Time for a top five list! Seems weird to be finally getting to this halfway through January, but I did want to wait until 2023 was fully over before declaring my favorite reads of the year.
My five favorites of all the (fiction) books I read in 2023 (listed in the order I read them).
I also want to give an honorary mention to one of the non-fiction books I read and loved. That was Good for a Girl by Lauren Fleshmen.
And, in case you (like me) are excited about Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherworlds coming out tomorrow, and you enjoy books with a connection to Celtic folklore and mythology, you don’t want to miss this book fair!
It’s the first day of the New Year. I’ve created a new Goodreads goal for the New Year. 52 books. Same as it is every year.
But before I dive into my first book of the year, I wanted to take a minute to recap what I read in December and do a little looking back on my year in reading.
what I read in December
Let’s start with what I read in December.
System Collapse by Martha Wells — I listened to this on audiobook, which didn’t work well for me. I think I would have enjoyed this more if I’d read it on Kindle.
Full Moon Over Freedcom by Angelina M. Lopez — This contemporary romance with a hint of supernatural was possibly even better than the first in the series. Excited to hear when/if there will be another one in this series, especially because I suspect the sister who is the chef is up next.
Manslaughter Park by Tirzah Price — This was even better than I hoped it would be. Solid mystery. Good romance. Great retelling.
A Holly Jolly Ever After by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone — I liked this one even more than the first book in this series and can’t stop recommending them to everyone I know who likes contemporary romance.
Paladin’s Hope by T. Kingfisher — I really like the world-building in this series. They solve the mystery pretty early in this one and most of the rest of the book is an exciting escape/survival sequence with a whole lot of fallout to work through after the bad guy is eliminated.
Paladin’s Faith by T. Kingfisher — This one was more like a quest than a mystery novel, which I think is important to know going in. If you’re expecting a mystery, you’re going to be disappointed. But I read this series because I love the characters and the world-building, so I really liked this a lot.
Now, how about some 2023 reading stats?
I read a total of 70 books in 2023!
32% of them were books I’d consider to be a romance (the primary plot arc was romance with a happily ever after or happy for now ending). That’s down a little from 38% last year and 34% the year before that, but it’s still pretty similar year over year.
26% of what I read was non-fiction vs. 74% fiction. This is a decent increase (~10%) in non-fiction for me. That said, all but one of the non-fiction books I read were either self-help, business, writing craft, or memoir. The one general non-fiction book I read was about Italian witchcraft, which could also probably be categorized as memoir. (I point this out because reading more general non-fiction is going to show up as one of my 2024 reading goals.)
88% of what I read was categorized as adult fiction vs. 12% young adult (and no middle grade). This unsurprising and pretty similar to the past few years.
Probably the thing that changed the most year over year was the format of the books I read. This year, only 61% of the books I read were ebooks. 15% were in print and 24% on audiobook. Last year, 92% of what I read were ebooks! That was really high, but the average over the past few years has been around 85%, so this year is still a big shift away from ebooks for me.
Overall genre breakdown was pretty similar to the last few years.
Sci-Fi/Fantasy – 47%
Self-Help/Business – 18%
General/Contemporary Fiction – 11%
Historical 8%
Mystery – 7%
Memoir/Biography 7%
However, the genre breakdown is a little misleading because there were a couple of books that I categorized as historical fiction, but their main plot was a mystery. Similarly, all but one of the eight contemporary novels I read were contemporary romance. I don’t really read contemporary unless it’s romance, just like I don’t really read historical unless it’s a mystery or a romance.
Also, I lump fantasy and science fiction together, but really, most of what I read is fantasy (29 fantasy vs. 5 science fiction). And only about a third of those were romances (11 of those 34 books). I’m beginning to think that it’s a bit odd that most of the romance I read is contemporary or historical, and yet, I write fantasy and sci-fi romance. Most of the SFF romances I read in 2023 (7 of the 11) were either Fairyloot hardcovers or small town witch books (contemporary fantasy).
Page count is another of the many other things I track in my reading spreadsheet. I don’t normally pay much attention to it, but I’ve been thinking about how it doesn’t feel like I’ve been reading a lot of long books (over 500 pages). So I wanted to check my numbers. As it turns out, I read more this year (6) than I have in previous years (3-4). Not that 6 is very many. Especially when there are so many tomes I want to read but keep putting off because of their intimidating size.
That’s probably enough hinting at my 2024 reading goals, and definitely enough of a 2023 recap. If there’s a specific reading stat that I didn’t mention, but that you’re curious about, let me know. I probably am keeping track of it and can respond in the comments.
