Statistics On How Many Authors I've Read:

I have read a total of 35 recommended authors. I've actually read more books with only one recommendation than I have with any other number of recommendations -- these 9 authors are mostly "old favorites" that I've been reading for years, not authors I picked up because of a recommendation.

To look at my reading of recommended authors another way, the graph below shows the number of recommended authors I've tried as a percentage of the total number of authors with that number of recommendations. Here I've read 100% of the authors with 13 recommendation (1 out of 1) and 75% of the authors with 4 recommendations (3 out of 4). At the other end of the spectrum, I've yet to try the one author with 10 recommendations.

The next graph shows how many recommended authors I've tried from each list. I've tried the most authors (as a percentage of the total number of authors on the list) from source #19 -- 63%, or 5 out of 8 recommended authors. I've tried the least from source #4, 5 out of 42 or 14%. On average, I've tried 35% of the authors per list.

Finally, I thought I'd run the same graph, but only look at "non-unique" author recommendations, those recommended by at least two different lists, since that is my focus right now. Overall, I've tried 41% of the non-unique recommendations. By list, I've tried 100% of the non-unique recommendations from list #18 (the catch being that there was only one on that particular list), followed by 92% of the non-unique recommendations from list 8. There are no non-unique recommendations from list 11, so that column will remain blank; otherwise the lowest percentage of non-unique authors tried, so far, is from list 15 (25% tried).

Statistics on How Many Authors I Like:

Of the 35 authors I've tried, I like 19 (54%), dislike 9 (26%), have mixed feelings about 3 (9%) and I'm unsure about 4 (11%).  It's about the same if you just look at the "top recommendations", those recommended on at least 3 different lists, I've liked 55% of the authors I've tried. I had thought that I would be more likely to like an author the more recommendations he or she received, but I don't see that sort of pattern in my likes and dislikes so far. On the other hand, I've read relatively few authors on the lists; perhaps a pattern will show up once I've read the majority of the top recommendations.

The final graph shows how much I'm agreeing with each list's recommendations, showing how many of the authors I've liked, disliked, have mixed feelings about, and that I'm unsure about (among the authors I've tried). So far, I'm most in agreement with source #18, where I liked the one author I tried, and lists #8 and 19, where I liked 67% and 60% of the authors I tried, respectively. So far I agree the least with lists #11 and 15, in that I haven't liked any recommendation I've tried from these lists so far. However, this is not too relevant at this point since I've read so few authors off each list. I do expect that this will be interesting once I've tried the majority of the "top recommendations." Ideally, I will be able to use this graph when I move on to the authors with 1-2 recommendations -- it would seem that starting with the authors recommended on the lists I've most agreed with in the past would be a smart way to prioritize.

Created 2/17/2002, last modified 10/6/2006.