It’s the end of the year and that means…yes you know it…geeky book graphs! I work in books which means it’s a business as well as a passion. No day is complete without an Excel spreadsheet and an analysis of performance.

And, like Prime Minister Trudeau says, “because it’s 2015”, that means it’s time to look back through both the year and to the beginning of the decade.*

First up, the book count:So the second best year this decade, and the first year-on-year increase since 2012. But, as always, it’s the page count that really…er…counts. Did I read lots of small books or manage to wade quickly through thick books?Again, second best year of the decade, but only just. 2010 was a high page year even though it had the lowest books read. So what does that make the average book length look like?Eeek! Not a great year for length. So even though the book count was close to my personal best, average length competed for some of the lower years. In other words, shorter books. But that being said, there are some exciting short books circulating at the moment. So much so that I wonder if it’s a new publishing trend.

After all the numbers are done, it’s been a really interesting reading year. I had the closest fiction-nonfiction split I’ve had in some time. I read a great deal outside my normal interests – including things I absolutely NEVER would have picked up but now subscribe to the author’s podcast (this means you Cheryl Strayed). As usual there are a few books I can’t remember reading (I’ll Give You The Sun) and a few I wish I hadn’t (Thatcher’s Trial).

It was also a pretty moving, even weepy year with some really deep books.

Most of all, friends and colleagues at the office really challenged me this year to read widely and across genres. So much of this great reading was part of our Best Of The Year committee. Check out the whole list, but the books I was – and am – the most proud to champion and share with many, many people were about a tweeting shepherd and a quirky twentieth century. Both authors who I was privileged to meet this year!

And while I shared my favourites with friends, I hope was equally open-minded about their suggestions as they were mine, and gave all their books a fair chance.

I hope everyone had a great 2015 and are planning their reading for 2016!

*Yes, I know the decade technically starts in 2011. I’m enough of a date pendant to go toe-to-toe with people on dating by indiction and Roman kalends, nones, and ides. But 2010 just always looks better.