Wednesday, 15 January 2020
Features | A Year In Books - 2019
Since the beginning of 2018 I've kept a reading spreadsheet as a way to record my year in books so I thought it might be interesting to share a quick roundup from 2019.
According to my (possibly not very reliable) mathematics skills, I read a total of over 21,000 pages in 2019, including my longest read of the year American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. I also became an avid audiobook listener in 2019, with audiobooks totalling over 170 hours at normal speed (although I usually choose to listen at 1.25 or 1.5 speed!). Books I thought worked particularly well in audiobook format included Bridget Jones's Diary, Daisy Jones & the Six, The Rest Of The Story and They Both Die At The End.
Only 28% of the books I read were actually published in 2019, but since I didn't end up buying a single book all year it's more than I had expected! My most read genres were YA and Contemporary, and thanks to downloading Borrow Box my top formats were audiobooks and ebooks. Audiobook subscriptions can be expensive, especially if you get through a lot of books in a year, so I'd highly recommend this app if your local library uses it.
As well as sharing my overall top 5 reads of the year here on BB, I also mark my favourite book from each month on my spreadsheet, leading to the twelve titles listed above. Two of the titles (Harry Potter and Amy & Roger's Epic Detour) were re-reads, two were sequels to books I had previously enjoyed (Wilde About The Girl and Us Against You) and four were written by authors I had never read before.
My best reading month of the year ended up being November, with 14 books completed, although 4 of which I had started before November 1st. Choosing my top read from this month was pretty tricky as there were three 4 star titles (Naturally Tan, Genesis and The Toll) as well as a 4.5 star read (The Rest Of The Story), however I just loved They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera in audiobook format so much that I ended up rating it 5 stars.
One thing I would love to see change in 2020 is my average rating. Currently I'm not very good at DNFing (I just don't like to give up on books!) but I think this could really help increase the number from a 3.5, closer to a 4. I've actually decided to experiment with making another change when it comes to ratings in 2020... but more on that in another post!
