9 years ago today

On this day in history, 9 years ago, I started a massive project: to read every book in my local branch library.

I’ve moved cities twice, gotten married (just once, thank you), and had a child in the intervening 9 years.

What started at a branch library now continues at Wichita’s Central Library.

I’m gonna read every book in my local library. Or die trying. Probably the latter.

Meanwhile, it’s been tremendous fun.

TOTALS as of Sept 5, 2015 (9 years or 3287 days)

Interestingly, the last time I made an update was exactly 4.5 years ago – which gives a nice opportunity to see how my reading habits have changed over the past 4.5 years.

Some major differences –
Juvenile: I have decreased my reading of juvenile books in general (from 1203 books to 829 books) – although I had not read any board books until we were expecting Tirzah Mae and my intake of juvenile nonfiction was increased in this past 4.5 years.
Adult: My “adult” reading has basically halved, with the proportion of nonfiction to fiction increasing.
Media: I have listened to about 100 more audio CDs in this past 4.5 years than in the 4.5 years before that. My DVD consumption has decreased dramatically (because I haven’t been recording when Daniel and I watch something on Netflix – while I *did* record things I watched with my sister on Netflix). I have also essentially stopped reading magazines.

Of course, the real question is how many books I read in a certain time frame – and I haven’t answered that one yet. Since my last data point is 4.5 years ago, I’m going to have to answer for the entire past 4.5 years – but it looks like I have read 566 books in the past 4.5 years (excluding children’s picture books, first readers, and beginner chapter books.) That equals out to 125.8 books per year or 10.5 books per month or 1/3 of a book per day.