It is probably a little crazy that I do this. Before I started blogging I kept a simple wire bound journal where I wrote down the titles of the books I read and the date I finished them. I gave no thought to how many I read or what genre or if the book was written by a woman or man or any special detail about it. But I do find it kind of interesting to tally things up and see what sort of year my reading turned out to be--if it was pretty much the same as last year or very different. Most of the time the years seem pretty similar. And then I vow to make next year different, and then a year later I do another tally and see I have once again fallen into the same reading pattern. But you never know--the next year might just be different, right. So a birds eye view of my reading year.
- Books read: 76 (ten fewer than last year and 24 fewer than the coveted 100 that I always sort of wish for)
- 18th century: 0
- 19th century: 2
- 20th century: 28
- 21st century: 47
- Books published in 2017: 13 (plus two that were reissued in 2017 but previously published)
- eBooks: Only one ebook exclusively in that format, but I did read a few other ebook versions at the gym of books I had physical copies of.
- Fiction: 31
- Nonfiction: 10 (more than I thought and the same number as last year)
- Nature: 0 (but I plan on changing that next year)
- Classics: 7 (better than last year but I hope to improve next year)
- Fairy Tales/Mythology: 0
- Mysteries/Crime/Suspense: 16
- Science fiction: 1
- Espionage: 0
- Juvnile/YA novels: 3
- Books written by women: 57
- Books written by men: 20 (a poor showing for male authors this year, sorry guys)
- Books written by more than one author: 1 (a collection of essays)
- American authors: 24
- British authors: 30
- Canadian authors: 0 (wow, really?)
- Australian/Irish authors: 8
- Authors from other countries: 12
- Subscription Books: 3
- Books in translation: 10 (a poor showing, I think, but I read books translated into English from Arabic, Czech, French, German, Italian and the language Kannada)
- Short story collections: 4 (also fewer than last)
- Novellas: 0 (none that I noted anyway)
- Graphic Novels: 5 (only half what I read last year)
- Diaries: 0 (I hope to read at last one next year since I have a prompt for the genre . . .)
- Plays: 0 (I had actually hoped to read a few but those plans just never panned out)
- Virago Modern Classics: 3
- Persephone Books: 0 (I swear I am going right this very minute to grab one from my shelf!)
- Books read that were checked out from the library: 12 (this surprises me--though I check out loads of library books, I tend to return them unread . . . maybe I am not such a hopeless library user?)
- ARCs/Review Copies: 1
- Books read from my own shelves: 63
- Rereads: 2
- Multiple books by the same author: 4 (Agatha Christie, Ira Levin, John Wyndham and the group of artists who produce the Paper Girls comics)
- Books by Nebraska authors: 0
So, there you have it. The reading year that was. To be honest my first reaction is a sigh of dissatisfaction, but I guess the year is what it is and I just followed my whims and this is how it all worked out. Still, I think I would like to make a few tweaks next year. We'll just see how it goes. And previous years.