Penguin and Random House Merger

So Penguin and Random House are planning to merge, which I think is utterly insane. Why? Because my feeling is that they publish the bulk of the books in this country. There are two of what are called the "big six" (or is it five?) publishers. But in fact, they are the two biggest--or that would seem the case to me. I decided to take a look at my own bookshelf and see what percentage of the books are from these two companies. Here's how a random shelf of nonfiction books (since I work for a university press, I decided to include that as part of the percent too):

Here's how it looks for fiction:

Nearly half! Seriously, the best fiction generally is being published by these two companies; HMH and Harper both publish their share, but it's nowhere near to the amount that RH and Penguin do. I hope, but I doubt, that antitrust will keep this merger from going through.

The argument these companies will make--and it's not necessarily unjustified--is that they now, in the digital age, have to compete with media giants like Amazon and Apple, who will increasingly create their own content and/or dictate price schedules. Being bigger gives these two publishers more leverage, but what of the little guys? Will the heft of a bigger publisher translate to better/fairer deals for small presses too, or will it simply mean that one has to be big to play?

Books Ratings Each Year

It appears that some years I am a softee (e.g., 2011), and in other years I find nearly nothing absolutely stunning (this being one of those years). In all years, I end up at least liking or finding passably good most books I read, which makes sense, since I'm the one who selects them. Here are how many books received each star rating by each year (2012 isn't complete yet, though), with five being "loved," four being "liked," three being "okay," two being "didn't like," and one being "hated":

And here is how it looks as a percent:

Longest Books Read by Year

Using my handy-dandy GoodReads stats, I was able to find out the following. Each year's longest book read has fallen between 600 and 900 pages.

Distance Walked Each Week

According to Google maps, my current walk to work is 0.9 miles. My previous walk to work was 4.0 miles. I took the bus three days a week and walked home, meaning that I walked twelve miles per week. Now, I don't take the bus at all and walk all five days of the week both ways. The walk to the bus itself was a mile, so really that was five miles of walk each day I did so back at my previous office location. Never mind the explanations; here's the chart:

Looks like I'm walking significantly less per week than previously. Five to ten miles is still good for you according to something I read recently, but not as good as fifteen.

However, since I no longer walk as far, I've upped my other exercise, which usually consists of two miles of running or four miles of stationary biking four days a week (whereas previously I did this only one day per week). Add in these miles (assuming I split the biking and running evenly), and the mileage covered is actually a bit more now:

Of course, I walk at other times too, but I consider the walk to/from work as the most significant and steady.