Here’s my year in books (with thanks to the Goodreads record keeping tool):
I read 91 books in total. According to Goodreads, that’s 26398 pages. The longest was John Boyne’s The Hearts Invisible Furies at 582 pages.
Of those I read, 61 were by female authors and 30 by male authors.
26 books were by Australian authors (23 female authors and 2 male authors) and the rest were from America, England, Canada, Belgium, Austria, Scotland, Zimbabwe, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Romania – the Around the World in 80 Books reading challenge had me reading widely.
I was quite the reading-tart this year, with 57 books from authors that were new to me in 2018.
Of the 91 books I read, only 10 were first published in 2018.
I read 26 non-fiction books (17 of which were memoirs). Quite a few made my ‘best of 2018’ list but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the reveal.
I read only 23 hardbacks (the rest were e-books). I listened to 11 audiobooks – I had a copy of most of the audiobooks I chose – I guess I can’t fully commit to the audio thing! The stand-out audio was Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen – I could listen to him read anything…
I read mostly contemporary literature plus memoirs, historical fiction, a thriller and a mystery, and a bit of vintage true crime.
Last year, Bookish Beck posted her winners of ‘Various Superlatives, Good and Bad’ – I’ve pinched some of her categories and added a couple –
The Book Everybody Else Loved but I Didn’t: Educated by Tara Westover
The Year’s Biggest Disappointment: Tangerine by Christine Mangan
The Worst Book I Read This Year: It’s a tie between Love and Happiness by Galt Niederhoffer and Sweet Caress by William Boyd.
The Downright Strangest Book I Read This Year: An Uncertain Grace by Krissy Kneen
My Best Discoveries of the Year: Kate Atkinson, you have my heart.
The Debut Author Whose Next Work I’m Most Looking Forward to: Bri Lee.
The Book I Choose Entirely Because of the Cover: Happy Family by Tracy Barone
The Funniest Book I Read This Year: Queen Lucia and Miss Mapp by E. F. Bensen
The Book That Made Me Cry the Most: Staying by Jessie Cole and one particular chapter in Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed.
Tomorrow I’ll post my Top Books for 2018. I know you can’t wait.
I’m glad you found these categories useful again 🙂 I have a similar post scheduled for tomorrow. I’ll look back and see if I can think of laugh/cry books to add in, though.
Wow! That’s a lot of books. I had a terrible
reading year, only 37 😩
The Book(s) That We Both Read: An Uncertain Grace, and a couple of others going by the covers – Terra Nullius and My Name is Lucy Barton. And now I see ‘The Dry’ – not my favourite!
Both Uncertain Grace and Terra have stayed with me (I still think Terra should have won the Stella!).
Lucy was a re-read for me. I’ll probably reread again sometime- there’s a lot in it for such a slim book.
That’s an amazing number of books considering how much you have on your plate!
And yet I’m in awe of the bloggers who read 150-250 books!
“See What I Had Done” was mesmerizing, and I also really enjoyed Lucy Barton! Interesting that you didn’t care for “Educated” because I’ve seen it hyped all over the place but it just doesn’t interest me.
I was in the vast minority on Educated – some of my trusted reading buddies loved it. I thought it was an extremely violent book and not what I had anticipated.
I was interested in Educated until heard the author being interviewed on RN. It put me right off…
Even though I didn’t like it, I would be interested to hear the author speak – I have an image in my mind – wonder how far off it is?!
So pleased you’ve become a Kate Atkinson fan, and next year there’s another one to look forward to. My copy of Educated ended up at the charity shop unread thanks to the seemingly endless hype surrounding it. All too much!
I will try not to binge on Atkinson, instead string out the joy!
Wishing you an equally wonderful reading year ahead in 2019!
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I hear you on Tangerine! So many people raved about it and I thought it OK at best.
You covered a lot of ground with your reading, which is great!