This year has been a roller coaster for us all, between the immense amount of celebrity deaths this year, that monstrosity of an election, and the specter of things yet to come.
I exceeded every single one of my reading goals this year. You can read that post here. I lowered my reading goal this year to 75 books, and I blew through it, for a nice change. I wanted to post at least twice a week, and in almost every week this year, I posted at least twice. Usually I posted more. I’ve got graphics for every post I’ve made this year.
I’m really proud of how the blog has grown since the beginning of the year, going to a self-hosted blog that makes me a few cents every day. I’ve gained quite a few followers and made a ton of new friends.
I’m also proud of what I’ve changed in my life personally. This year was a big year for me and my family – My mother finished all of her cancer treatment finally, and got a new job. I moved to a new state, started a great new job, moved in with my boyfriend, and adopted a dog, all of which have been great for me.
It’s been a whole lot of adjustment for all of us, but I’m looking forward to the challenges 2017 will bring. I’ll get back to what you guys are actually here for – the books! You can see the full list of what I read in a Google spreadsheet here, or through Goodreads’ “Year In Books” here!
I read 150 books this year, by 116 different authors. 24 of those books were re-reads, which is actually pretty low for me. I read more than 50,000 pages, y’all. Holy smokes!
BOOKS
Most of them were great – 30 were five star reads (6 of those were re-reads), 73 were four star reads. I only refused to finish 5 novels, which is pretty good for me. There were a few I wish I’d quit, but alas, I spent the time on them.
AUTHORS
I read 150 books, by 116 different authors this year. Here’s a chart of the nationalities of these authors, based on what I could find on their websites & bios!
A racial breakdown was hard to make look nice, due to a wide variety of self-identifiers, but even with my efforts to read more diversely, 70% of the authors I read were white. You can see it better in the spreadsheet, linked here.
The gender breakdown was also very uneven, but I’m less upset about that because the authors were overwhelmingly female – 81%. I’m not really gonna work on changing that.
OVERALL
Overall, I read a lot, but there are still a lot of gaps in my reading. I want to read more indigenous authors, specifically, and more authors of color overall. I want to read more #ownvoices books, specifically, and more non-fiction by these populations.
I want to read more queer authors & characters, because that is something I’ve missed in my reading this year. My rating average was 3.79 stars, which I’m pleased with because it means that most of the books were pretty good. I’m really looking forward to a better reading year next year, to build on this one!
What are some of your goals for next year? What did you miss this year? Talk to me about it in the comments!
Three cheers for a great year! You weren’t kidding about blowing through that goal of 75 books 🙂 It sounds like you have some great plans for 2017 and an awesome year ahead.
That’s what I’m hoping for – for all of us!
I’m so glad that this year has been good to you! Hope 2017 is even better 😀
I love your graphics for this post – I think I might adopt your spreadsheet, it is such a good idea!
It was super helpful for me! 🙂 I hope you find it useful too!
Yay, stats, and yay, great reading years! I hope 2017 brings even more wonderful books your way.
Whoah, well done! I hope you have an even better 2017. I also want to read more own voices books. That’s definitely one of my reading goals for the new year.
I had never thought of recording what I have read this way but now I wish I had. I know which books/how many I have read using a certain app but I think it would be interesting to be able to see when I have a dip and what genres/nationalities and gender I find myself leaning towards. I have a whole bookshelf of ‘to read’ not just one shelf but an entire bookcase…. I hope you don’t mind if I start recording in a similar way. I think it would help me find new things to read and widen my choices. Great post
You are absolutely welcome to use my spreadsheet and customize it to your heart’s content! I’ve loved what I’ve been able to do with this! You can click the link and make a copy of my 2016 spreadsheet, or you can use my 2017 spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QOrIvfaaHdi0dHWRyy0wG5a6_cdsC5MK1emP3GapqEw/edit?usp=sharing) which I’m working on using equations to make work on its own!
I’m not going to stop tracking race and nationality of my authors, but if it helps you any, I used to struggle to read less than 70% white authors, and these past two years I’ve read about 55% white authors and 45% nonwhite with barely any effort at all (and about the same percentages of American vs. non-American), and at this point I’m not fussed about demographic percentages. It gets easier as you go along, as you’re probably already finding!
Yep! I think I started taking notice of how white my shelves were in May when I packed all of my books to move. I mostly just want to know what voices I’m not hearing in my reading, and being part of Twitter is really helping with that! I’m trying to even out my reading spectrum.