1001 spreadsheet stats quiz

Five questions about the spreadsheet I'm curious to know the answers of

1. What reading plan are you doing from the nine on the Full version of the spreadsheet? (Or what list version are you using if you don't have the Full version)


2. What's your reading span (this is the difference between the highest numbered book you've read i.e. most ancient book on the list and the lowest numbered i.e. most modern)?


3. What's the most consecutive novels on the list you've read?


4. What are your 5-starred reads?


5. What age does the spreadsheet tell you you'll be when you complete the list?

Here are my answers:

1. The Full Version All 3 list
2. #1294 Aesop's Fables - #6 The White Tiger = 1288
3. I have two blocks of 5:

132 Glamorama
133 Another World
134 The Hours
135 Veronika Decides to Die
136 The Poisonwood Bible

and

216 Possessing the Secret of Joy
217 Jazz
218 The English Patient
219 Indigo
220 The Crow Road

4. Out of the 310 books I've read so far, only 7 make it to 5 stars:
Midnight's Children
The Shining
The Siege of Krishnapur
The Old Man and the Sea
Cry, The Beloved Country
To the Lighthouse
and The Jungle

5. 60 years old (20 to go!)

how about you guys?

1. All three lists
2. #1213 Pride and Prejudice and #1 Elegance of the Hedgehog

Though I'm currently reading #1290 The Thousand and One Nights

3. Several twos - too many to list.

4. No five stars (I'm stingy with them) but here are some of my favorites.

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

5. Per the calculations, at my rate of reading 1001 Books, I'll die before I complete it.

1. Well, I don't really use your spreadsheets (sorry), but checked now the free version. Actually I do use the full list but the comments here are for 2010 one.

2. #1001 The Thousand and One Nights to #54 Fear and Trembling. Yeah, I haven't read any of the 2000s books.

3. Boringly enough the four Austen books on the row (#930-933). I should read Rob Roy so I could get seven books on the row...Other than those Austens, there are couple of three-book-rows (#391-393 and #442-444)

4. 1001 books list obviously agrees with me, even though I don't hand out five stars that easily there were eight books like that so far:
Invisible Cities
Foucault's Pendulum
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
The Manila Rope
Miss Lonelyhearts
Pride and Prejudice
The Remains of the Day
Everything That Rises Must Converge
and several four-star ones too (and the difference between the two is admittedly hazy)

5. No such function on the free version, though noting thave I have read so far 22 books from the list this year (and estimate I will still read a couple more until the end of the year), extrapolating from that I should be done in about 35 years which still is under my statistical life expectancy.

1. All three

2. 1214 Sense and Sensibility to 9 The Gathering

3. Several two's - not threes yet but it's early days for me!

4. I will finish at 57

5. My five stars go to;
Never Let me go
The Reader
A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Handmaid's Tale
The Wasp Factory
Schindler's Ark
Day of the Triffids
1984

1. All three lists combined

2. #1294 Aesop's Fables - #57 Kafka on the Shore

3. I have a lot of two's in a row right now, but that's it. I'm planning to read Pride and Prejudice shortly, and that will give me three Austens in a row.
1212. Mansfield Park
1213. Pride and Prejudice
1214. Sense and Sensibility

4. I don't use the stars to rate books -- I use them as part of keeping tracks of books that aren't on my wishlist yet but that I really want to add at some point.
Five star books I've read since I started rating on LT are:
Atonement
Cat's Cradle
I'm sure there are others, but I'd have to look through the list and think about it some.

5. I'll be 69 (30+ years from now!)

1. I use my own spreadsheet, tracking all three lists.

2. Same as yours: Aesop's Fables to The White Tiger

3. My spreadsheet's sort order may be slightly different from yours (mine is year+author+title), but I have, amazingly, ELEVEN different blocks of five in a row, and nothing larger. One is in 1984; the rest are 1940 or earlier.

My largest block of unread books is of sixteen in the early 1990s.

4. My five-star books are:
Germinal
The House of Mirth
The War of the End of the World
War and Peace
Anna Karenina
Dracula
Baltasar and Blimunda
Midnight's Children
The God of Small Things
Gravity's Rainbow
Lolita
The Man Without Qualities
Blood Meridian
Wittgenstein's Mistress
The Betrothed
The Magic Mountain
The Rainbow
Portrait of a Lady
The Ambassadors
The Old Man and the Sea
The Return of the Native
Jude the Obscure
The Heart of the Matter
The Recognitions
The French Lieutenant's Woman
Tom Jones
The Sound and the Fury
Middlemarch
Crime and Punishment
The Brothers Karamazov
Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
Bleak House
The USA Trilogy
Disgrace
Wild Swans
Soldiers of Salamis
The Master and Margarita
Death of Virgil
The New York Trilogy

5. I don't know how your spreadsheet calculates this, but for the last two years I've averaged 5 books off the list per month, so I should reach my goal of 1001 out of the 1294 in 10 years at age 70. It would take an additional 4+ years to reach the full 1294 if that were possible. Of course by that time there're likely to have been more editions of the book, making this a moving target.

wow steven03tx, I want you to review my novel if I ever write it!

