Tag Archives: year in review

The year in books…

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What kind of year it has been, at least around here, can often be measured by a discussion of books. As this year ends, there are 1533 book making up my personal library. I added 113 of them to the shelves this year.

According to the statistics helpfully compiled by Librarything and Goodreads, I’ve read 66 books and 26,080 pages in 2022. That’s a pretty significant drop from last year when I read 79 books and 32,585 pages. The only significant difference year over year comes down to spending the last three months needing to schlep much more often into the office. The commute has stolen six hours a week that was otherwise free and open reading time. It’s obviously thrown me off the pace set in 2020 and ’21. One more reason to be bitter about that whole situation, I suppose.

In any case, the library continues to grow, even if at a slower, slightly more “reasonable” pace. If the internet is to be believed, if I stacked the whole bunch of them atop one another, I’d have a tower of books ever so slightly taller than the Taj Mahal and growing towards striking distance of the Notre Dame cathedral.

Depending on the source, I’ve read that the average U.S. household has anywhere between 30 and 114 books and also that the average individual purchases about 12 books a year. I speculate that average is all sorts of off the mark, being completed skewed by me and like-minded bibliophiles who have a mild affliction for stacking them deep – in my case, reaching the weight of 180 fully grown badgers and needing almost 16 Billy bookcases. That estimate, by the way, is frighteningly accurate at least in terms of bookcases… I don’t have a good point of reference for comparing the badgers, though.

I started off thinking one room here could be a library. The reality is that it’s more like a living thing – growing, evolving, and spreading out through the house. I don’t think I’d want it any other way. 

2020 by the numbers…

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It’s been a big year at jeffreytharp.com. I mean that in just about every measurable way, because as the year closes out, views are up 52% over last year and more than doubled from 2018. 

Where do we stand, you ask?

  • 260 posts
  • 14,096 views
  • 929 likes 

Views only fell below 1,000 one month once this year, which is attributable to a change in how updates were served out to Facebook. Once I got that sorted, it was back to the proverbial races.

All things considered, that’s not a bad showing for a poky little personal blog that doesn’t have a discernable theme, does no advertising, and basically consists of me using it as a platform to bitch and complain about the utter stupidity of daily life. 

The fact that so many people have opted to come along for the ride – or just follow along to watch the shitshow – is absolutely remarkable. I’d say I’m humbled by it, but since you have been following along, surely you know better than that.

I won’t make promises of grand changes for 2021. There will be no wild rebranding or shift in focus. I fully intend to just plug along doing what I’ve been doing. Hopefully you’ll continue to like it (and recommend it to your friends for their reading pleasure). 

The year in books…

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This morning, Goodreads helpfully provided a summary of “My Year in Books.” It turns out that I’ve churned through 77 books and 32,168 pages this year. If I can keep up the pace between today and tomorrow, I’ll add one more book and 358 more pages to that total before we formally close out the year. Those are respectable numbers, but I’m a little surprised that they weren’t higher, being in a plague year and all. All in, I’ll have exceeded last year by 12 books and 5,000 pages, so the Great Plague earned me one additional book a month.

For purposes of not wanting to sound like a lunatic hoarder, I don’t formally keep track of the number of books that end up in the to-be-read stacks over the course of the year. I suspect that number might actually be lower than the number I read this year. That’s an unprecedented situation, at least in recent memory. 

As far as what I’m reading, that ebbs and flows between obscure histories to pop fiction, with a healthy dose of anything related to Buffy thrown in. I make absolutely no apologies for the eclectic nature of what ends up filling my bookcases, because I love them all – even if I love some of them more than others.

So, what do we expect from 2021? More of the same feels likely. Maybe in the back half of the new year I’ll get back to making the rounds of local (and a few far-flung) used book shops on a semi-regular basis. Maybe I’ll even take a long look at what’s currently on the shelves and make some hard decisions about titles that seemed interesting when I browsed them for a $1 a piece at a neighborhood thrift shop, but are unlikely to ever drift to the top of the pile. Then again, maybe I won’t do that at all. Surely there’s a way to just add some more bookcases to that back bedroom without hiring a structural engineer to check out how much dead weight the floor will actually hold before everything ends up in the crawl space.

The only thing I know with certainty, that was true in 2020 and will be true in 2021, is that no matter what the year looks like, there will always be more books I want to read than there is time to read them.

With all respect to The Twilight Zone, even when there’s “time enough at last” and your glasses work fine, it’s not nearly enough.

2019 by the numbers…

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It wouldn’t be New Years Eve if I didn’t take a couple of minutes to run you through the numbers for 2019.

In no particular order, here’s what they say:

  • Posts: 204
  • Words: 64,075 Words
  • Visitors: 6,494
  • Views: 9,218
  • Most searched term: jeffrey tharp attorney

Ok, yikes. So first of all, I apologize to anyone who landed here hoping to find a lawyer. I hope my namesake is a good one and everything worked out for you.

