What's the average book in your library?

Using LT statistics, what would be your average book?

When I like at my collection, the analysis is:

Language: most of my books are Dutch: 1,690 Dutch books, 89 English, 13 German
Places: of my books, 10 are situated in New York, 10 in Paris and 9 in London.
Male or female: 79,77% of my authors is male and 20,23% female
Dead or alive: slightly more dead (50,68%) than alive (49,32%)
Date: the average year is 1985
Tags: the tags I use most are Dutch (1082), novel (353), CPNB (288), short stories (226)

My average book is a Dutch book, with a male author, published in 1985, de author should be dead and the book should be located in New York or Paris. And there should be a relationship with the CPNB, which is the Dutch organisation of the promotion of book.

What are the candidates? I own 46 books that are published in 1985, 15 of these are written by Dutch authors and of those 6 have died. Of these books 2 are novels but only one has a connection with the organisation CPNB. That's this book:

Herinneringen van een Engelbewaarder by Willem Frederik Hermans, a Dutch classic novel. Unfortunately, this book wasn't translated in English.

What is your average book?

Interesting approach.

Language: most of my books are in English: 1,642 - but Dutch is a close tie at 1,609 (followed by German and French in the 200s).
Places: yes, definitely London - but I'm not going to bother to trace all the variant addresses there.
Male / female : 86.42% / 13.58%
Dead / alive : 935 / 454
Dates: Average year is 1977
Tags: top 4 tags are "20th Century" (436), "dutch art" (280), "19th century" (262), and "Netherlands" (254).

So, my average book should be in English or Dutch (it's almost 50/50 after all), with a male author, set in London but about dutch art of c. 1900. I really don't think I have any book that fills that description. Never mind it having to be published in 1977, by a male author who would now be dead. (That's one of the problems with statistics: absolutely no guarantee there will be any exact matches to the average).

Language: 1,284 English, 378 Bulgarian, a few in Russian and a few German grammars
Places: ~50 in New York, ~30 in London (none including parts of the cities so the numbers might be higher), the rest are much lower.
Male or female: Percent male: 75.26% : Percent female: 24.74%
Dead or alive: Dead: 92 / Alive: 408 / Unknown: 285 / Not a Person: 19
Date: Average year 2004
Tags: the mostly used one is "checked" but it's a temp one because I am moving... still working on tagging but it will be either a publisher series one (the ones starting with Series), or a year one.

So the average is in English, set at least partly in New York, from a male alive author and published in 2004. And funnily enough I do not seem to have any...

PS: I start to get curious how much this average will change after I end adding all my books. And when more data is added for more books.

What fun!

Language:
OK, American here, so all my books are in English (so sad not to be able to read in other languages).

Place:
Surprisingly, the largest number are in London (15) and New York City (13); quite a few are in Middle-earth (5) and a couple on Mars (who knew?); also 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey, England appears 7 times

Male/female:
74.7%/25.3% Need to do something about this -- maybe wishlist some more female authors?

Dead/alive/unknown/not a person:
121/103/25/2

Dates:
Average year is ...... 1984!

Tags:
not very interesting, because I don't use subject ones.

So my average book is set in London, written by a male author in 1984, probably just died.

k4k

Hmm, my statistically-average book would be in English, published in 1995, written by a living male author; my four most-used tags are "mmpb", "science fiction", "fantasy", and "tpb"; two of those four are mutually exclusive, and two nearly so. The most common locations that have been entered (this is not at all representative, since popular series books are heavily over-represented in CK) are "Ankh-Morpork", "London", "Mars", and "New York City".

I think that means my statistically-average book is probably either Soul Music or Green Mars, though a tag-based rather than location-based case could be made for Castle of Days, which as a short story collection gets three of the four tags.

This was really fun! (Not to mention how much you guys would have laughed if you had seen me with a calculator trying to figure out the average year before I noticed it's already calculated....)

Language: most of my books are in English: 2,323 in English, 868 in Swedish, 13 Hebrew
Places: of my books, 98 are situated in London, 91 in New York, and 43 in Paris
Male or female: 67.98% of my authors are male and 32.02% female
Dead or alive: more alive (59.98%) than dead (40,02%)
Date: the average year is 1992
Tags: the (slightly boring) tags I use most are fiction (2,185) and non-fiction (866)

That would mean that my average book is English fiction, set in London, written by an alive male author in 1992 = Clive Barker's Imajica. I don't mind that - it's a brilliant book!!