You're right about the moving target, the question is, can we move fast enough. The 2010 edition only added 11 books over the 2 years since the previous edition. That should be a target that's achievable if the publishers keep up that kind of rate, particularly as modern novels tend to be very much slimmer than their 16th-19th cent counterparts.

wow steven03tx, I want you to review my novel if I ever write it!

If you write as well as Tolstoy, Mann and Faulkner maybe you'll get 5 stars too. :)

Keep in mind that I've read over 450 of them, so it's natural that I would have more 5-star reviews than those who have read fewer. In fact there are others that probably deserve 5 stars but I read so long ago that I don't have them rated.

1. I use the 2008 spreadsheet with the 2006 "removed" books added on. I haven't come to grips with 2010 yet. My goal is to read 1000 really good books from a combination of all past and eventual lists.

2. Earliest: Ovid, Metamorphoses from the 2006 list. Most recent, Half of a Yellow Sun. So a couple thousand year span there!

3. I have quite a few blocks of four, mostly in the 19th century. But I see that if I just read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall I would join two blocks and have eight consecutive books!

4. I've only ranked books I can remember reading well; so I'm not sure on the Jane Austens or Richardsons or Dostoevskys or Orwells that I read decades ago.
Don Quixote
Eugene Onegin
War and Peace
Portrait of a Lady
The Sound and the Fury
Murder Must Advertise
Call it Sleep
The Nine Tailors
The Man Who Loved Children
Embers
Cry, The Beloved Country
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The Third Policeman
A Dance to the Music of Time
Patterns of Childhood
The Parable of the Blind
Suite Francaise

5. It says I have to read 34 books/year if I'm a typical female. That seems pretty steep, but maybe once I retire I'll be able to catch up. Actually, I think I'm going at more than 34/year now, but I'm only reading the ones I'm pretty interested in reading.

1. I also plan to read from all three lists. So far, I've got around 600 books from the lists I'm interested in reading but I'm still a long way from that so we'll see.

2. Earliest: The thousand and one nights #1290
Latest: A short history of tractors in Ukrainian #22

3. Depends on the list I choose. I try to spread my reading across the centuries, so have few blocks of three.
From the 2006 version:
The awakening
The turn of the screw
The war of the worlds

Of mice and men
Their eyes were watching God
The Hobbit

Contact
The Handmaid's tale
Perfume

From the 2008 and 2010 versions:
Of mice and men
Their eyes were watching God
The Hobbit

A modest proposal
Gulliver's travels
Moll Flanders

4. My rating system reflects more how I feel about a book rather than its literary qualities. A 5-star book resonated with me and made me change my outlook on life. I give a 5-star rating maybe twice in a good reading year. From the list:
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The blind assassin
The grapes of wrath
Contact
The dispossessed
The English patient
Perfume
The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
The thousand and one nights
Candide
The little prince
A modest proposal

5. There seems to be a bug in the spreadsheet because it says that as a Canadian woman, I'm expected to live to 50. If I use France, I'll live until I'm 82, and I should finish when I'm 59.

Fun!

1. I am working out of the 2006 edition of the book.

2. My reading spans from 1688, Oroonoko, to 2005 and the very last entry, Never Let Me Go.

3. There are four places where I've read three books in a row:

1. Animal Farm, Cannery Row, In Pursuit of Love
2. Bleak House, Villette, Cranford
3. Frankenstein, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion
4. Emma, Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice

4. Lots of 5 star reads (and looking at my 4.5 star books, I think I might bump some of them up)

To the Lighthouse
Orlando
Return of the Soldier
Confederacy of Dunces
A Fine Balance
Atonement
Garden Party
If This is a Man
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Like Water for Chocolate
Out of Africa
The Hours
Giovanni's Room
Pride and Prejudice
The Robber Bride

5. I don't know . . . I have no plans to read even half the list, so it's not something I've ever thought about.

I just completely updated my list in my thread so these were quick to answer!

What reading plan are you doing from the nine on the Full version of the spreadsheet? (Or what list version are you using if you don't have the Full version)

I'm using the combined/full version.

What's your reading span (this is the difference between the highest numbered book you've read i.e. most ancient book on the list and the lowest numbered i.e. most modern)?
earliest: 1214. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
most recent: 4. American Rust - Philipp Meyer

What's the most consecutive novels on the list you've read?
1211. Emma - Jane Austen
1212. Mansfield - Jane Austen
1213. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1214. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

What are your 5-starred reads?
not sure if these are literally 5 starred. But I remember these books as being really good and I would highly recommend them.

