Once again I did a very poor job of tracking my reading this year, so this is going to be rather pell mell, and no, it doesn't matter very much in the end. I do like to see where my reading has taken me over the course of the year, how and where it meandered. So, just a matter of curiosity really, but here's a little break down of this year's reading:
- Books read: 86 (Finally I have done better than the previous two or three years and I might still potentially finish a couple more yet!)
- 14th century: 1 (Boccaccio!--even if it was only an excerpt from a longer work)
- 18th century: 0
- 19th century: 1
- 20th century: 30
- 21st century: 54
- Books published in 2016: 10
- eBooks: I don't think I read any ebooks exclusively, but I did read ebook versions at the gym of books I had physical copies of.
- Fiction: 50 (More fiction this year than last?)
- Nonfiction: 10 (sort of looks impressive, but many of them were from the Penguin Underground series or other short works)
- Nature: 1 (once again a short work)
- Classics: 2 (really? That's it. How sad!)
- Fairy Tales/Mythology: 1 (actually a fable)
- Mysteries/Crime/Suspense: 13 (Fewer mysteries this year than last however)
- Science fiction: None unless you can count Alex + Ada and Saga comics
- Espionage: 1 (hmm)
- Juvnile/YA novels: 1 Juvenile (Moomin) book and not a single YA
- Books written by women: 53
- Books written by men: 32
- Books written by more than one author: 1
- American authors: 32
- British authors: 27
- Canadian authors: 6
- Australian/Irish authors: 5
- Subscription Books: 7 (I did, however, read 8 NYRBs)
- Books in translation: 14 (Translated from: Chinese, French, German, Italian, Russian and Swedish)
- Short story collections: 6
- Novellas: 3
- Graphic Novels: 10 (Twice as many this year as last)
- Diaries: 1
- Plays: 1
- Virago Modern Classics: 3 (More Viragos last year, but I plan on reading many more of my Viragos next year)
- Persephone Books: None--another sad year without a single Persphone it seems
- Books read that were checked out from the library: 7
- ARCs/Review Copies: 5 (But I have several more that I should have reviewed and have not done so yet)
- Books read from my own shelves: 74 (I wonder how many are older books rather than newer/recently bought books)
- Rereads: 4 (Only 4? It felt like more: Helen Humphreys, Judith Knoll Healey, Katharine MacMahon, M.M. Kaye)
- Multiple books by the same author: 9 (Antonia White, Brian Vaughan, Jane Smiley, Jean Giono, Jonathan Luna, Katharine MacMahon, Maurizio de Giovanni, Meags Fitzgerald and Tove Jansson).
- Books by Nebraska authors: 0
So, there you have it. The year in review. It's sort of curious how similar one reading year is to another. It would seem as though I am quite stuck in a pattern. Here are previous years. I'm ready for another fresh start! By the way, I keep an Excel spreadsheet with this information to make it easy to tally at the end. I did a poor job of keeping up, though. I don't recommend filling in the information the night before you plan on sharing the numbers . . .
Now I get to look back and decide which books are really standout reads. I will share very soon.