What Makes a Reading Database?

After I wrote about my reading database, there was some interest about what is, and perhaps what isn’t, there. What do I read? I’d say most people would be surprised at the wide range of reading selections that have made the list of books I have read since 1996, the year I started keeping track of the information.

Before I get into the “what” of the list, I’ll explain the “how” of my database. I actually have two Excel documents related to this. The first is simply titled “books read” and it has columns for the book’s title, the author, the year, the number it is, and the number of pages. After getting my Kindle, I added two more columns for Kindle and number of megabytes. I thought this database was quite thorough, until Jimmy mentioned he knew someone who could tell me what movies she had watched in July 2000. It occurred to me, there is a column missing from my database, and so for 2012, between the author and year columns, I have added a column for month.

There is a logical explanation for each column. I’m sure most of you understand most of the columns. If I had to guess, the only columns you might question would be the number of pages and the number of megabytes. Those columns just give me a point of comparison. My goal is to read at least the same number of books each year, but I’d also like it to be approximately the same number of pages of reading material. It would seem like cheating if one year I read fifty books that had 20,000 pages of reading material, but the next year, I read fifty-one books but only had 5,100 pages of reading material. After getting the Kindle, I added the megabyte column for the same reason, to have a point of comparison. I’m sure my faithful friends will just roll their eyes and say something about OCD, but hey, it makes sense to me to do it this way.

My second document is called “books read stats.” Until I got the Kindle this summer, this document had only three columns: year, number of books, and number of pages. After getting the Kindle, two more columns – Kindle ed. and number of megabytes – were added. This document is much smaller, since there are only eighteen rows, one for each year 1996-2012, and one row that calculates the totals in columns B, C, and E (the numbers columns). The purpose of this document is to be able to quickly see what the totals for each year are without having to scroll the other document to find the end number for each year. It also lets me quickly see the number of pages and number of megabytes for the year. Since this information is for comparative purposes, I can easily and quickly make a comparison. The number of books column includes all books, those that I hold in my hand and read and those I read on my Kindle. Keeping a separate tally for the Kindle books will allow me to see, again easily and quickly, how much my Kindle gets used when compared to regular books.

So, that’s my system. It really is quite simple and logical. Should you decide to keep a reading database, you can use the columns I have or create your own, based on your needs. Now, though, what do I read?

I read both fiction and nonfiction. I don’t reread books often, mainly those that I assign to my classes. Since these books are often assigned every other year, I have to reread those in order to refresh my memory. I never know what kinds of questions the kids will ask during seminar, and if I don’t read it again at the same time the new class is reading it, they’ll ask me something that I don’t have a clue about because I’ve forgotten that particular detail over the course of the two years. Outside of that, though, I rarely read a book more than once. I simply don’t have the time. I have so many books I want to read that any time spent rereading takes away from the books I have yet to read.

For fiction, many of my favorite authors fill the list of books I have read. Some of these include Nicholas Sparks, John Grisham, James Patterson, Danielle Steel, Janet Evanovich, Jodi Picoult, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Richard North Patterson, Greg Iles, Dan Brown, Catherine Coulter, Michael Connelly, Nora Roberts, Mary Higgins Clark, John Jakes, Larry McMurtry, David Baldacci, Richard Paul Evans, Steve Alten, and Michael Crichton. I’ll read whatever I can find by that group of authors. I’ve also read several noteworthy series of fiction books, including the Harry Potter books, the Twilight books, the Hunger Games books, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books, the Mr. Monk books, and the Left Behind books.

I’ve read many of the classics, some because I teach them in my classes, and others because I wanted to. You will find Moby Dick on the list simply because I told myself I was going to read it. I have a rule – if I start a book, I must finish it. I may not finish it immediately, and I may take a break and read several other books before I finish it, but the rule is to finish. That rule is the only reason I finished Moby Dick. I hated that book, but I finished it. I have only broken the rule a couple of times. One book I started but never finished was Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. I may have made it ten pages into the book. That book had more f-bombs on one page than an R-rated movie. I stopped reading and counted up to 20 on one page, and nearly every page of the ten I’d read was just like that, and I simply decided rule or no rule, I could not finish that book.

Other classics I enjoyed included books by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Chinua Achebe, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Bram Stoker, Ray Bradbury, and George Orwell. There are some who aren’t necessarily my favorites though, like John Steinbeck and Charles Dickens. The only good thing Dickens wrote was A Christmas Carol and the opening paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities. Two other classics I enjoyed were Alex Haley’s Roots and Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind.

I also read a lot of nonfiction. I’ve read all of Dave Pelzer’s books about his struggles having been an abused child. I’ve read Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom; it’s one of my all-time favorites, and one of the few books I would reread whether or not I assigned it to my students (which I do, by the way). I also assign Lynn Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves, which I think is a masterpiece, though my students don’t always agree. I’ve read several biographies about Princess Diana; I’ve been fascinated with the Royal Family since the fairy-tale wedding. I’ve ready Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. I’ve read memoirs by Patrick Swayze, Rick Springfield, Lisa Whelchel, Barry Williams, Maureen McCormick, Robert Kennedy, Elie Wiesel, Jennings Michael Burch, Tim O’Brien, Randy Pausch, Melissa Sue Anderson, Paula Deen, and Chad Varga.

My database includes lots of others authors as well. There have been several books I thoroughly enjoyed, but it’s the only book by that particular author that I’ve read. I don’t limit myself to the authors mentioned above. If a title catches my attention, I’ll read the blurb to see what the book is about. If it sounds like something that will interest me, I’ll give it a chance. All of my favorite authors have lots of books I haven’t had a chance to read yet, and of course I’d like to make it through their other works. There are also several other memoirs out there that I want to read, from other members of the Little House on the Prairie cast or The Brady Bunch cast, just to name a couple.

Reading is wonderful. I don’t understand those who don’t enjoy reading. They really don’t know what they’re missing out on. I suggest reading every chance you get, and I suggest you don’t limit yourself. As you can see from what’s on my list, it’s all over the place. Yours should be, too. Keeping the database may not be for everybody, but I enjoy doing it; it helps me keep track of what I’ve read and when I read it. I have fallen way short of my goal for 2011 reading; however, I have set my 2012 goal at 75 books, and I’m going to work diligently to fulfill that goal.

If you have to choose between keeping a database and reading a book, by all means, go read the book. But if you do keep a database, what is on yours? Are there other columns I need to add to mine? If you ever need a suggestion for something that would be good to read, or something to avoid, just ask. I’ll be glad to share suggestions with you. For now, I need to go finish a book.