It’s possible that I might finish another book tomorrow, but as we now have house guests here through the 2nd, it’s probably for the best if I consider the reading year done. I even surpassed 2016’s reading total, making this my most prolific year ever:

The breakdown:

Fiction: 49.3%

Nonfiction: 40.7%

Poetry: 10%

(Very similar to last year.)

Male author: 38.4%

Female author: 61.6%

(Roughly the same thing happened last year, which I find interesting because I have never consciously set out to read more books by women.)

E-books: 25.2%

Print books: 74.8%

(This really surprised me. Last year I was at one-third e-books / two-thirds print books, but this year the print books have dominated even more. I think this might be because I’m more likely to read lots of books on Kindle when traveling and we’ve done less travel overall; I’ve also scaled back on some of the reviewing gigs that only send me e-books.)

Works in translation: 8%

(I thought I’d done better than last year, but I actually read a bit less in translation. Sigh.)

Where my books came from for the whole year:

• Free print or e-copy from publisher: 28%
• Downloaded from NetGalley or Edelweiss: 22.2%
• Secondhand purchase: 18.5%
• Public library: 16.7%
• Free from giveaways (or Book Thing of Baltimore): 6.5%
• Gifts: 6.2%
• University library: 1.9%

Some interesting additional statistics courtesy of Goodreads:

2018 Goals

Looking back at the reading goals I set for 2017, I’m pleased to see that I did indeed get involved with blog tours and prize shadow panels: I participated in eight blog tours and two shadow panels (the Wellcome Book Prize and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award – highlights of my bookish year; I’ll probably do the Wellcome again next year). I was pretty consistent about featuring at least one classic and a doorstopper per month. I doubt I’ll keep those challenges up on a monthly basis in 2018, but I might do them occasionally.

Specifically, in the next year I’d like to focus on:

• Travel classics

• Biographies, some of which will happen to top out at 500 pages or more.

• Literature in translation (I’d like to increase the past year’s percentage.)
• The books I own – I went around and counted 327 unread books in the house, which is more than a year’s reading. (This is opposed to 221 at this time last year; I blame a trip to Hay-on-Wye, multiple visits to Book Cycle in Exeter, free books acquired from the swap shop, and a 3-for-95 pence deal one of our local charity shops used to have.) In addition, I have nearly 350 books on my Kindle: again, over a year’s reading. To keep chipping away at the books I already own, I need to scale back on purchases and on requests from publishers (print or e-) and try to make the books from my own shelves account for at least a quarter – better, a third – of my reading in 2018.
• Unrelated to books … I got a vintage accordion for Christmas and need to learn a) how to read music and b) how to play an accordion. It should be a fun project!

I’ll be back at some point next week – once I’ve had time to wade through all the upcoming 2018 releases I’ve heard about via Goodreads, NetGalley, Edelweiss, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Twitter, Instagram, other bloggers, etc. – to preview the 25–30 coming out in the first half of the year that I’m most excited about.

Happy New Year, everyone! Thanks for your support of my blog through another year.

How did 2017 turn out for you reading-wise? What are some of your goals for 2018?