4. American Rust - Philipp Meyer
23. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
45. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon
53. Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
78. The Corrections - Jonathen Franzen
85. Atonement - Ian McEwan
136. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
251. The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
254. Possession - A.S. Byatt
269. Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel
377. The House of the Spirits - Isabelle Allende
486. The Book of Daniel - E.L. Doctorow
610. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
620. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
731. Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
767. Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
768. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
802. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
810. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
816. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
818. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
830. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
840. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? - Horace McCoy
892. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich remarque
939. A Passage to India - E.M. Forster
961. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
1122. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
1127. Little Women - Loisa Alcott
1211. Emma - Jane Austen
1213. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

What age does the spreadsheet tell you you'll be when you complete the list?
My spreadsheet is at home but from memory I will finish it in my 70's. However my spreadsheet is also broken as I had to change it to open office freeware and I'm not sure if the code still works and if the number ever changes.

In saying that while the spreadsheet is broken it still works - just not as well as it should do - looks a bit rough. And I love it! Even though I mainly use the combined list I love having all the other lists there and that they are colour coded so I know which books were taken off, added, in which version etc. John if you are ever looking for new feature to add as well as having the read/tbr/wishlist can you also add attempted.. for all those books that I tried to read, couldn't and will never try again... maybe make it red?

wow... great replies. guys.

@ paruline... there was a glitch in the spreadsheet's earlier releases. If it bugs you, you can send it to me at arukiyomi AT johnandsheena.co.uk and I'll fix it and send it back to you if you want.

@ nickelini... how bizarre that I should finish Oroonoko only a couple of hours before reading your post

@ kiwiflora... good idea about attempted... but my efforts are focussed elsewhere, at least for the time being.

What reading plan are you doing from the nine on the Full version of the spreadsheet? (Or what list version are you using if you don't have the Full version)
The full version - all three lists

What's your reading span (this is the difference between the highest numbered book you've read i.e. most ancient book on the list and the lowest numbered i.e. most modern)?
#1228 - The Interesting Narrative to #11 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

What's the most consecutive novels on the list you've read?
There are several instances of two consecutive novels:

#22 A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
#23 Never Let Me Go

#424 Delta of Venus
#425 The Shining

#699 The Adventures of Augie March
#700 Go Tell It on the Mountain

#704 Invisible Man
#705 The Old Man and the Sea

#727 The Grass is Singing
#728 I, Robot

#766 Animal Farm
#767 Cannery Row

#896 The Sound and the Fury
#897 Les Enfants Terribles

#1048 The Island of Dr. Moreau
#1049 The Time Machine

#1163 Moby-Dick
#1164 The Scarlet Letter

What are your 5-starred reads?
#11 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Díaz
#120 Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
#169 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
#419 The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
#464 The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin
#495 The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
#577 Herzog – Saul Bellow
#660 Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
#667 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
#700 Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
#712 Foundation – Isaac Asimov
#762 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
#767 Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
#834 Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
#896 The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
#956 Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
#980 Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham
#1008 The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
#1051 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
#1099 The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
#1126 The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
#1131 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
#1169 Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
#1172 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

What age does the spreadsheet tell you you'll be when you complete the list?
80, if I average 3 1001 books a month (which I'm currently not doing)

1.What reading plan are you doing from the nine on the Full version of the spreadsheet? (Or what list version are you using if you don't have the Full version)

I own the full version spreadsheet, but mainly follow the 2008 list. I am taking my answers here from the full version.

2.What's your reading span (this is the difference between the highest numbered book you've read i.e. most ancient book on the list and the lowest numbered i.e. most modern)?

#1273 Robinson Crusoe to #5 The Elegance of the Hedgehog (2010 version) or #19 Half of a Yellow Sun (2008 version)

3.What's the most consecutive novels on the list you've read?

5 consecutive novels - obviously the Austens:
#1217 Emma
#1218 Mansfield Park
#1219 Pride and Prejudice
#1220 Sense and Sensibility
#1221 Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich Kleist

4 consecutive novels:
#1054 The Island of Dr. Moreau
#1055 The Time Machine
#1056 Effi Briest
#1057 Jude the Obscure

4.What are your 5-starred reads?

There were far too many, and I am just reviewing my rating system. For now there remain:

Great Expeactations by Charles Dickens
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Siddharta by Hermann Hesse
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
To Kill a Mickingbird by Harper Lee
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Of Human Bondage by W. Sumerset Maugham
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
2666 by Roberto Bolano
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

5.What age does the spreadsheet tell you you'll be when you complete the list?

62 - which gives me 22 years, but at a rate of 3 books a months, and currently I can't keep up with that.

I will do my calculations and lists later, but I had a chuckle when I saw the spreadsheet thinks I will die before completing the list. Unless I step it up, of course.