Not including DNFs!
Just like the rest of the year, everything about my stats is skew-whiff. I’m obviously happy that my average rating was so high and I had a very small number of low rated books. What I’m pretty baffled by, however, is how I read fewer books in genres I love- especially fantasy, which was down from my usual 1/3 to just a 1/4! I do think this was a blip (especially considering most of my favourites from 2020 were fantasy books). I also think that this could be a good thing– since varying the genres so much meant that I never got genre fatigue (and I guess I just stuck to high quality fantasy instead of just ploughing through a bunch I wasn’t really enjoying). Predictably I read fewer challenging books, including classics, however on the flipside, I read SO MANY non fiction this year (some of which was True Crime which I don’t normally go for). For some reason, when life was stranger than fiction, I ended up with a craving for real life (and I guess this makes more sense of my reduced number of fantasy reads: basically everything seems to be fantasy right now, so it makes no difference what genre I read!)
In terms of other stats, I’m sadly listening to fewer audiobooks (I really need to get on looking for a bigger list to dive into, because what I have listened to, I’ve really enjoyed!). However, most exciting of all, this year I decided to start checking out my library stats. Inspired by Pages Unbound post with their stats back in 2019, I decided to keep track of how many books I’d read were borrowed from a library. Last year it made up 43% and, remarkably, this year it was even more at 57%! On that note, because I know a lot of people aren’t aware of this, but libraries are still a-go in the middle of this pandemic! I know that across London, where I’m at, you can order books to collect and make use of ebooks (through Libby/Overdrive and Borrowbox). And the same goes for a lot of the UK and the US- definitely worth checking online to see what your library can offer you!
Okay PSA over- now let’s check out the rest of my stats:
There was a lot packed into this! I never would’ve guessed it was so short!!
This was really the longest?! It didn’t feel it! It went by so fast! I suppose that’s the mark of a good book!
Sorry Booker Prize stans, not a fan of this.
Going to mention my favourite new author this year, because both her books- Ten Thousand doors of January and Once and Future Witches– cast a spell on me!
This is the year I finally learnt the meaning of “LIFE’S TOO SHORT!” I DNF’d a grand total of *11 books*!! That’s a new record for me- by quite a distance!
7- very happy with this! Especially since they were all a delight to reread!
The Hobbit- bit of a problem when I do rereads- cos I’m sure this has come up before.
Well I’m not happy about this being least popular, cos I enjoyed it! By the fabulous Fran Laniado- a lovely retelling of Beauty and the Beast- it’s well worth checking out!
Yeah this was underwhelming for me- but I don’t think it deserves the lowest rating!
Even if I’ve read fewer audiobooks, I did listened to some incredible ones. Holly Chase was *so much fun* to listen to and gave me wonderful Christmassy feelings 😀 I also really liked the Aurora Burning audiobook- it’s made me definitely want to continue the series that way! I also listened to the whole Diviners series on audiobook and that was a creepilicious delight!
And a new category…
Inheritance- I never would’ve discovered this if not for the library! I saw it being requested a few times and thought the story behind it was intriguing… so glad I picked it up! And highly recommend if you want to read a genealogical detective story!
And that’s a wrap! So how was your reading year? Have your ratings been good? Did you discover any brilliant books? Let me know in the comments!
the orang-utan librarian 