2023 reading round-up
Dec. 31st, 2023 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbee2021 reading round-up
2022 reading round-up
So first of all, after two consecutive years of reading exactly 95 books, this year I cracked 100. Yes, one of them was a four-issue Star Trek comic that took me all of 20 minutes to read. That's not the point.
This year I imported my Google spreadsheet into Notion, a planner/productivity app I mainly use for keeping to-do lists. This was a mistake, mainly because Notion's spreadsheeting functionality is not amazing. For 2024 I've gone fully old-school with a paper reading journal, which is probably going to be very annoying come the end of the year when I'm doing this round-up...
Anyway. The stats.
Total books logged: 100
DNFs: 3 (all abandoned at more than 60%, so I didn't take them out of my list)
By target audience (age)
Adult - 78
Young Adult - 17
Middle Grade - 7
And my favourite category, by genre and audience
Contemporary (adult): 3
Contemporary (YA): 2
Contemporary (middle grade): 4
All the middle grade contemps were graphic novels -- America has really exciting stuff happening in that space, especially from diverse authors. I hope Australia is following suit, and I would pay money to attend some sort of "how to write a graphic novel script" course.
Both YA contemps were from Latina authors -- that Queens Public Library membership paid off.
Fantasy: (adult): 5
Fantasy (YA): 7
Fantasy (middle grade): 2
I read 12 different fantasy authors this year, and ten are friends, friends-of-friends or people with whom I am loosely acquainted.
Historical fiction (that isn't historical mystery)
Adult: 3
YA: 3
MG: 0
I'm gonna be honest. I like my historicals best when there's a crime happening.
Historical mystery
Adult: 18
YA: 1
MG: 0
The standout genre of the year, mainly thanks to my Barbara Hambly reread, but also my attempt at Steven Saylor, and also I read an early Andrew Taylor.
I'm gonna be honest: I watched Interview with the Vampire and hated it quite a lot, but it really made me want to start another Hambly re-read. So far I am resisting the urge.
Contemporary mystery
Adult: 4
YA: 1
MG: 0
The standout was the sole YA entry, The Black Queen by Jumata Emil.
I don't dislike contemporary crime fiction, but my overall feeling is that historical mysteries tell us something about a society, and a contemporary story can do that, but it's a lot harder.
I also read two contemporary thrillers (which I see as a genre which overlaps with mystery but has different narrative priorities). They were both enjoyable but not life-changing. Which is, in fairness, a lot to ask of a novel.
Science fiction
Adult: 9
YA: 0
MG: 0
Not a big year for SF, and most of it was a Murderbot reread. (I love those books, but man, it was a bold and interesting choice by Tor to release them without editing. Please don't tell me there was an editor involved, that would be very upsetting to hear.)
Non-fiction: 24
Okay, maybe this was the year of non-fiction. Mostly but not entirely histories, a couple of biographies. Largely American. I'm going to make an effort to read more Australian non-fiction in 2024, but I am braced for disappointment.
Author stats
Australian authors: 24% (down from 26% last year, but not a massive swing)
Authors of colour: 29% (a steady improvement from last year's 24%, but we can still do better)
Women: 62% (slightly down from last year, but I read more works by Men of Colour than in previous years so I'm not mad about it)
Non-binary authors: 2% (doubling last year's total...)
The really nerdy stats
Rereads: 18
Library loans: 50
Ebooks: 75
Library books are well up on last year, which is great -- I justified the US$50 it cost to join the Queens Public Library by saying I'd buy fewer book, and I guess it worked out!
TV stats
In my last round-up, I said I was going to create a similar spreadsheet for TV tracking. I did that, but only recently realised I should have tracked number of episodes watched, so I could go, "Oh yes, I've watched X number of TV shows this year."
Suffice to say I've watched 46 complete seasons of TV this year, including eight full-length seasons of 20 episodes or more. Most were in English; one each were in French and German. Most were American, a significant proportion were British, and only three were Australian. Shout out to my one Canadian series. I DNFd a handful, but the only one that stands out was Deadloch, which wasn't bad, but I sometimes deal with Northern Territory police brutality matters at work, so a comedy about a hilariously incompetent NT cop wasn't ever going to work for me.
2022 reading round-up
So first of all, after two consecutive years of reading exactly 95 books, this year I cracked 100. Yes, one of them was a four-issue Star Trek comic that took me all of 20 minutes to read. That's not the point.