2019 was the second biggest year for views and visitors I’ve had here at WordPress. 2013 retains the crown, presumably because I was spitting so much fire about being furloughed that year… but it hasn’t kept the crown by much, so who knows what 2020 will look like.

The most read post for 2019, was a tribute to Winston. I wrote it back in January with tears streaming down cheeks. Even now, almost a year later, I can just barely make it through that post without sobbing.

In a few short hours we’ll consign 2019 to history. I wish I had something deep or insightful to close on, but all I keep thinking is what a truly strange year it has been.

The Year in Review: 2017 Edition

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Screen Shot 2017-12-31 at 9.55.36 AM.png WordPress use to helpfully provide a year in review feature that would auto-magically spit out a post with all the facts and figures about what posts were popular, where your views were coming from, and all manner of information about what your readers found interesting. Sadly, they discontinued that feature a couple of years ago, so it’s up to me to come up with something to say here at the end of the year.

In plain language, this year was almost exactly average with about 6,600 views and 3,684 visitors. Some years have been better, some worse, and I guess that’s about all we can reasonably expect to say about blogging – or life for that matter.

The most viewed post of the year wasn’t even a post from this year. Instead, you have to reach back all the way to 2014 find the post titled For Official Use Only. Some people would mind that, but me, I’m not picky about where people are looking so long as they’re looking. In case you’re wondering, you had to drop all the way down to the third most viewed post to find one written in 2017. You probably won’t be shocked to find out it’s about people making bad decisions and the rest of us poor sods who have to listen to them talk about it.

In related news, it’s also the first year that “hot lesbian cheerleader” didn’t lead the ranking of search terms that brought people here. I’m not sure if that says more about what people are searching for or the content I’ve been posting this year… so make of that what you will.

I won’t even speculate what 2018 holds for the world. Assuming the new year is about the same as the old, it’ll be about equal parts joy and terror, with a heavy dose of “what the actual fuck” thrown in for good measure. The only thing I’m reasonably sure about is that as long as I have an internet connection and and a few thoughts that I can’t stand keeping to myself, I’ll be here writing them down and sharing them with the world. That too could be good or bad, depending on your perspective. Since it seems to help preserve my sanity, I’m going with the idea that remains a net good overall.

2014 Year in Review

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Because it’s the end of the year and I’m using every tool in my arsenal to avoid actually needing to think about a post this evening, please enjoy this very special WordPress version of jeffreytharp.com’s 2014 Year in Review.

Here's an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,700 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

2012 in review…

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Because I’m always looking for a way to post without going to the time and trouble of actually writing, please enjoy this Year in Review, generated by WordPress…

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 8,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 14 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

33: The Year in Review…

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The last 365 days won’t go down as my best year, but it’ll be up there near the top of the list. In case you haven’t been reading along for the last year, here’s the retrospective in 60 words or less: Escaped the inmate running the asylum, Moved back to Maryland, Fought with landlord, Had his Explorer towed, Started a new job, Shopped tax free in Delaware, Ate more steamed crabs in one year than in the last six, Wrecked the truck (twice), Rediscovered Atlantic City, Reconnected with old friends, Got serious about writing, Got a year older and more curmudgeonly.

So as my “early thirties” slide quietly under the stern, I’m comfortable officially designating it not a bad year. Forecast for year 34: More of the same, but with more awesome.

Better than average…

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Now that the sappy sentimentality of Christmas is behind us and the drunken orgy of New Years still lies ahead, it’s the time of year when we look back at what made the year memorable… Yeah, I’m coming up blank on that, too. Fact is 2011 was pretty much identical to 2010 and there’s every indication that it will be substantively similar to 2012. I’m not making a judgment call about that so much as I’m just letting it lay there as a statement of fact.

2011 had something in the neighborhood of 104 weekend days, 10 paid holidays, 19 vacation days, and about 6 sick days. That leaves about 226 work days. That’s 62% of the available days in the year spent sitting in a cube, playing with PowerPoint, trying to wordsmith every outgoing email to reflect a bold, can-do attitude, and generally trying to convince ourselves that what we’re doing really makes a difference to more than the 2 or 3 people on our left and right who actually know what we’re working on. A handful of those days were really, really good. Another handful were really, really bad. The vast majority were just somewhere between the two.

I have no reason to think it won’t be the same in 2012. The only difference is 2012 has a head start on the number of good days because I’m not going to spend a third of it trying to escape from the hellish clutches of the Uberboss. The long painful job search and transition process is over. I’m settled in to the new job and back in the part of the country I never should have left in the first place. All in all, maybe that’s not such a bad kickoff to the new year. If I can manage more average days than bad ones and find myself home every night in the right part of the world, I guess I’d have to say I’m pretty happy with good enough.

Here’s to the new year. Best of luck at keeping things better than average.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.