You are what you read

You are what you read

This page contains various statistical analyses of my reading. I like to read a lot, but I am also a sucker for statistics and charts.

The chart to the right contains a breakdown of the number of books I have read per year since I started to keep a list over what I read. This list only lists things that I have read for pleasure, not course books which explains most of the dips in the graph.

The first full year in my data is 1986 when I was 18 years old. Since then, I have read 2120 books (1223 in Swedish, 880 in English, 3 in Norwegian, 1 in Danish, and 4 in German) which boils down to about 78.44 books per year for 27 years (however, this assumes that the current year is a full year). As you can see, a substantial part of what I read is in English, sometimes ridiculously much. The proportion of books in Swedish has increased a lot lately, mostly thanks to the fact that I wrote a review column for a local newspaper for a few years.

Lately, I have discovered manga and I now follow a few of the Japanese series that are published in Sweden. I have entered comics as read too when they have been "thick enough" for a while, but they have seldom numbered more than a few during a year. This is about to change, as it seems.

You can also check up on my quest to read something of all the nobel laureates in literature.

Books read per year

YearBooksEnglish booksSwedish booksNorwegian booksDanish booksGerman books
20118229 (35.37%)52 (63.41%)
201010040 (40.00%)60 (60.00%)
200912844 (34.38%)84 (65.62%)
200811625 (21.55%)91 (78.45%)
200714828 (18.92%)118 (79.73%)1 (0.68%)1 (0.68%)
200616320 (12.27%)140 (85.89%)1 (0.61%)2 (1.23%)
200513329 (21.80%)101 (75.94%)1 (0.75%)
200411025 (22.73%)82 (74.55%)1 (0.91%)
200310232 (31.37%)69 (67.65%)
200211732 (27.35%)85 (72.65%)
200111238 (33.93%)72 (64.29%)
200010243 (42.16%)58 (56.86%)
19998235 (42.68%)46 (56.10%)1 (1.22%)
19986840 (58.82%)28 (41.18%)
19975133 (64.71%)18 (35.29%)
19961613 (81.25%)3 (18.75%)
19954230 (71.43%)12 (28.57%)
19946745 (67.16%)22 (32.84%)
19936445 (70.31%)19 (29.69%)
19923121 (67.74%)10 (32.26%)
19917651 (67.11%)25 (32.89%)
19905247 (90.38%)5 (9.62%)
19892923 (79.31%)6 (20.69%)
19882319 (82.61%)4 (17.39%)
19876460 (93.75%)4 (6.25%)
19864032 (80.00%)8 (20.00%)
198521 (50.00%)1 (50.00%)


Statistics per month

This graph shows a breakdown of my reading on a per-month basis. As you can see, it's a pretty bumpy ride.

For some reason, there seems to be quite some variation in how many books I read different months. I'm not that surprised that there is a bump over the summer. Apart from the bump in the summer, the diagram seems to be evening out, although the amount of books I read right now is way over the total average.

Most popular authors

Top twenty authors I've read most books by (which is not necessarily the same as the authors I currently like best). In total, I've read books by 1086 authors.
 55 Stephen King
 50 Terry Pratchett
 32 Naturskyddsföreningen
 28 Gosho Aoyama
 25 Neil Gaiman
 24 Isaac Asimov
 19 Rumiko Takahashi
 17 Ian McDonald
 17 Sam J. Lundwall
 15 Iain Banks
 14 Svenska Turistföreningen
 13
 13 Vilhelm Moberg
 12 CLAMP
 12 Ursula K. Le Guin
 11 J. R. R. Tolkien
 11 Karin Fossum
 11 Michael Moorcock
 10 Arina Tanemura
 10 China Miéville
 10 Cory Doctorow
 10 Gainax
 10 J. K. Rowling
 10 Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö