2023 Reading Year in Review

I started doing a specific "Reading Year in Review" post in 2020. I figured that since I was doing an overall year in review post (which includes some book information anyway), and a blogging year in review post -- and since keeping track of my books is a big thing I normally do on my blog -- my reading life deserved its own year-end wrap-up post too.  :)  

(Note:  I have not linked to all the books mentioned here, but they are all reviewed on this blog.)  

• I increased my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal from 36 books in 2021 to 45 books in 2022, and kept that goal for 2023.  I reached it by Dec. 7th, and wound up with 48 books to my credit by year end -- 3 books more than my goal, or 107%. (I was secretly hoping to do better -- perhaps equal or exceed 2021's total of 59 books -- but, still not a bad showing!) All books read were reviewed on this blog and tagged "2023 books."  
• My Goodreads 2023 Year in Review report tells me I read 48 books with 16,980 pages (versus 50 books with 17,047 pages in 2022). 
• The shortest book I read was "Mothering Sunday" by Graham Swift (208 pages); the longest was "The Cruellest Month" by Louise Penny (849 pages). 
• Average book length was 353 pages. 
• The most popular book I read ( = shelved by Goodreads readers) was "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" by Taylor Jenkins Reid (5.1 million readers);  the least popular was "Living the Life Unexpected" by Jody Day (387 readers).   
• The highest-rated book I read was "In Memoriam" by Alice Winn (4.5 stars). 
• My average Goodreads rating in 2023 was 4.2 stars (same as last year).  
• In 2021, I also started tracking books on The StoryGraph (which Brooke told me about), which provides slightly different stats (and even more, with a paid subscription -- although I don't have one of those!). 
• The "moods" of my books were overwhelmingly "emotional" and "reflective," followed by "mysterious," "lighthearted" and "funny."   
• The majority of my books were medium-paced (60%). 23% were slow and 17% fast. 
• 56% of my 2023 books were 300-499 pages;  38% were less than 300 pages and just 6% were over 500 pages. 
• 79% of my 2023 books were fiction;  21% non-fiction. This is a big change from recent years! (I credit the many book clubs I take part in, which mostly focus on fiction.)
• My most-read genre in 2023 was historical, followed by mystery and literary.    
• StoryGraph also tracks the format of your books, but selects print as the default. I think this is the first year that most of my books read were recorded as digital -- 71%! (and just 29% print).  This is more accurate than previous years, but may still not be entirely correct:  some books do not have a "digital" option, in which case I choose print. 
• Most-read authors in 2023:  D.E. Stevenson (6 books), followed by L.M. Montgomery and Louise Penny (5 books each), and Richard Osman (2). 
• Average rating 4.11 stars. (Unlike Goodreads, The StoryGraph allows fractional star ratings.) 
• Once again this year, fiction choices outnumbered non-fiction (many of them re-reads, but still...!):  38 fiction, 10 non-fiction.
• Re-reads -- which I started counting as books read in 2020 -- accounted for a good chunk of my 2023 total. It's difficult to make a firm calculation as to just how many, because some were books that I read on my own and then immediately afterward as part of a group readalong/discussion, while others were books that I've read in the past.  
• My library book club held its last meeting in late February 2020 -- just before the pandemic hit -- and the "Clever Name" online book club hasn't operated since summer 2021.  But, online, the Gateway/Lighthouse Women/Childless Collective Nomo book club (I'm now one of the hosts!), D.E. Stevenson fan group, L.M. Montgomery Readathon on Facebook, Notes From Three Pines Readalong on Substack (which has gone silent in recent months), and Men Yell at Me book club hosted by Lyz Lenz on Substack, helped boost my 2023 reading totals and provided me with a lot of reading/discussion pleasure.   
• My book groups were responsible for 23 of the 48 books I read in 2023 -- almost half!  I read 9 books for GW/LW/CC (including Jody Day's "Living the Life Unexpected"), 6 for DES (3 different books, each counted twice as re-reads), 5 for the L.M. Montgomery Readathon (2 different books, including 1 -- "Anne of the Island" -- counted twice this year as a re-read, plus two -- "Anne of Avonlea" and "Anne of Windy Poplars"-- read on my own), 2 for Lyz Lenz's "Men Yell at Me" book club, and one -- Lois Lowry's "The Giver" -- for a Zoom book discussion led by Lori Lavender Luz and her podcast co-hosts. 
• I also read 5 of Louise Penny's Three Pines/Inspector Gamache mysteries (which would make 28 out of 48 books for book groups!), initially to keep up with a Substack readalong -- but there haven't been any new posts there since June. I've continued to read on my own anyway! 
• As noted above, I reached my Goodreads Reading Challenge Goal of 45 books by Dec. 7th, and ended the year with 48 books read -- but I didn't equal my 2021/best-recorded total of 59 books (when my goal was 36).  For 2024, I've decided to maintain my goal of 45 books ( = 3.75 books per month on average)(and hope to do better...!) -- which seems realistic for me right now. 
• I've read more than 45 books in four of the past five years (2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023), and almost 45 -- 43 -- in 2020 -- so that seems very do-able.  But I'm hoping I'll be able to improve on 2023's total, too!  
• While I'm grateful for my book groups and the boost they give to my reading totals, and while I intend to keep up with them in 2024, I'm hoping to be able to read more of my own choices this coming year too.  :)   

• It's always very hard for me to pick a single book as "the best." I read some really, really good books this year -- very few disappointments or "meh" choices -- and I gave lots/most of them four and five-star reviews on Goodreads. (4.2 stars was my average Goodreads rating this year.)  A few of my favourites, in no particular order (I haven't linked to them here, but they're all reviewed on Goodreads, StoryGraph and this blog): 
• "In Memoriam" by Alice Winn 
• "Tom Lake" by Ann Patchett 
• "Lessons in Chemistry" by Bonnie Garmus
• "The Last Devil to Die" by Richard Osman 
• "Surrender:  40 Songs, One Story" by Bono 
• "Spare" by Prince Harry 
• "Wintering" by Katherine May

Did you meet your reading goals for 2023 (if you set any)? What great books did you read this past year? 

(2023 Blogging Year in Review coming up. Still working on an overall Year in Review post, and finding it hard going... that may have to wait until the actual new year!)