Well, we made it. Got through 2023, and here’s a fresh new year.
Reading-wise, 2023 was pretty good. I read 82 books in total, including a couple on December 31st. I’d originally set my goal at 52 on the basis that a book a week is pretty good for me, then promptly smashed through it sometime in mid-August.
January, as you can see, was a cracking month for reading. Helped somewhat by having already started a book on 31st December, then by the way the holidays fell and ultimately by catching Covid and being confined to the sofa, not able to go anywhere or do anything.
January: 13 books
February: 3
March: 4
April: 5
May: 9
June: 5
July: 9
August: 8
September: 7
October: 7
November: 6
December: 6
Breaking down the numbers, 58% of the books I read were crime, with only 25% sci-fi or fantasy. Definite shift from previous years! I suspect the crime book numbers were influenced by going to the Theakson Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate in 2023. I’m very much looking forward to going again in 2024 and not being the newbie this time!
My favourite books of the year, part 1 and part 2
I also only read six non-fiction books this year. I’m not sure how many I usually read, but fairly sure it’s more than that. Three cracking books made my favourite books of 2023: non-fiction edition list.
Also, considering that I call myself a book blogger, I’ve only written 27 blog posts this year, and not all of those were reviews. Ooops.
So for 2024 I’ve set my goal at 52 books again.
But I also have a couple of aims.
Read some big chonky books that I’ve picked up over the years. You know, the big 500+ page monsters. I’ve been putting those off as they take a while to read, so slow down the OMG MUST HIT MY TARGET.
Take my time with a crime book and see if I can figure out whodunnit. I almost want to break it down chapter by chapter – who have we met? What do we know about them? What clues do we know? Maybe turn this into a series of (spoiler-filled) posts. Pick a classic crime novel and play detective!
Have a go at @runalongwomble‘s 2024 Booktempter’s TBR Challenge. I love the idea of having different aims for a month and Womble has come up with some great ones here!
Read more non-fiction. I’ve got a bit of a backlog of books building up, so it’d be good to get through some more of them.
Review more books! Really, as a bookblogger this should be taken as read (there’s a pun in there somewhere), but I’m going to try and be better at keeping notes and writing up reviews as I go.
On that note, I also want to catch up with my NetGalley backlog. I have 47 books on my NetGalley shelf, but somewhat embarrassingly I’ve read half but either not written up a review yet or not posted one up. Ooops. No more NetGalley books until I’ve caught up!
Right, that’s more than enough I think.
Do you have any bookish aims for 2024? I’d love to hear about them!
I set out to read 23 Books and notched up 25, Dave - my 'reviews' (if that's what they are) tend to be short. The best book I read was the last - Prophet Song, a mighty winner of the Booker Prize. Chilling dystopia that made me a. want to write and b. never write again ... it was that good.
This year, hell why not, 24 Books for 2024 ... but including a slow read of Wolf Hall (though I am already daunted by the intelligence of the comments about the first two chapters! I liked the way the words rolled out. That's my comment. Ha, perhaps I should resolve to read deeper! Happy reading