjoy Daniel Abraham books, but he uses the gender-neutral M. L. N. Hanover for his Urban Fantasy series because apparently male-written Urban Fantasies don't sell as well.

Australians: 5 books, 2 male and 2 female, 1 of the males twice

Women: 59 books

Men: 32 books

The high numbers of women reflect that I like to read Urban Fantasy. Only two of the books I have identified as Urban Fantasy have male writers. Fantasy's split is 10 male writers and 21 female. Science Fiction is the only genre in my to read list where males dominate with 19 male writers to 12 female writers.

My to read list tends to fluctuate as well, so I'll probably revisit this in 6 months or so. Another post I'll do is a breakdown on what I have been reading, because that's all in a database too.

Currently Reading: Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson