Because I can’t ever stay on top the trend or curve of things, here I am, arriving a beat late with a year-end review of my reading stats.
Oh well.
This wrap-up isn’t about how many books I read this year. Some like the challenge of reading a certain number, but I stress myself out enough with trying to write enough, that I shy away from setting a number for books read. Last year, however, I read a post by Rachel Manwill over at BookRiot.com that included a reading tracker that I liked to help me with seeing where I fell in my range of reading. Mostly, I wanted to know if I really was reading #ownvoices, but I downloaded Manwill’s tracker and modified to match what I most cared about. I included gender of author, #ownvoices, category (Adult/YA/Middle Grade), genre, and mode (print/audio).
Some of my basic stats are below. I realized that I had technically read more than the 78 books tracked, since I did not include re-reads, of which I had many more than usual this year.
Author Gender – I didn’t have any that were explicitly self-identifying as non-binary, so that stat is unknown.
Mode – Print vs Audio
Category: A=Adult, YA=Young Adult, MG=Middle Grade
Genre
It is no surprise to me that female authors outpaced male authors for my stats. For some this is part of the challenge they’ve undertaken, but that has never been an issue for me.
I like seeing that even though contemporary stories are still my mainstay, I continue to read several other genres. “Mystery” was almost entirely dominated by a single author – Louise Penny and her Chief Inspector Gamache series. Those books really helped get me through a challenging year. They also contributed to my new audio book numbers, which I never would have had before a year and a half ago. Having a new job with a commute gave me motivation to try audio books again. I’ve loved the alternative mode of reading.
I am most disappointed with my #ownvoices statistics:
20% is a really poor showing, especially from someone who claims to be an advocate. Obviously this doesn’t mean I’m not an advocate, but it really highlights how much further I have to go in putting my money where my mouth is. I discovered one problem is that any time I got a Kindle First email (Amazon Prime benefit of getting a free Kindle copy of a book each month), I consciously chose an #ownvoices author, but never got around to reading them. Goal for this month: start in on that list!
If you are interested, Rachel Manwill has an updated tracker you can find in her BookRiot post from last month. Or here is mine, modified, with a less pretty “results” tab. Haha.
Some of my top book picks for 2017:
A Great Reckoning (A) – Louise Penny
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (A) – Gail Honeyman
The Hate U Give (YA) – Angie Thomas
As Brave As You (MG) – Jason Reynolds
Here’s to another year of great books ahead! List your top 2017 reads in the comments!
I had a hard time coming up with a good song for this post. I decided on “Last Train Home” by the Pat Methany Group because A) it’s a good song and B) doesn’t it sound nice just to hop on a train and curl up with a good book or two as you watch the world go by?
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