It would be interesting to do this excercise in a year or so as the Common Knowledge areas gets more and more filled in!

Neat thread.

Language: all but a handful are in English
Places: London - 48; NYC - 16; Tokyo - 12; Paris - 10; Gaborone - 10 (that's Alexander McCall Smith's doing)
Male or female: 73.06% male, 26.94% female
Dead or alive: 54% alive, 46% dead (though 75 authors in my catalog are unknowns--the majority of these are alive, I just don't know dates--so the skew would be even more toward the alive side)
Date: average 1996
Tags: the tags I use most are fiction (587) (vs nonfiction at 214), British literature (130) -- and if I tagged novels vs short stories, I know I would have many more of the former

My average book should be in English, set in London, written by a living male, published in 1996, prob. a British novel.

None of my books meet all these criteria. Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans comes close--living male British author, novel, set partly in London--if only it wasn't published in 2000.

Language: Almost all English
Places: Is there an easy way to figure this out? I'm looking at the CK: Places page but no easy way to arrange it, so I have to look through it manually. Fortunately my library is small. At a glance it looks like London.
Gender: 80.22% Male, 19.78% Female.
Dead/Alive: 84% Alive (And most of the unknown are alive...just don't know birth dates...)
Date average: 2002 (What can I say, I'm a contemporary guy)
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Magic (My tags could really use some work though)

My average book would be written in english by a living male author in 2002, it would be a fantasy novel set in London,

Darwinia is close, but it was printed 4 years early (1998)

My average book should be fiction in English by a male author, probably dead, set in England and published in 1980.

Using these criteria I come up with exactly one: My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl.

My average book is The Coal Train by Penelope Farmer. It is an English book by a female author, set in London, published in 1977, and tagged "fiction" and "children's".

Language: English
Places: England or New York, New York
Gender: 53.41% male, 46.59% female
Dead/Alive: 30% dead, 70% alive
Date average: 2000
Tags: fiction, YA, historic--- I have 2.33 tags per book.

So my average book is in English, set in England, by a living male author, published in 2000, and is fiction.

I think The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon is the closest thing I could find in my library. It is published in 2004, however it fits in all other categories.

Language: English
Places: 35 London, 23 New Year
149 male, 41 Female
92 Dead, 62 alive
Date 1991
Tags: Mysteries

My average book would be a mystery from 1991 That takes place in London, written by a man now dead. The closes I have is Comeback By Dick Francies, but he's not dead.

Language: 1,198 books in English, 40 books in French
Places: 49 in London, 29 in New York, 20 in Paris, and 13 in Chicago
Male/Female: 50/50! (305 of each)
Percent alive: 67.88 (Dead: 159, Alive: 336, Unknown: 162, Not a person: 16)
Average year: 1997
Top four tags: fiction (869), read (589), unread (417), children's (411)

Funny enough, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone pretty much fits the bill! It's in English (I actually own it in French, too), set in London, and written by female author who's still alive. My copy says it was published in 1999, which is pretty close. I have it tagged as fiction, read, and children's. "Series" and "fantasy" are my 5th and 6th most frequent tags, and HP is tagged with both of them as well!

Who knew Harry was so average? :P

I can't get any to match on tags. Leaving those out, my average book would be in English. It would be set in Discworld, probably Ankh-Morpork, or else in England, probably London. It would be by a live author who is (just barely) male, and published in 1994.

I think my average book is Soul Music (another vote!) or Interesting Times, though if I went with tags that would change it.

(just barely) male

Hmmmmm

Language:English
Place: London
Male or female: 67% female/31 male
Dead or alive: 60% alive
Average date: 1998
Most common tag: fantasy

Not set in London, but otherwise fitting all the averages: Fortress in the Eye of Time by C J Cherryh.

Edited for hitting submit too early.

Language: English 603, Japanese 8 (I really need to work on that)
Place: London 43, Ankh-Morpork 31
Male or female: male 221, female 157, other/Contested/Unknown 1, N/A 4, Not set 28
Dead or alive: Dead 130, Alive 200, Unknown 77, Not a Person 4
Average date: 1999
Most common tags: tbr - 216, 1001 Books - 108

So my average book would be in English (and also would be originally in English, not translated), it would be set in London and written by an alive male author in 1999. It will also be in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list and I won't have read it yet.

