Book Stats for 2023

Data on 2023's Books Read

It's time to take an analytical eye to last year's reads! I'm generally attempting to follow the pattern set by last year's post. It's nice to be getting around to this year's post(s) in a more timely manner - I'm not planning a wedding this year, so the first week of January is a much better time to start crunching numbers than it was in 2022!

Totals

Total number of books read, all formats: 63 (increase of 11 books from 2022!)

As you can see, I read or listened to more/the same number of books in 2022 during the first five months of the year, but once summer started, my book intake really took off! The most books I finished during any month was eight, and that happened three different months. It is encouraging to see that I met my goal of reading 50 books, but also exceeded that with an increase in the number of books I read.

Here are some other facts to consider:

Total number of books attempted, but put down that were noted: 15 (significant increase from last year's 5)

Percentage of books started and completed: 81% (down 10% from last year)

Books being read, but not completed, at the end of 2023: 7 (up three from last year, doesn't include the Word on Fire Bible Volume II)

Percentage of books that were rereads: 9%, or 6 books total (compare with last year's 15%, or 8 books)

And, here's another graph to break up the text:

I notice that I put down more books this year that weren't doing it for me. I suspect I put down more in 2022, but didn't record that. I do hope to finish some of them (specifically, the audiobooks in my Audible account), but not all of them. I was a little bit sad to realize that I reread fewer books this year than in 2022. I think I'd like to see myself rereading more books. It seems I have quite a few books that I'm reading or listening to right now...audiobooks, an ebook, and physical library books. I should probably sit myself down and finish some of them now that it's 2024. I read only 2 ebooks this year instead of 3. There was a slight increase in the number of audiobooks as well, but this graph actually looks pretty close to what it was last year.

Genre Data

I don't venture too far from what I like...fiction, spiritual works, and a smattering of nonfiction and literary analysis and criticism. It looks like I didn't read any philosophy this year.

The amount of fiction and literary criticism I read overall this year was the same as in 2022. The number of spiritual works decreased, however, and nonfiction and biography increased. I would guess that, in spite of the numbers, my pattern is actually more consistent - multiple works that could have fallen under the title of "spiritual" or "religious" works, as well. It's sometimes hard to determine category.

Spiritual Reading

Apologetics and books about God, Mary, and Christian/Catholic witnesses/saints were pretty consistent across both 2022 and 2023, but there were pretty significant changes in the other two areas;  prayer-focused books decreased quite a bit, and Catholic living/marriage books increased significantly. The increase of the latter group makes sense to me since I got married in January and I started periodically meeting with a group of cousins to talk about books that mostly focus on Catholic living. I'd like to see an increase in more intensive theological or spiritual growth-focused works in the coming year.

Fiction

I love reading fiction (which made up slightly over half of my reads in 2023), but I do not enjoy categorizing it. Classics refer to adult classics that I read this year (Ben Hur, LOTR, The Betrothed). Fantasy refers to stories that were clearly fantasy-style in nature, or included anthropomorphic animals as the primary characters. Historic/realism basically covers the realistic style of fiction that either was written to represent life in a former time or as it was at the time the author wrote it. And then there is "Other" for all those books that straddle the in-between...what does one do with the story of Matilda, which isn't a truly realistic or historic tale, but isn't overtly fantastic? Or with The Wild Robot books, which have animals that the robot talks to, but the story plays out so realistically that it seems like it could have happened?

Part of me thinks it would be nice to read more classics, but I also know that reading classics just to read them doesn't necessarily work well for me. I know there are some on my list, and I work through children's classics pretty often, but I don't think I'll try to force the classics to happen. I think it would be good to read one major classic in the coming year, but I don't know what it should be.

Hang on for the second post - I'll do the actual bracket in that one and discuss which books were the best in each genre.