On Reading Goals

 At the end of 2021, I downloaded a reading tracking app called The Storygraph* because:

1. I'm a sucker for a new app

2. I love reading, but I can never remember what I've read and what I thought about it.

Storygraph helps you to keep an eye on how many books you've read, and you can sort your reading list by genre, pace, number of pages, and mood. You can also give each book a star rating and a review (once you've finished it). You can also plot a graph of how many books and pages you've read each month as well. It's all very interesting to look back on. Especially if you're a big reading nerd, like I am!

So, what kind of stuff did I find out from the app, after a whole year of reading? 

Well, the app gives you the choice to set a reading goal at the beginning of each year, so I decided to aim for 50 books in 2021. By September, I'd reached my target, so I re-jigged by goal to 80 books in 2022. By the end of the year, I'd read a whopping 83 books, and 21,001 pages! So, I guess the first thing I learnt was that I read more books than I thought I would! Which is nice. 

I read an average of 6.8 books per month, which seems like a lot, but then I do read every night in the bath, and most weekends (when I can get away with it). I read a total of 11 books in February (because I was looking through a collection of YA fiction for a project at work) and April and October were my least busy book months (4 books read during each of those two months). It was interesting to see that those low periods of reading correllated with jobs, so it makes sense that I didn't have as much time to read as I would've liked. 

The second thing I learnt about myself is that I like short books. 61% of the books I read this year were under 300 pages long, and I only read one book over 500 pages this year. This might be down to the fact that I read poetry (which is often under 100 pages long) and that I'm going through a YA kick at the moment (YA Books are often on the shorter side). But it also makes me wonder whether I ought to dig into some longer books in 2023...

Variety is the spice of life, after all! 

But I love variety when it comes to genre, and I had a good mix of fiction and non-fiction on my reading lists: I read 62% fiction and 38% non-fiction, which feels about right to me. Weirdly, the Storygraph app doesn't class poetry as a separate genre, so it was really interesting to see which collections it classified as fiction, and which were labelled non-fiction. I wonder how they decide?  

This was the year I started seriously reading poetry, and I read 17 collections across 2022. I pretty much loved all sixteen, which means perhaps I'm reading too close to my comfort zone. Either that, or I'm a big huge poetry fan girl. I'll leave you to decide which of those is the correct answer.

My top ten genres across the year were Young Adult, Poetry, Historical/History, Fantasy, Mystery, Literary, Contemporary, Classics, LGBTQ+, and Feminism. That all aligns pretty closely to my reading interests, so that checks out. My least-read genres of the year were Horror, Autobiography, Religion, Politics, and Dystopian, which also makes a lot of sense. That being said, I reckon I should try and read a bit more widely in 2023, and stretch my reading muscles on genres that I wouldn't normally choose. After all, that's what libraries are for, right? 

Speaking of libraries, I discovered audiobooks from my local library this year, and it was a GAME-CHANGER! 96% of my reading was done with physical books - because I prefer a paperback over almost anything else in the world - but having an audiobook on long journeys, or when walking to work, was a very welcome addition to my reading ecosystem. Yum, yum, yum! 

The oldest book I read was from 1792 and I read a couple of books published in 2022, but my spread of publication dates was much wider than I expected. I've never been very good at jumping on the latest trends, and I guess that's the same for reading as it is for clothes and fashion. 

In terms of the kinds of authors I read in 2022, the gender split was fairly decent. I read 43 books by women authors, 39 books by men, and one book by a non-binary writer. If anything, I'd like to read a few more titles by non-binary and trans writers in 2023, and I've already got 'The Transgender Issue: an Argument for Justice' by Shon Faye, and 'On Connection' by Kae Tempest on my TBR for next year. 

I read five books in translation this year (translated from Welsh, South Korean, Swedish, Japanese and Spanish) and I'd love to read a few more in 2023 - prioritising books by authors who are new to me. 

I'd also like to prioritise reading work by writers from the global majority, as the majority of writers I read into 2022 (a whopping 82%) were white. 

Keeping track of what I've read like this has been very useful, as it's given me an idea of what I gravitate towards, so I can try new things in 2023! 

I won't do a wrap up of my favourite and least favourite books here. (I'll do that over here instead.) But what I will say is this: I only gave one book a 2 star rating, and it was truly the worst book I've ever read to completion. Yuk. 

Goals for 2023:

• Read at least 80 books (and 20,000 pages) across the whole year. 
• Read at least 30% non-white authors 
• Read at least 10 books by trans and/or non-binary authors 
• Read at least 20 poetry collections
• Read at least one book in each of my least-read genres

Come find me this time next year to see if I've accomplished my goals! 

Books from my very own shelves!

*This is not an advert for Storygraph, I've just really enjoyed keeping track of my reading this year. You could use any app (or indeed a little notebook, if you're feeling particularly anologue). Some other apps available for bookish types include Goodreads, Basmo, Bookly, and Book Breeze. Always do your own research, and don't do anything because some weirdo on the internet told you to!