how much does a child cost (in books)?

Every so often, another report releases that proposes the cost of raising children. Forget these. I can tell you exactly how much it costs.

In books.

Thanks to goodreads stats, I know that I read 101 books in 2012. That dropped to 80 in 2013 after our daughter was born. That's a 21% decline. Because she was born in late June, almost exactly midway through the year, I should have read 50% of my books on either side. Well, my reading rate slowed (though not dramatically) because I finished only 47% of my books in the second half of the year.

But the shocking statistic is the page count. 34,385 in 2012. 24,476 in 2013. That's a 29% drop! So I read a lot of thin books.

Where did all the time gained from not reading go?

Sleeping commutes instead of reading commutes.

No more reading in bed. Manically do chores after baby goes to sleep.

Oh, and no more lazy Sunday afternoon reading.

But, we did read The Very Hungry Caterpillar together about fifty times. And that has to count as time well spent.

new year. new books. and some old ones.

Talk at the book office this week was about our goodreads 2013 reading challenges. And, of course, our 2014 goals, when I shamefacedly admitted to a smaller goal in 2014.

A simple 52 books, one for each week of the year.

Why?

I spent too much time last year charging through three-hundred pagers for work. Time to set aside commutes for longer reads like those thick histories I've owned for ten years but never opened.

Which includes continuing starting (it never really got going this year) a medieval reading project. I cannot resist buying those old paperback Penguin Classics. Never read them though. Too indecisive. So I took the decision out of it by simply heading to the beginning of the medieval section - Abelard and Heloise - and planning to read the shelf from left to right. It's like a school uniform: with no choice in clothing, you just got up and got going. Problem solved.

So, longer denser books. Medieval texts. That's a happy new year.