The closest I could find was Amsterdam by Ian McEwan which was published in December 1998 (so close!), set partially in London and it's tagged 1001 Books, but I have read it.

It's great to see your enthousiasm!

One question remains ofcourse:

What would be the avergage book on LT?

Maybe Tim Spalding could calculate that one...

interesting

language : English
places : London (runner up Discworld/Ankh Morpock)
Male or female 70.33 / 29.67
dead or alive 44.33 / 55.67
date 1991
tags fiction fantasy series

using those stats my average book is

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Language: English 2208, French 7, Icelandic 1, Latin 1 - I think English just wins ;)
Place: London 170 - next highest is England with 62 and nowhere else gets past 50
Dead/alive: Dead 303, alive 387, unknown 478 - a glance through the unknowns suggests about 3/4 of them are living, so alive definitely wins
Male/female: male 594, female 415, N/A 17, not set 157
Date published: 1998
Tags: Fiction 1368

So a work of fiction published in 1998 by a living male author, written in English and set in London.

I don't think there are any in my library that fit those criteria. At least, none where all the information is there for me to check. Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty kind of fits, because there are bits in some series that are London-ish.

Perfect Strangers is written by a woman, but everything else fits. An Instance of the Fingerpost comes close - I have a 1998 paperback - but it's Oxford rather than London. I have several which were 1998 reprints of books by dead authors: a 1998 edition of The Canterbury Tales (well, Southwark is in London now), and the edition of Random Harvest in my wishlist is a 1998 reprint.

My average book is about fishing; it was written in 1984; it's set in Ankh-Morpork on the Discworld; it features Lord Peter Wimsey; and LibraryThing can't figure out if the author is dead or alive! I give in, I'm baffled. I'd absolutely love to read it, though.

Paul G.

My "average" book would be either a romance or a mystery set in London, written in English with my copy published in 1983. The author is male and alive.

Closest is Banker by Dick Francis (mine is 1983) tagged mystery.

Language: 1641 English, 5 German, 2 French, 1 each Arabic, Italian, Japanese, Spanish - English Wins
Place: London, England, UK - Los Angles, California, USA - New York, New York, USA - San Francisco, California, USA - with an honorable mention to Paris, France
Dead/Alive: Percent alive: 75.87%
Male/female: Percent male: 67.05% : Percent female: 32.95%
Date Published: 1995
Tags: cookbook (409), listsofbests (227), series (193), made into a movie (167), graphic novel (132)

My average book was published in 1995 in English and more than likely was written by a man who is still alive who decided to set it in a major city.

Taking cookbooks aside (although David Rosengarten's Dean & Deluca Cookbook which was published in 1996 does fit the bill rather nicely so far) - and pulling out books that were also graphic novels that were part of series that were made into movies...

I get Harvey Pekar's Our Cancer Year which is part of the American Splendor series, was published in 1994, became the basis for part of the movie and only falls a bit short for not taking place in one of the major cities. But, hey, maybe I can buy more books that take place in Cleveland and make this one fit really well...

How do you get these averages?

Most of those numbers and percentages appear in "Statistics/Memes" - one click away from your LT home page.

On your profile (or Home page) there is a link to Statistics/Memes. All the information is there, under the various tabs.

Language and Average date is under Library statistics. Place is under the Common Knowlege tab (I think?) Dead/Alive and gender are under Memes. Tags can be found on your homepage.

Then you just have to find a book in your library that fits all the information. The easiest way for me was to go to the Common Knowlege: Place section and use the Place as a starting point, since that drastically narrows down the results from the start.

I may have done it all the hard way though.

Okay, I got it now...lol

Language is English

Gender is 41.18% male/ 58.82% female

Dead 6/ Alive 53/ Unknown 10

Location England and California (great place for crimes..lol)

The Alienist by Caleb Carr

Language: English (by a landslide); Runners-up: French, German
Gender: Male 50.51%, Female 49.49%
Alive: 447, Dead 312
Location: New York; Runners-up: London, Ankh-Morpork
Average date: 1997

Neat idea, this post. I wish Librarything had a way of knowing when your book was actually published, though, and not when your edition came out. I'm sure all our average dates are skewed towards the very recent.

You're right. There is an original publication date field in CK, but I don't think that sorts.

#28

That's very true - my "average year" would be way before 1992 if original publication date was the deciding factor.

