Book Reviews by the Numbers

Crunching some numbers, I see that Tuesday’s review of Downward to the Earth is my one hundredth science fiction book review here on The Recovering Hopper! One hundred science fiction book reviews in a little over nine years … an average of just under one a month.

Totaling up all the other reviews I’ve done, I see that I am up to 194 (despite what that number on the left says; not all posts tagged “Book Reviews” are legitimate Book Reviews). That’s 1.8 book reviews a month. Which is about half of my reading consumption.

What’s the breakdown by subject?

Well …

Science fiction – 100

Science fiction short story anthologies – 8

Fantasy – 16

Westerns – 11

Horror – 8

Horror short story anthologies – 1

Classic and/or adventure fiction – 16

History – 7

Religious fiction – 4

Spy/action/espionage – 3

Theology – 3

Historical fiction – 3

Others – 14

Why this post? Because I love reading, and I love writing about the books I’ve read. I wrote a half-dozen or so book reviews in the months up to the creation of this blog in March 2008, so it was only natural that I continue. I suppose my dream job would be to get paid reviewing books, but I chaff a bit at that, considering I might lose a degree or more of freedom in what I wish to write.

Anyway, hope there are some of you out there who read them (somebody must be, as I have almost 200,000 page views to date) and, even more so, some of you who enjoy reading them.

Because I will keep writing them, if only for myself.