A Look Back at My 2021 Reading: Statistics and Superlatives

I hope everyone passed a lovely holiday week. We had house guests for a few days over New Year’s, so I haven’t had a chance to work up my statistics until now. Marcie sent me a spreadsheet template to keep track of my reading, and my tech whiz husband helped analyze the data. I look forward to catching up on everyone else’s best-of and stats posts, too.

 

How I did with my 2021 goals

My simple reading goals for 2021 were to read more biographies, classics, doorstoppers and travel books – genres that tend to sit on my shelves unread. I read one biography in graphic novel form (Orwell by Pierre Christin), but otherwise didn’t manage any. I only read three doorstoppers the whole year, but 29 classics – defining them is always a nebulous matter, but I’m going with books from before 1980 – a number I’m happy with.

Surprisingly, I did the best with travel books, perhaps because I’ve started thinking about travel writing more broadly and not just as a white man going to the other side of the world and seeing exotic things, since I don’t often enjoy such narratives. Granted, I did read a few like that, and they were exceptional (The Glitter in the Green by Jon Dunn, The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński and Kings of the Yukon by Adam Weymouth), but if I include essays, memoirs and poetry with significant place-based and migration themes, I was at 26.

 

The numbers

Exactly the same total as last year (2019 had my maximum-ever of 343). From those three years’ evidence, I’d say I’ve found my natural limit. Next year I will aim for 340 again.

(This is what my lifestyle allows; yours is likely very different. I have bookish friends who read 80 books a year, 120, 150, 180, 200, and so on. My very busy university lecturer/town councillor husband felt bad for ‘only’ reading 65 books this past year, but keep in mind that the average person reads just 12 per year. My message to you, no matter your numbers, is YOU READ LOADS!)

 

Fiction: 49.7% (6.5% graphic novels; 5.3% short stories)

Nonfiction: 35%

Poetry: 15.3%

(Fiction and nonfiction are usually just about equal for me; I’m surprised that fiction pulled well ahead this year. I also read a bit more poetry this year than last.)

 

Female author: 66.47%

Male author: 30%

Nonbinary author: 0.88% (Meg-John Barker, Alice Hattrick and Olivia Laing)

Multiple genders (in anthologies): 2.65%

(I’ve been reading more and more by women each year, but this is the first time that female + nonbinary authors have outnumbered men by more than 2:1. I mostly attribute this to my interest in women’s stories. There were also three trans authors on my list.)

 

BIPOC author: 18.5%

(The first time I have specifically tracked this figure. Not too bad, but I’d prefer 25% or higher.)

 

Work in translation: 5%

(A decline from last year’s 7.2%. Must try harder!)

 

E-books: 13.2%

Print books: 86.8%

(Slightly higher than last year because of my new reviewing gig for Shelf Awareness, for which I read almost exclusively e-books.)

 

2021 releases: 41.8% (add in the 2020 releases and it’s 54.4%)

Pre-release books: 20%

 

Rereads: 12 (3.5%)

 

Where my books came from for the whole year:

• Free print or e-copy from publisher: 31.8%
• Public library: 24.7%
• Secondhand purchase: 16.8%
• Free (The Book Thing of Baltimore, the free mall bookshop, a giveaway, Little Free Libraries, etc.): 9.4%
• Downloaded from NetGalley or Edelweiss: 5.9%
• New purchase (sometimes at a bargain price): 5.6%
• University library: 3.8%
• Gifts: 2%

(Decreased from last year: review copies, NetGalley/Edelweiss, gifts; increased from last year: library borrowing, new and secondhand purchases, free books.)

 

Additional statistics courtesy of Goodreads:

73,520 pages read

Average book length: 216 pages (thank you, novellas and poetry!)

Average rating for 2021: 3.7

 

Extra Superlatives

First book completed:

 

 

 

 

Last book completed (also the shortest, at 46 pages)

 

 

 

 

Longest book, at 628 pages:

 

 

 

 

 

Authors I read the most by: Anne Tyler (5), thanks to Liz’s readalong project; Jim Davis and Alice Oseman cartoons (4 volumes each); Jim Crumley nature books and Emily Rapp Black memoirs (3 each)

Publishers I read the most from: Carcanet (18), then Picador (17), then Bloomsbury and Faber (14 each); in overall first place was undoubtedly Penguin and its many imprints.

 

My top discovery of the year: the Heartstopper teen graphic novel series.

My proudest bookish achievement: being asked to be a judge for the McKitterick Prize.

 

The books that made me laugh the most: The Echo Chamber by John Boyne and Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny.

Best book club selections: The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard, Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy, The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell.

 

Most genuinely helpful book: How to Talk to a Science Denier by Lee McIntyre.

 

 

 

 

Best last lines encountered: “So where are we gonna go? / I don’t know. Let’s just drive and find out.” (from Heartstopper, Volume 4 by Alice Oseman).

 

Best 2021 book title: Mrs Death Misses Death.

 

 

 

 

Shortest book title encountered: In (Will McPhail), followed by Lot (Bryan Washington).

Biggest disappointments: Some of my lowest ratings went to Indelicacy by Amina Cain, Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ness by Robert Macfarlane.

 

A 2021 book that everyone loved but me: The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.

 

Themes that kept turning up in my reading: Covid-19, colours (thanks to my summer reading challenge), disability (thanks to shadowing the Barbellion Prize), the mental and physical health benefits of time in nature; perennial topics like friendship, parenting and sisterhood.