The Books Database
I put together a web-based visualization of a personal database of books I’ve read and reviewed over the last 10+ years. The database is here and the data can be downloaded directly as a CSV from here.
Background
Parents saying their child likes to read is a bit trite, but I swear I actually was - Magic Treehouse, and Encyclopedia Brown and Great Illustrated Classics featured prominently. I shared a birthday with Harry Potter, and read the books obsessively. Our childhood house had a great built-in shelf along an entire wall of a large room and it was crammed to overflowing with books. Books on top of, shoved behind, other books.
I read a bit throughout high-school. I actually read a bit obnoxiously - reading ostentatiously, cumbersomely, large, volumes like Gone With the Wind in class. I’m not proud of this.
After my freshman year of college, summer of 2012, I lived and worked inside Mount Rainier National Park at the Paradise Lodge. I lived above the kitchen and worked five days a week in the bakery. This was, for a number of reasons, a transformative summer. I’m bringing it up in the context of this post because there was no cell reception, no internet, no wi-fi, no cable TV. What I did have was time, loads of it. I worked from 6am to 2pm and spent the rest of the time hiking when the weather was good and reading when the weather was bad. I read in my room, in the lodge, from the comfort of my sleeping bag. I read intensely. I read easy, fun stuff - the Harry Potter series in six days, Neil Gaiman by the handful, the entire Game of Thrones series. I read classics, Huxley, Hesse, Atwood, Steinbeck.
When I graduated college, I started keeping track of my reading goals and habits. Reading was something that was intellectually enriching and expanding. I like writing but I love reading. It felt like a worthwhile goal, to read certain authors and certain books and about certain subjects. I’ve had a long-standing goal to read a book a week and I’ve either met or come damn close to that goal for the last 10 years. Recently, I’ve made a more concerted effort to read more diverse authors and to read more non-fiction. This has been a big change in my life, introducing me to concepts and histories and people I had not come across much in the past. I would encourage everyone to think about the books they’ve read, the books they love, and whether they were written by white men. For me, the answer was a resounding “yes” and in the last few years, I’ve endeavored to change my habits.
Database
Okay, the database. It has about 600 books, nearly 500 ratings, and about 70 reviews. I’ve kept it alive across various platforms, but it now lives as a Google Spreadsheet that I’ve copied and hosted publicly. I also have explored some data visualizations, using data from Goodreads to allow for some interesting comparisons between my reading habits and preferences and public ratings.
There are some good summary statistics on the dedicated page for the database. I’ll explore a few interesting, specific elements here.
