A Year of Reading

It's been another great year of reading for me, and it's one that isn't over yet, so I'm hesitant to say that this post is an official wrap-up, but it'll have to do.

So far, I've finished 121 books this year (and that includes two books that were read twice) -- not my highest total of recent years, but I think I read a lot more good books this year, so it was a matter of quality over quantity. Here is a general overview of my distribution:

I know it's nearly impossible to see the titles, but you can see that all but five books were rated three stars or higher. For me, three stars is a good book, four stars is a book I loved, and five is something I would read more than once and encourage others to read.

Bearing in mind that there might still be another addition (I'm rereading The Sentence, which was a five-star read for me the first time), here are the books that earned the top rating from me this year, in the order in which I finished them:

• Still Life by Sarah Winman
• Taste by Stanley Tucci
• Know My Name by Chanel Miller
• Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro
• The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich
• These Precious Days: Essays by Ann Patchett
• Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
• Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
• Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley
• Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Appropriately, both the first and last books I finished (or will have finished) this year were read in Florida while on vacation!

Here are some other interesting statistics:

• The longest book I read this year (The Books of Jacob) was 992 pages and the shortest (The Bookstore Sisters) was just 36.
• The overwhelming majority of what I read this year (78 books) was borrowed from the library.
• It was very much the year of the audiobook for me. I read a record 47 books with my ears this year.
• I read all the books on the 2022 short lists of three literary prizes: the Aspen Words Literary Prize, the Women's Prize for Fiction, and the Booker Prize (I actually read 10 of the long list nominees for the Booker in the end).
• I read a total of more than 38,000 pages this year, according to Goodreads.

For 2023, my goal is to continue to read widely and deeply. I have some general goals, but I'm also planning to be flexible because I know how easily I can get distracted by talk of a good book.

• Read more Erdrich. The Erdrich-along is continuing with two additional books beyond those we'd originally planned to cover, but I'd like to eventually read all her adult fiction. I have hard copies of most of her books and plan to acquire the rest.
• Read some big Russian books. Katie and I talked a few months ago about doing a very casual buddy read of three big Russian classics: War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and Doctor Zhivago. I've purchased Kindle copies of all three (to save my eyes and my wrists from a big, heavy paper copy!) and plan to work my way through them slowly.
• Read books already on my shelves. Though most of the books I read come from the library, I've also acquired quite a few through purchases and picking them up from the Free Little Libraries in my neighborhood, so I have a number of physical books I want to read sitting on my shelves. I'd like to try to get through more of them next year.

All in all, I think it's been an excellent year of reading, and I really have few complaints. How was 2022 for you as a reader? Do you have any big plans for reading in 2023? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

 

We are scheduled to fly home Sunday morning (keeping all my fingers crossed that Southwest resolves its issues by then!), so this is likely my last post of 2022(!). I will probably do a wrap-up post on my year of crafting on Monday, but until then, I want to say thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing this past year. I wish you all a calm end to this year and a happy, healthy 2023.