Looking back at 2022 and forward to 2023

At the end of last year when I was looking forward to 2022’s reading and outlining my challenge for the year I asked myself four questions (see here for the blog)

• Will I get through the list of 60 books in my challenge in one year ?
• Will I manage to read more books than I buy in the year ?
• Will I enjoy what I choose ?
• Will I keep up with the blogging ?

I can answer these questions this way

• No, I didn’t get through 60 books but I thought that I did quite well. See my blog here for more details
• No I didn’t read more books than I bought. This was a serious fail since I had planned to get rid of my to-be-read pile or at least reduce it substantially. I blame the prevalence of charity shops !
• Yes, I did mostly enjoy what books I chose to read. See here for my list of the top novels for the year. I only failed to finish 23 books in the year which shows that I usually know what I will enjoy.
• Yes, I did keep up with the blogging and now have a gratifyingly large number of people who follow my blog and read my posts.

During 2022 I read 350 books. It’s more than last year but not the most I have read in a year. I thought that now I am retired that I might have more time to read but I think that I now read more complex and complicated books and I also spend more time than I like to quantify on social media and playing word games on my tablet.

Of the books I read :

• 63% were physical books which is about the same as last year with slightly more audiobooks and slightly fewer on my kindle – I have been trying to read more physical books so that the number of books I have in my to-be-read pile isn’t so painfully obvious.

• 66% were by women authors which is slightly lower than usual but still about the level I wish to maintain.

• 16% were non-fiction (mainly history and biography/memoir) which is higher than the 11% for 2021 but not yet at 25% which is where I have been aiming for some years

• 47% of all books I read were crime fiction with the next highest genres being romance and fantasy/science fiction. Crime includes thrillers, spy stories and suspense novels.

• The longest book I read was Go Tell The Bees That I am Gone by Diana Gabaldon which Amazon tells me has 1,376 pages. Runners up in this category include American Gods at 736, A Little Life at 752, Midnight’s Children at 672 and Fall and Rise at 624. It is no wonder that I didn’t read as many books as I thought I should have as these each count for 2 or more.

• The shortest book I read was Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

So, what awaits me in 2023 ? I still have that pesky pile of books to be read. I have the rest of my 60 Books from 60 Years challenge to finish. I want to increase the number the non-fiction books I read. I want to continue to enjoy my hobby and make the best use of my time.

Whether you’ve read one book this year or 500 I hope that you’ve enjoyed them all. Keep reading …..