Charts

On my last chart post, I asked if there were any suggestions for other data graphics and Shawn mentioned the idea of showing the transitions between genres.  In other words, do I typically read Fantasy or Sci-Fi after Juvenile Fiction?

In order to present this graphically, I thought a step line graph might work best.  You will notice that each “step” is a single instance of a book being read.  There are scenarios where two books of the same genre are read in a row, but the first Sci-Fi instance should give you an idea of the size of a single step.

I also ordered it such that genres were near those that are most similar.  Thus, more wildly different genres would be further apart, and would be represented by longer steps in the chart.

As you can see, there are not any obvious patterns that emerge, but that in and of itself is interesting.  It appears that I am pretty varied in my choice of genres and the order in which I read them.  There are some interesting things, though, such as the fact that I always read Fiction after Nonfiction, and seem to enjoy going from something weird (sci-fi or fantasy) to something normal (fiction/non fiction).

However, it should be clear that there are some flaws in presenting the data this way.  For example, this does not consider the degrees to which a book could deal with weird subject matter in fiction, or relatively normal subject matter in sci-fi or fantasy.  This is especially problematic with a genre like juvenile fiction which can, in terms of content, be pretty much any genre.

Fortunately, I have been attempting to quantify certain aspects of books to make comparisons easier and more objective.  The two categories that are most relevant to this discussion are realism (which measures to extent to which the book deviates from accepted scientific facts) and world (the extent to which the world is unlike the real world in which we live).  Both categories are out of 10, with 10 being the most unrealistic and the world must unlike our own.  Thus, by combining these two numbers we get what I am calling the geek quotient.  This allows us to consider more fully the differences between books, regardless of genre.  So, for example, both a nonfiction book, and a fiction book that is entirely realistic and set in our world, will register a geek quotient of 0.  This is reasonable since the transition between such books is relatively natural.

Again, there are no obvious patterns (unless you see some I don’t?) but this graph is far more accurate than the last one.  We see more zeroes, since both fiction and nonfiction can fill that role, and some more extreme transitions as we move from 0 to the high teens and back to 0.  It also is interesting to see how much time is spent in the middle and bottom of the geek quotient, despite my geeky tendencies.  In fact, if you take the time to observe this chart upside down (or note the “negative space” above the line) I pretty evenly split my time between geeky and non geeky reading.

So do you think the second or first chart is better?  Are there any patterns that I’m overlooking?  Any suggestions for improving the information these graphics reveal?