2017 in the Books

A big challenge for me this year was deciding what to do with graphic novels. This year my daughter and I discovered manga in a big way; I read more manga and graphic novels this year than in my entire life previous. I am not one of those people who think they don’t “count.” I’ve learned so much as a writer about story structure and character development from manga like Kamisama Kiss and Nana. But a manga volume takes me about 1 hour to read, where the average novel takes more 10-12 hours. So reading the entire 25 volumes of Kamisama Kiss requires about the same amount of time as 2 books. It just feels like cheating to count it as 25. I finally decided I cared more about recording what I read than counting what I read. Ten years from now, I don’t want to say, “What was that one manga about the girl who becomes a goddess?” and not be able to find it. Going forward, I will be careful to shelve them on my “Graphic Novel” shelf, so I can figure out how many “proper books” I read for my reading challenge next year.