I’m wondering if other people have any input on this.
I’ve been tracking a few basic facts about every book I read since 2018 - gender of the author, author’s nationality, original language the book was published in, and year of publication. Initially this was just a random thing I did, but I soon noticed that I was reading significantly less female authors than male authors. In 2018 and 2019, it was like 25-30 percent female authors. That bugged me a little bit, so I made an effort to look for more female authors, and then I figured I maybe should aim to read less European and North American authors (comparatively) and give a bit more space to South American, African, Asian authors. It became a bit of a hobby project, tracking these stats. Now I’m at a point where for the first time in 2024, I don’t want to set a reading goal in terms of number of books read, but I want to set myself conditions like 50% female writers, 50% non-European non-North American writers, and works from every decade between 1850 and now. Something of the sort, I haven’t worked it out exactly. The thing is I know it’d be super easy to game this system, which defeats the point. I want to read more voices that are different from my own, not just rack up points in some game against myself. I’m not sure I’m going about this in the best way.
Does anybody else track these sort of things? Do you think it’s worthwhile? Where do you draw the line between gamification of a valid goal (reading more voices that aren’t like you) and gaming your own system? What sort of statistics do you track, if any? Have you made any conscious changes to your reading habits?
OP, I’m sorry that people jump to the conclusion that you can’t be reading for fun or that it must be exhausting to keep track. All the “no I’m reading for enjoyment” answers must be disheartening. It sound like a pretty cool project in my opinion and like you’re really enjoying yourself.
Personally, I keep track of what I read on goodreads and then once in a blue moon I import them to storygraph for automatic charts but that’s about it at the moment. I can imagine keeping track and choosing books by that as well though, as I love a good challenge and keeping stats and lists is just so much fun! :) I read many female authors already but I’d like to explore more ethnically diverse perspectives. Sadly, I can’t tell you which way to proceed best. I just look up books on goodreads, follow diverse people, read the lists and articles and see what sounds interesting. My challenge-weakness however: I’m too much of a mood reader 😶🌫️