I am an avid reader. I began tracking my reading on Goodreads in 2007 and my tracking data has grown more detailed over time. Goodreads supplies basic data such as publication date, book length, and average rating, but it also allows me to save my personal reviews and data as well. In addition to rating books and categorizing them by the year read, I have also started "shelving" them according to genre and a few special categories of my own — certain topics I noticed showing up over and over in the books I most enjoy, such as serial killers, time travel, war, artists, and post-apocalyptic dystopias. Also, I just really love books that make me cry.
The question I posed is, what would a visualization of the books I have read look like? How could I capture all my data in an attractive but understandable way?
Inspiration
I was immediately drawn to this radial type of data visualization. I believe they are beautiful on their own even before you realize the story the data is telling. This format allows so much information to be expressed by layering data as you move out from the center.
Concept
Knowing I wanted to use a radial format, I selected the data I wanted to include: book title and author, my personal rating, the year I read the book, the genre, the length of the book in pages, and those special personal categories I track.
Process
The process began with all the data. I meticulously combed through my Goodreads account to ensure my books were accurately tracked and categorized. I was then able to download my Goodreads data as an Excel sheet and begin playing with it. First I had to remove all the books marked as "To Read" and "Did Not Finish." I also removed books that I had read aloud to my daughter. I didn't want Tinkerbell skewing my data. Ensuring that books that were "rereads" showed up correctly in multiple years had to be done by hand. Because 2009 was a slow year for reading for me (I had just had a baby), I decided to use the data from 2010–2020 for my visualization. You can view the full data sheet here.
I experimented with RawGraphs and Tableau trying to find a program that would allow me to plot my data in a circle. Tableau could do it, but it involved Trigonometry. Luckily Professor Miller suggested I try plotting the data in p5js, which ended up being much easier to understand than Trig.
Once I was able to plot my data in a circle and found an understandable way to express my book ratings, I was ready to start adding my "special" categories. I narrowed it down to ten categories: part of a series, reread, young adult, dystopia, tearjerker, time travel, war, artists, serial killers, and mental illness. I eliminated a few of my original categories because they contained too few books. I used Processing to add the category icons onto the graphs and tweaked the positioning by hand. (Overall reads: 252 books in a series, 35 rereads, 82 young adult fiction, 41 dystopias, 65 tearjerkers, 24 books with time travel, 18 books with war, 20 books with artists, 19 books with serial killers, and 13 books with mental illness)
Final Design
For the final design, I tweaked the color scheme to a more muted palette to help with readability of the book titles and I eliminated the author names to keep the text inside the bars. I decided to publish my full data sheet so that the audience could find the author's name or discover any other data about the books read. Adding the "how to read" graphic in the corner was the final touch.
It was exciting to see how my reading has changed over the years. For example, I can't remember what happened in 2015 that kept me from reading. I was also intrigued by how my tastes have changed over the years. Mysteries are always a favorite, but in 2020 I escaped into more horror, science fiction, and fantasy than usual. Perhaps this was because of the pandemic. (Overall reads: 108 contemporary fiction, 15 historical fiction, 39 historical fiction, 45 science fiction, 102 fantasy, 39 horror, 181 mysteries, 9 true crime, and 53 non-fiction) I also noted that I am quite generous with my ratings. I almost always give three, four, or five stars. Very few books are bad enough to earn only one or two stars.
Code
Bibliography
“Examples.” examples | p5.js. Accessed February 1, 2021. https://p5js.org/examples/.
“Kim Rader (kimrader111) - Monroeville, PA (2,688 Books).” Goodreads. Goodreads. Accessed February 1, 2021. https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/696275-kim-rader.
McCarthy, Lauren, Casey Reas, and Ben Fry. Getting Started with p5.Js: Making Interactive Graphics in JavaScript and Processing. San Francisco, CA, CA: Maker Media, 2016.
“`MILLER Emerging Media Ideas in 2021: Data Visualization, Visualisation, Data.” Pinterest, March 24, 2021. https://www.pinterest.com/paintedstitched/miller-emerging-media/.
Circos: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/template/circos/$url_root/docs/docs/circos.xml
R-Graph: https://www.r-graph-gallery.com/297-circular-barplot-with-groups.html
Bokeh: https://docs.bokeh.org/en/latest/docs/gallery/burtin.html
AM Charts: https://www.amcharts.com/docs/v4/chart-types/radar-chart/
JChartFX: http://support.softwarefx.com/jChartFX/article/2501514#!2501514
Tableau: https://greatified.com/2018/11/06/how-to-build-a-multi-layered-radial-chart-in-tableau-software/
Tableau: https://www.datablick.com/blog/2018/6/4/small-multiple-flows-in-tableau
Tableau: https://www.flerlagetwins.com/2017/11/beyond-me-part-2-trigonometry_1.html
Tableau: https://www.flerlagetwins.com/2019/02/whos-afraid-of-big-bad-radial-bar-chart_21.html
Tableau: https://youtu.be/d6-aptKLvgg