This year I imported my Google spreadsheet into Notion, a planner/productivity app I mainly use for keeping to-do lists. This was a mistake, mainly because Notion's spreadsheeting functionality is not amazing. For 2024 I've gone fully old-school with a paper reading journal, which is probably going to be very annoying come the end of the year when I'm doing this round-up...
Anyway. The stats.
Total books logged: 100
DNFs: 3 (all abandoned at more than 60%, so I didn't take them out of my list)
By target audience (age)
Adult - 78
Young Adult - 17
Middle Grade - 7
And my favourite category, by genre and audience
Contemporary (adult): 3
Contemporary (YA): 2
Contemporary (middle grade): 4
All the middle grade contemps were graphic novels -- America has really exciting stuff happening in that space, especially from diverse authors. I hope Australia is following suit, and I would pay money to attend some sort of "how to write a graphic novel script" course.
Both YA contemps were from Latina authors -- that Queens Public Library membership paid off.
Fantasy: (adult): 5
Fantasy (YA): 7
Fantasy (middle grade): 2
I read 12 different fantasy authors this year, and ten are friends, friends-of-friends or people with whom I am loosely acquainted.
Historical fiction (that isn't historical mystery)
Adult: 3
YA: 3
MG: 0
I'm gonna be honest. I like my historicals best when there's a crime happening.
Historical mystery
Adult: 18
YA: 1
MG: 0
The standout genre of the year, mainly thanks to my Barbara Hambly reread, but also my attempt at Steven Saylor, and also I read an early Andrew Taylor.
I'm gonna be honest: I watched Interview with the Vampire and hated it quite a lot, but it really made me want to start another Hambly re-read. So far I am resisting the urge.
Contemporary mystery
Adult: 4
YA: 1
MG: 0
The standout was the sole YA entry, The Black Queen by Jumata Emil.
I don't dislike contemporary crime fiction, but my overall feeling is that historical mysteries tell us something about a society, and a contemporary story can do that, but it's a lot harder.
I also read two contemporary thrillers (which I see as a genre which overlaps with mystery but has different narrative priorities). They were both enjoyable but not life-changing. Which is, in fairness, a lot to ask of a novel.
Science fiction
Adult: 9
YA: 0
MG: 0
Not a big year for SF, and most of it was a Murderbot reread. (I love those books, but man, it was a bold and interesting choice by Tor to release them without editing. Please don't tell me there was an editor involved, that would be very upsetting to hear.)
Non-fiction: 24
Okay, maybe this was the year of non-fiction. Mostly but not entirely histories, a couple of biographies. Largely American. I'm going to make an effort to read more Australian non-fiction in 2024, but I am braced for disappointment.
Author stats
Australian authors: 24% (down from 26% last year, but not a massive swing)
Authors of colour: 29% (a steady improvement from last year's 24%, but we can still do better)
Women: 62% (slightly down from last year, but I read more works by Men of Colour than in previous years so I'm not mad about it)
Non-binary authors: 2% (doubling last year's total...)
The really nerdy stats
Rereads: 18
Library loans: 50
Ebooks: 75
Library books are well up on last year, which is great -- I justified the US$50 it cost to join the Queens Public Library by saying I'd buy fewer book, and I guess it worked out!
TV stats
In my last round-up, I said I was going to create a similar spreadsheet for TV tracking. I did that, but only recently realised I should have tracked number of episodes watched, so I could go, "Oh yes, I've watched X number of TV shows this year."
Suffice to say I've watched 46 complete seasons of TV this year, including eight full-length seasons of 20 episodes or more. Most were in English; one each were in French and German. Most were American, a significant proportion were British, and only three were Australian. Shout out to my one Canadian series. I DNFd a handful, but the only one that stands out was Deadloch, which wasn't bad, but I sometimes deal with Northern Territory police brutality matters at work, so a comedy about a hilariously incompetent NT cop wasn't ever going to work for me.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-01 01:44 am (UTC)What was the one Canadian series you watched, if I can ask? I'm trying to watch more CanCon in the new year.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-07 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-07 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-06 02:59 pm (UTC)I had not considered the option of joining an OS library to get access to books that aren't in my local library. That is so very tempting, given that some of the ones I want to read are more expensive because I have to get them shipped from the US -- I'd cover my costs in roughly two books.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-07 05:15 am (UTC)