Language: All English
Places: 551 places-London 25 Pern 16 Los Angeles 15 New York 14 Trenton NJ 13
Male or female: Percent male: 34.08% : Percent female: 65.92%
Dead or alive: More alive than dead 89.23% But there are 90 unknown
Date: 2004 wow alot of newer books in my library that surprised me
Tags:Most used tag is Fantasy- 68 Young Adult- 66 Mystery -56

So my average book would be set in London Written by a woman who is alive published in 2004 Fantasy YA
My book would be Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia C. Wrede
Its funny how many of us our top location is London~Very popular place for a book setting.

Gah gotta try and figure this out now..

Language: English 446, French 8 methinks english won this round
Gender: Male 41% Female 59% although there are 60 authors with no gender set.
Alive: 94, Dead: 32, Unknown: 60, not a person: 7
Location: London by a mile followed by New York and England
Average date: 2004
Top tags: Fantasy 130, TBR 78, Teen 70

So erm from this my average book would be written in english in 2004 by a female author who's still alive. It'd be set in London and be a Fantasy book. Now does anything i own fit that?? Well A Great and Terrible Beauty is the closest match but it was published in 2006 ... ah well tis close enough for me!

Language of my books (all 143) is English.

Most of my books take place in England, mostly in London.

Percent male: 72.31%: Percent female: 27.69%.

More dead (71.87%) than alive (28.13%).

The average year is 1997.

Most frequently used tags are mystery (57), detective (52), and classic (38).

My average book is an English book, with a male author, that edition published in 1997, the author should be dead and the book should be located in England, preferably London. It should be a mystery book.

Unfortunately the only books that meet most of these criteria are by Agatha Christie, a female author. So, the closest book in my collection is The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, this edition published in 1998.

Language: English
Places: Country - The United Kingdom, City - London
Gender: Male = 47.4% Female = 52.6%
Alive or Dead: overwhelmingly 68.7% alive
Date: 2003 (this surprised me, but I realized the date is publishing date of the copy, for example both my copies of Emma and Alice In Wonderland were published in 2003.
Tags: Mystery and Historical

My average book would be written in English by an alive female author. The book would be written around 2003 and set in the United Kingdom. It should be a historical mystery. Couldn't quite match the year but, my average book would be And Only To Deceive by Tasha Alexander.

My average book is written in English and takes place in London, England. It was written by a man who is still alive and was published in 1999. It's tagged 1001.

The best example of my average would be The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon although it wasn't published until 2004.

Language: English, by a landslide.
Place: London 48, NYC 32
Gender: Male 59.88% (must correct that)
Alive or Dead: 68.48% alive
Date: 1995
Tags: Fiction, American Author, British Author, Historical Novel, Mystery, Philosophy

The closest I could find was published in 2001: A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss, which I have not yet read. I'd better get reading.

Language: most of my books are English: Out of 420 books, the original language is: 167 English, 50 French, and then 5 Spanish.
Places: of my books, 30 are set in England, with America (13) and France (12) close with second and third place.
Male or female: 40.23% of my authors are male and 59.77% female
Dead or alive: Predominantly alive (80.11%) with some dead (19.89%) - of course, I am currently showing 96 as "unknown"
Date: the average year is 1999
Tags: the tags I use most are Fiction (103), Read in 2009 (96), Read in 2008 (88), TBR (75)

So, statistically speaking, my average book would be a work of fiction originally published in English, situated in England, written by a female author, published in 1999 that is still alive.

Humm....I do not have a perfect fit to my statistics but I do have two close fits:
1) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks - the only error being that she is not alive; or
2) Outlander by Diana Gabaldon - the only error being that the edition I have was published in 1998, not 1999.

This was a lot of fun!

Now we should have a Halloween Costume Party and everyone has to come dressed like their Average Book!

Alive, male author, set in London (close fight with Ankh-Morpock), written and published in english, published in 1995,

Tags: Use, fantasy, ~, green dragon, @2007

Very surprised that my non-fiction sort tag ~ is the same frequency as fantasy books. 'Use', indicates I use the book for recommendations, and 'green dragon' that I think the GD members might enjoy it.

Which makes my average book either Northern Lights: or Science of the discworld II: the globe

What an idiotically fascinating query!

