Scoring books

I’ve been keeping track of the books I’ve read since 2010, and I score each one. I don’t use Goodreads or any other app, I just make a note in a Googledoc that I have set up just for that use.

I score each book as follows:

1. I disliked this so much that I didn’t finish it.
2. A real chore to read. Possibly I struggled with the style, and I may have skimmed sections just to get through it.
3. An okay book. Nothing special, but I was happy to read it. Most books end up scoring 3.
4. A good book. I enjoyed it, and would read others by the same author. But just lacked that something special to elevate it to a 5.
5. I really enjoyed this book and didn’t want it to end.

So in 2019 I read 70 books, which is an average year for me. This includes quite a few audiobooks (I have an Audible account) which boosts the number by a dozen or so. (That number excludes all the books I score 1 - I didn’t finish those, so don’t count them.)

Better than out of 10

Of those 70 books, I scored 13 (18%) of them a 5. That’s a satisfyingly high number - life’s too short to read crappy books.

I prefer to score out of 5 than out of 10 as, if I was scoring out of 10, I suspect I wouldn’t only rarely score a book 10. (Mrs H is in a book club, and they score books out of 10 and almost nobody gives a book maximum marks.) So if I’m asked to rate a book/movie/game/whatever out of 10, I use my 1-5 scale and then just double it.