Now, onward to 2024! Reading goals and January TBR coming soon…
In my last post I said I was getting rid of my reading journal, and I am. But that’s only because I’m moving the reading journal stuff to a new home. See, I’ve nearly filled up the notebook. It’s getting super chonky, and I don’t think there are enough pages left to last me through 2023.
So, I had to decide. New notebook? Or something different?
I opted for something different, because I wasn’t really using that journal for more than a fun monthly art project. I haven’t been writing deep thoughts about the books I’m reading like I’d planned to do. While having a dedicated notebook just so I can do monthly reading spreads is a totally valid choice, I also wanted to consolidate the number of journals I’m using at any given point in time.
My solution? Do the same thing I’ve been doing, but do it in the blank pages at the end of the Passion Planner I bought to use as my 2023 writing and publishing planner.
Now I have two journals instead of three.
I’m still using a bullet journal (A5 Dotted Leuchtturm 1917) to do all the usual bullet journaling things (Ryder Carroll style). But, I realized in 2021 that trying to use “collections” to track my writing and publishing projects just wasn’t working. So I spun all that off into a dedicated project planner at the start of last year. Unfortunately, the notebook I picked (monthly overviews with a bunch of blank pages at the end) was a little too unstructured. After much consideration, I decided I need both monthly and weekly spreads for the full year in order to stay on top of my project plans.
Result: the return of the Passion Planner for 2023.
I say “return” because in 2021 I tried abandoning bullet journaling and moving entirely to a Passion Planner. It didn’t work because I need my daily logs, and the Passion Planner weekly doesn’t have a good place to do that. But I don’t need daily logs for my project planning and tracking. I just needed a place to do future planning and a way to break bigger goals into smaller tasks and assign them to specific weeks. And I’m using the days in the weekly layout to track how I’m using my time.
So far, this combo of notebooks is working really well for me. And, since I know I’m going to have it for the full year, I decided it’s also a great place to plan and track my reading.
I made a bookcase where I can draw in and color code the books I read this year.
And I made a cover page with a key for the bookshelf color code. Opposite my cover page is the page I made to track the one goal I have for my reading this year. Can you guess what that goal is?
If you guessed “read or DNF/donate my backlog of Fairy Loot special edition hardcovers,” then you are correct!
As I mentioned in my 2022 wrap-up post, I did a terrible job reading physical books last year, even though I didn’t really travel anywhere, and I don’t have a commute. I seriously have no excuse. Well…except that I hate reading hardcovers in bed. Mostly because I don’t have (or want) a bedside reading lamp.
Since I don’t expect this year to be any different, I’m making some changes. My plan is to add one of these books to my TBR each month. I know there are only nine on that page, but I have ten, total. These are just the nine oldest, so they are the ones that I MUST get through this year. But I don’t necessarily have to finish all of them. DNFing is an option. If I read at least 25% of the book and am not sucked in, I will count that book as “done” and DNF/donate.
If I don’t complete (or DNF/donate) at least one of these each month, then I am going to suspend my subscription for a month. If I miss two months in a row, I’m going to cancel my subscription. I REALLY don’t want to do that because, even though it makes no sense whatsoever, I love special edition hardcovers. And the books that Fairy Loot picks are usually really good ones. So, I think the threat of cancelation is going to be enough to make this plan work.
It may also help that I just purchased a clip-on, rechargeable LED book light that I can use to read in bed. It’s not here yet (ordered online), but I’m hoping that helps as well.
So, is that really my only goal for this year?
Well…. Sort-of?
I have a stack of writing craft books I want to read for a project I’m working on. Plus I still want to read more books about social justice issues so I can expand my knowledge and awareness (target = 4 total). I’ve already identified several and added them to my TBR, but I’m on the lookout for a few more options in very specific areas.
I also want to continue to read books by diverse authors and with diverse main characters and from diverse publishing paths. I have some targets in mind that I’d like to hit, but I’ve been doing pretty well on that stuff organically. So I’m not going to focus on stats for those until mid-year. If I check in July, and I don’t like the look of my stats, then I may have to focus on that a bit more.
But the current priority is determining if there’s a place for special edition hardcovers in my life or not. So that’s my primary reading goal for 2023. Read in print. Specifically, the books I’ve already purchased.
I’m curious, do you also have a backlog of hardcovers from subscription boxes that you haven’t read but want to? Do you track how much you read in print vs. e-reader vs. audiobook? Does it matter to you? Are you trying to change any reading habits this year? Let me know in the comments.
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