According to my booklist, I read 203 books last year, although somehow only 200 of them ended up as finished in my library, which means that somewhere along the way, I lost 3 entries. I’m not going to go through and search my data to track down what happened, though.
Some bookish statistics:
- I did very little rereading last year. 192 of my reads were new to me, with only 8 rereads. This is unusual for me, and will probably not hold for 2024.
- I read 129 different authors, and books from 73 different series. Slightly over 25% of my books read were standalones (56).
- The longest book I read was Troubled Blood, by J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith, at 944 pages; the shortest book I read was Penric’s Demon, a 103 page novella by Louise McMaster Bujold.
- My most read genre, as usual, was modern mystery (published after 1980), with 77 books fitting into that genre. Second most read genre was golden age mystery (published between 1920 and 1949), and I read 26 of those. All told, more than half of my books last year fit into the general mystery genre.
- 61% of the books I read were between 200 and 399 pages long, and 25% were between 400 and 600 pages.
- I read 68,356 pages.
- My average rating for the year was 3.72 stars.
Additional information:
I read books published in 14 different decades and 3 different centuries:
| Name | Books Read | Reviews Written | Average Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1840’s | 1 | 0 | 4.5 Stars |
| 1850’s | 1 | 0 | 4 Stars |
| 1870’s | 1 | 1 | 5 Stars |
| 1900’s | 1 | 0 | 5 Stars |
| 1930’s | 9 | 1 | 3.89 Stars |
| 1940’s | 22 | 7 | 3.77 Stars |
| 1950’s | 3 | 0 | 3.5 Stars |
| 1960’s | 7 | 3 | 3.57 Stars |
| 1970’s | 6 | 1 | 3.92 Stars |
| 1980’s | 8 | 2 | 3.63 Stars |
| 1990’s | 19 | 1 | 3.87 Stars |
| 2000’s | 17 | 4 | 3.82 Stars |
| 2010’s | 38 | 7 | 3.57 Stars |
| 2020’s | 62 | 13 | 3.62 Stars |
Most of the books I read were kindle editions – I am going to try for a more even split between print and kindle this year:
| Name | Books Read | Reviews Written | Average Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| audio | 11 | 1 | 4 Stars |
| kindle | 142 | 26 | 3.64 Stars |
| 49 | 15 | 3.88 Stars |
I started tracking author nationality as best I could this year – sometimes it can be hard to figure it out from the information on Goodreads:
| Name | Books Read | Reviews Written | Average Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| American | 84 | 18 | 3.72 Stars |
| Australian | 6 | 1 | 3.33 Stars |
| Bulgarian | 1 | 1 | 4 Stars |
| English | 82 | 17 | 3.68 Stars |
| French | 7 | 1 | 3.71 Stars |
| Greek | 1 | 0 | 4 Stars |
| Irish | 4 | 4 | 4.38 Stars |
| Scottish | 4 | 2 | 3.5 Stars |
| Swedish | 1 | 0 | 3.5 Stars |
| Welsh | 10 | 0 | 3.65 Stars |
I think that every one of the books written by a French author was a Maigret mystery. As you can see, I am heavily weighted towards the American/UK authors. Id like to broaden my horizons in 2024.
I was also hoping to read more translated fiction this year, and I utterly failed at this goal.
| Name | Books Read | Reviews Written | Average Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| French | 7 | 1 | 3.71 Stars |
| Greek | 1 | 0 | 4 Stars |
| Swedish | 1 | 0 | 3.5 Stars |
Again, all of those books translated from the French – the new Penguin Maigret translations.
The full genre breakdown for 2024:
| Name | Books Read | Reviews Written | Average Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| biography | 1 | 0 | 5 Stars |
| christmas | 4 | 1 | 3.38 Stars |
| classic | 4 | 1 | 4.63 Stars |
| crime | 3 | 0 | 3.67 Stars |
| espionage | 9 | 0 | 3.5 Stars |
| essays | 3 | 2 | 4 Stars |
| fantasy | 19 | 0 | 3.89 Stars |
| fiction | 14 | 7 | 4.07 Stars |
| gothic | 1 | 0 | 4 Stars |
| gothic romance | 1 | 0 | 3 Stars |
| historical fiction | 3 | 0 | 3.5 Stars |
| historical mystery | 4 | 1 | 3.5 Stars |
| horror | 1 | 0 | 4 Stars |
| magical realism | 1 | 0 | 4 Stars |
| memoir | 5 | 1 | 4.1 Stars |
| mystery | 4 | 0 | 4.25 Stars |
| mystery: golden age (1920-1949) | 26 | 8 | 3.81 Stars |
| mystery: modern (1980-present) | 77 | 12 | 3.54 Stars |
| mystery: silver age (1950-1979) | 5 | 1 | 3.5 Stars |
| noir | 2 | 0 | 4.25 Stars |
| non-fiction | 13 | 7 | 3.96 Stars |
| novella | 3 | 3 | 4 Stars |
| religion | 1 | 0 | 3.5 Stars |
| sci fi | 6 | 0 | 4 Stars |
| short stories | 1 | 1 | 2 Stars |
| supernatural | 1 | 0 | 4 Stars |
| suspense | 2 | 0 | 3.25 Stars |
| thriller | 1 | 0 | 2.5 Stars |
| translated fiction | 2 | 0 | 4 Stars |
| travel and geography | 3 | 2 | 3.67 Stars |
| urban fantasy | 1 | 0 | 3 Stars |
| YA | 9 | 0 | 3.83 Stars |
Some of books did get multiple genre categories, and I can see some inconsistencies in the numbers, but this is generally accurate.
Finally, in terms of sourcing my books, here is the breakdown.
| Name | Books Read | Reviews Written | Average Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| flourish and blotts library | 14 | 0 | 4 Stars |
| kindle unlimited library | 27 | 2 | 3.28 Stars |
| my library | 46 | 11 | 4.03 Stars |
| public library | 113 | 28 | 3.66 Stars |
I borrowed a lot of books this year, from both the public library and the kindle unlimited library, with those reads making up 70% of the total. The “flourish & blotts library” is a kindle account that I share with friends, and “my library” is both my personal kindle account and my physical library. I’m going to try to decrease the percentage of borrowed reads and work on reading my own shelves in 2024.
I am going to put together my top 10 post later this week, and then I’ll be revealing my plans for 2024.
What a lovely lot of books read! I lost two from my spreadsheet, did my stats then thought oh where are those two. Grr.
I didn’t want to go spelunking through my data to find where the books dropped off, so I decided to just go with what I had. No regrets.