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Statistics
Ten fun facts about our reading list to December 2024:
- We have read 265 books together. At a guess they would make a wobbly pile that is approaching 21 feet or 6.5 metres high.
The list of books is here and the book covers here.
- 57% of these books (150) have been written by women, 114 by men and 1 was a free choice.
- We tend to pick recently published books. Over our 27 years of existence as a group we have read just eight titles from the nineteenth century. Wuthering Heights (1847) is our oldest book and Ode to Autumn (1819) our oldest and only poem. The other books were Madame Bovary, Adam Bede
The Belton Estate, The Moonstone and Moonfleet). Seventy nine of our books were written between 1900 and 1999
and 177 have been written since 2000.
- We could consider the 'age' of our books at the time we read them. Our oldest reading this year, The Fortnight in September (1931) was written 93 years ago. Over the years we have strongly
favoured new books picking 32 books (12%) in the year that they were published and 80 (30%) books in the year following their publication year.
- Seven of our books have been in translation from the original language in which they were written:
| Original Language
| Title |
| French | Madame Bovary
Le Grand Meaulnes
| | Italian | In Love and War
| | Japanese | Before the Coffee gets Cold
| | Korean | The Vegetarian
| | Russian | Death and the Penguin
| | Welsh | The Blue Book of Nebo
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- We have read 8 Booker Prize winning books and were particularly excited as we read Orbital before it won the prize:
| Prize Year
| Title
| Author
| Our Reading Date
|
| 1990 | Possession | A.S. Byatt | 2004
| | 1992 | The English Patient | Michael Ondaatje | 1997
| | 1999 | Disgrace | J.M. Coetzee | 2000
| | 2002 | Life of Pi | Yann Martel | 2005
| | 2016 | The Sellout | Paul Beatty | 2018
| | 2018 | Milkman | Anna Burns | 2019
| | 2019 | Girl Woman Other | Bernadine Evaristo | 2019
| | 2024 | Orbital | Samantha Harvey | 2024 |
- Penguin is our favoured publisher accounting for 40 of our choices. Vintage is second with 34 picks. Taken together Penguin and Vintage account for 28%
of our choices. There are 77 publishers in total on our list (see the reading list page and sort by publisher for full details).
- We have read books by 241 authors. Only Ian McEwan and Kate Atkinson have been picked 3 times. We have read two books each by: Andrea Levy, Andrey Kurkov, Barbara Kingsolver, Beryl Bainbridge, Carole Shields, Geraldine Brooks, Gillian Slovo, Joanne Harris, Jonathan Falla, Khaled Hosseini, Lionel Shriver, Maggie O'Farrell, Margaret Leroy, Matt Haig, Nick Hornby, Robert Harris, Rose Tremain, Samantha Harvey and Yann Martel
- Ten of our authors have been called John plus three Jonathans. We have read eight authors with variants of the name Katharine, five Davids, five Clares and four each of
Margaret/Maggie and variations of Michael.
| Name
| Count
| List
|
| John/Jonathan
| 13
| 10 Johns (Baker, Bayley, Coetzee, Farrell, Keats, Lanchester, Le Carre, Meade, Faulkner, Preston and Williams) & 3 Jonathans (Coe, Falla and Franzen)
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| Katharine variants | 8 | Kate Atkinson and Williams, Katharine McMahon, Katie Hickman, Kathryn Stockett, Catherine O'Flynn, Caitlin Moran, Katrin Schuman
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Clare/Claire | 5 | Boylon, Keegan, King, Macintosh, Messud
| | David | 5 | Boling, Lodge, Nicholls, Park, Starkey
| | Margaret/Maggie | 4 | Attwood, Forster, Leroy, O'Farrell
| | Michael/Michel/
Mick | 4 | Michael Ondaatje, Michel Bussi, Mick Herron & Jackson
| | Sarah | 3 | Dunant, Penner, Walters, Winman
| | Alan | 3 | Booth, Hollinghurst, Paton
| | Angela/Angie | 3 | Carter, Chadwick, Cruz
| | Helen | 3 | Dunmorem Fielding, Rebanks
| | Sally | 3 | Magnusson, Rooney, Vickers
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- Over the year 42% of our books have been set in the UK, and 16% in the USA. The 'domesticity' of our books varies year by year.
Altogether we have read books set in about 60 countries (including Panem (The Hunger Games) and a mystery setting (The Melody))
though the count is not an exact science as several books have been set in more than one country.
| Main location of book
| Number of books
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| UK | 112
| | USA | 41
| | France | 9
| | Ireland | 8
| | Italy | 7
| | South Africa, various, India | 5
| | Canada, Japan | 4
| | Australia, Germany, Spain | 3
| | Afghanistan, Atlantic, Europe, Egypt, Greece, Netherlands, Ukraine | 2
| | Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Barbados, Bosnia, Botswana, Ceylon, China, Congo, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iceland, Jamaica, Kenya, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Monserrat, New Guinea, Norway, Pacific, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, Thailand, Tibet, Trinidad, Vietnam, "Panem", Space, ?
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