Looking at my lists, I think London has been grossly over-tagged (it hardly features, for example, in C. S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet). It comes out way in front, though I am pleased to say that my academic credibility is retained, as Rome came in just ahead of Ankh-Morpork! My average book is a children's fantasy written in English by a dead male author, set in London, or at least England, and published in around 1975. This is tricky, as much of our children's fantasy is by women, but I think I can narrow it down (roughly) to The Ghost Downstairs by Leon Garfield.

Yes, idiotically fascinating. How did we waste our time before the internet? Really this is an interesting example of how poor simple means (averages) are at summarizing complex data.

I agree with you, bookworm, about London being over-tagged in CK. Some of my books coming up under London had very little action set there and were primarily set elsewhere.

My average book is a work of fiction in English, set in London, written by a living male author, and published in 1988.

I have about a dozen books that mostly fit, but none that exactly fit. I can use more tags (fiction is my 1st most common and already considered) but I have to disregard my 2nd most common since that's nonfiction. 3rd tag is animals which narrows the field. The Curious Incidence of the Dog in the Nighttime matches everything except date of publication since it's 2003.

#37 And that they're both set in Scotland. Definitely NOT the same place as England!

Here are my averages:

It would be written in English by a living, male author. Published in 1998 and set about 2/3 in the UK (most likely England) and 1/3 in the USA. It also stands a pretty good chance of being tagged '1001 Books'. That makes it The Hours by Michael Cunningham. Actually, the mix of contemporary and historical fiction in that book makes it even more appropriate.

It seems my average book is fiction, was published in 1994 by a living male author writing in English which I have awarded 3 stars.

#42 Booksloth - ironically enough, the two books in my post are still the closest matches in my library! I guess my reading isn't "statistically average" which suits me just fine... :-)

#45 I know what you mean. Actually, to be statistically average, mine would have had to be also set about 20% in India, 15% in Greece, 10% in Africa and about 15% of it would be during the Holocaust (and that one's a statistic that really suprised me). Who wants to be average?

It doesn't make much sense, but I do feel a strong urge to try it out...
I have: Published 1981, 89% English, 80% male, 53% dead, 45% fiction, top places (ignoring London and New York): Paris, Oxford, Edinburgh, Berlin and (surprisingly) Yorkshire - someone's been industriously filling in CK data for the Dalziel and Pascoe stories.

So there is a case for my 1981 edition of the University of Oxford Examination Decrees and Regulations - I'm sure that the authors were at least 53% dead at the time it was compiled, but I suspect that there's probably enough Latin to push the English content below 89%. And it's far too thick to be the average book in my library.

Otherwise, Graham Greene's Ways of escape from 1980 probably fits the requirement of 55% non-fiction...

Language: English
Place: London
Male/Female: Male (628 m v, 188 f (rest are unknown...)
Dead/Alive: Alive
Date Published: 1988
Tags: science fiction (370), fantasy (205), Juv (166)

So, my average book would be written by a living male author in 1988 and be a Science fiction/fantasy that takes place in London.

Unfortunately, none of the 1988 books take place in London.

Language: 4,797 English, 1 Italian.
Places: London, England (63 books).
Male or Female: 80.4% male, 19.6% female.
Dead or Alive: 63.48% alive.
Date: 1988
Tage: Science Fiction (2,293), Fantasy (1,644), and Locus Nominee (1,129).

So, my average book would be a science fiction story set in London, written in 1988 in English, by a living male author. The closest I can come is Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson. It's a year off (1989), but everything else is correct.

Emeril's Creole Christmas by Emeril Lagasse

English, tagged "drcb" or dining room cook book

Male, most of the cook books are by women or institutions, but males dominate the rest.

Date 1997

Language: English
Places: USA California 31, Iowa 27, New York 24 and England 22
Male or female: 521 males or 50.63% and 508 females or 49.37%
Dead or alive: 162 dead and 491 alive 75.19% living
Date: the average year is 1993
Tags: the tags I use most Fiction 1041, non-fiction 594, unread 477, own 384 and true crime 193 are my top tags.

The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers.

In English, living male author, published in 1992, fiction.

Not set in NYC (as far as I know), but I couldn't find anything for that category that didn't require dropping two other matches.

Language: English
Place: United States
Male/Female: Male 72.4%
Dead/Alive: Alive 55.25%
Date Published: 1983
Tags: travel

So, my most average book is The Book of America: Inside the Fifty States Today by Neal R. Peirce published in 1983.