Reading people’s favourite books of the year, and their reading stats, is always my favourite period of the book blogging calendar. Here are mine – and here’s the link to the 2022 stats, which I’ll be comparing to quite a lot.
Number of books read
I read 180 books, which is actually 21 fewer than 2022 (though still a big number). I think the drop is because of the issues with my eyes I had earlier in the year, which have returned – albeit thankfully much more mildly – for the final four months of the year, since I had Covid. I’m still able to read but not quite as easily as I’d hope.
Number of audiobooks
Audiobooks don’t need 100%-working eyes, of course! And I managed to listen to 67 last year – meaning I read 113 print books. (In 2022 it was 64, so about the same.)
Male/female writers
I read 124 books by women and 56 by men – making my reading 69% female. In 2022 it was 71%, in 2021 it was 70%. I never set out with goals, but somehow it always ends up around there.
Fiction/non-fiction
I read 135 works of fiction and 45 works of non-fiction – meaning my non-fiction reading accounted for just over a quarter of the total. And yet produced my top three favourite books of the year! The big change in 2023 from the previous few years was that I read 30 non-fiction books by women and 15 by men – this has usually ended up being the category where men outpaced women.
Books in translation
A slight drop on 2022 (13) and 2021 (11) at ten books. They were translated from Polish x2, Japanese x2, Dutch, French, Italian, Hebrew, Russian and Marathi.
Re-reads
I re-read 14 books in 2023 – and that includes three Mary Lawson novels and five books by Alice Oseman. As usual, re-reading was mostly for podcast or book club. But I did re-read Miss Hargreaves (on audiobook) for the first time in years, and that was a delight.
New-to-me authors
This was a category I could tell was quite low throughout the year. It hasn’t been the easiest year, and I definitely wanted the dependability of authors I trusted (though, interestingly, not enough to re-read!) So 69 of my 180 books were by new-to-me authors. In the past it’s been nearer 50%.
Most disappointing book
It’s always the ones you think you’ll love, isn’t it? I was disappointed to find South Riding by Winifred Holtby so formless and tedious, after years of anticipating enjoying it. And while I didn’t dislike it so much, I wanted The Fire-Dwellers by Margaret Laurence to be much better than it was, after loving A Jest of God so much.
Animals in book titles
Mostly birds and cats this year. The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge, A Bird in the House by Margaret Laurence, Seven Cats I Have Loved by Anat Levit, If Cats Disappeared From the World by Genki Kawamura, The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Notsukawa, The ABC of Cats by Beverley Nichols, A Cat in the Window by Derek Tangye, Love Among the Chickens by P.G. Wodehouse, Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile, Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes, Crow Lake by Mary Lawson, Cuckoo in June by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford, Sheep’s Clothing by Celia Dale and, if it counts, The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish.
Names in book titles
Ever since doing Project Names, I’ve kept an eye on this. In the past couple of years it’s been 18 and 35. In 2023, it was 16. That’s an awful lot of books without names in the title, isn’t it?
Favourite title
I loved Divorce? Of Course by Mary Essex, which was also a fun, if entirely predictable, novel.
Most shocking title
Of course, Jeanette McCurdy’s title I’m Glad My Mom Died is meant to be shocking – and it is quite the attention-grabber. Especially since it’s non-fiction.
Title that fooled a friend
My friend Naomi was keen to read The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt when she saw me reading it, until she realised it was not actually about wool.
Books by people I know
Four in 2023! My friends Tom Carlisle and Noreen Masud – and both my parents! Five if you count Sarra Manning (which I do, really) as she is an online friend I’ve not actually met.
Persephones
I’m always keen to read more of my Persephone backlog. In 2023, I read… none. Oh dear!
Strange things that happened in books this year
A virgin gives birth, a portrait narrates a novel, a house conceals an evil void, a solider travels through time, coffee-drinkers travel through time, time speeds up while listening to records, a census-taker disappears, League of Nations members disappear, members of a family are steadily bumped off, a made-up octogenarian comes to life, cats guard a magical library, someone considering suicide is transported to a magical library, someone considering suicide messages all the contacts in their phone, a phone call tells you it’s your day to die, form-fillers predict the future, cats disappear from the world, and a man meets his ideal woman on a dream bus made of bamboo and rice paper.
Awesome!
I always love your list of strange things happening, but forget to keep track of that throughout the year.
Here are my 3 posts (you will see the 2 other links at the top of this one):
my favorite books, my stats, an fun with titles:
https://wordsandpeace.com/2024/01/01/year-of-reading-2023-part-1-my-top-26-books/
Happy New Year of reading!
Sorry to hear your eyes have been rather troublesome again; I can identify with how frustrating that is having experienced some problems focussing on print recently too.
It was very interesting to read the detailed analysis of your reading stats. I had resisted doing mine (!), but then decided to have a quick survey to see how they compare. They seem to be very similar in several respects:
I read 114 books in 2023 – 16 fewer than 2022. No audio books unless you count Miss Buncle’s book on Radio 4. I am very poor at listening to books without missing bits; I had to read the book afterwards for Miss Buncle!
Mine were heavily biased towards female writers – 88 vs 26, so around 77% female.
Non fiction was 28 books so around a quarter of the total.
I was surprised when I found I had actually read more books first published post 2000 that I had expected – 49, so around 43%.
Reading highlights for 2023 for me were reading Virginia Woolf for the first time and reading more books in translation (such as Natalia Ginzburg and Robert Seethaler) and also books published by indie publishers (such as the wonderful ‘Brian’ by Jeremy Cooper.
Once again, I am grateful to bloggers like you who give me so much inspiration and broaden my awareness of all the wonderful books there are to discover.
Hope your eyes settle down this year. Wishing you a very happy year of reading. I always look forward to your reviews.
Ah, I love some of the serendipity in your reading, as well as you keeping track of names and animals in books. A bit of fun, reminding us it doesn’t have to be all numbers and pages!
Forgot to add – how sad that South Riding didn’t live up to expectations. I still have to read that, and also have high expectations for it…
I too love everyone’s stats posts.
Sorry to hear the eye problem has returned Simon – hope the duration to recovery is shorter this time.
i enjoyed South Riding though not as much as I thought I would. It felt that Holby set up this potential clash between the new headmistress and the forces of authority, played with that a bit and then let it fizzle out.
Karen
Thanks Heenan, I appreciate that
P.S I forgot to say, as you may remember from my comments after the teaorbooks podcast, I didn’t like South Riding either, I found it tedious and just could not really engage with the characters. It felt as if it was too much about the message rather than the individuals in the story. I think Winifred Holtby is better as a non fiction writer. I really enjoyed her book about Virginia Woolf.
Yes, I do remember you being on my side for that, as few people were :D Like you, I enjoyed her Woolf book a lot more.
So many disappearances and deaths this year! Hope your 2024 books are a little more cheerful, if nothing else ;)
Haha! Yep, some people need to STAY PUT and ALIVE.
Excellent – I don’t think I’ve fooled a friend with any of the books I’ve read but you never know! Sorry about the eye problems, I’ve had terrible allergies since having Covid last, which is apparently A Thing. Hope your issues can be resolved.