2023 Reading Wrap-up
I ended up having such a good reading year in 2023 and I’m still completely and utterly gleeful about it. I read 86 books, which is over 25 more than in 2022 – I set it at 50 and adjusted it many times because I kept hitting and exceeding it which honestly felt AWESOME.
I’m also pretty happy with how I kept up with this blog – well, right up until The Great Hip Injury of Summer 2023 but the less said about that the better, but I have a good idea of how I want to continue using this site going into 2024.
I’m not going too much into goals now because I know that’s an upcoming Top Ten Tuesday prompt so I don’t want to end up repeating myself too much. But I’ve been playing around with Canva and have ideas for Instagram which are exciting me!
So, looking back at my 2023 stats on storygraph combined with some of the survey that Jana posted gives us:
2023 Reading Stats
Number of books you read: 86 – this is a 43% increase on 2022 which is fucking MINDBLOWING!
Number of re-reads: 4
Number of books you DNFed: 5
Number of pages you read: 27,820
Most read genre: Fantasy (26 of them!)
Number of new-to-you authors you discovered: 51
Firsts and Lasts
First book you read: Jenny Kane – Midsummer Dreams at Mill Grange
Last book you read: Stel Pavlou – Decipher
First 2023 release you read: Christina Baker Kline – The Scenic Route
The average length of book I read was 312 pages, and it took me an average of 57 days to read a book – this was somewhat warped by Natalie J Case – Thanatou which took me 387 days to read.
I definitely want to work on improving this quite a bit in 2024 – however I’ve been reading MT Clanchy – From Memory to Written Record since April 2023, so I’m not holding my breath LMAO!
My most read authors were Andrea Penrose, Nancy Warren and Meik Wiking.
My average rating was 3.7
I had nine 5* reads which were:
- Jenny Kane – Midsummer Dreams at Mill Grange
- Jeremy Clarkson – Diddly Squat: A Year On The Farm
- Jeremy Clarkson – Diddly Squat: Til The Cows Come Home
- Taylor Jenkins Reid – Daisy Jones & The Six
- Christie Barlow – Love Heart Lane
- Alix E Harrow – The Once and Future Witches
- Nancy Warren – Stitches & Witches
- Nancy Warren – Crochet & Cauldrons
- Matthew Reilly – Temple
I did pretty well on my reading challenges:
- 101% of my 2023 reading goal
- 92% of 50 women, 70% of Around The World
- 94% of On The Cover, 100% of Reading Rainbow
- 100% of the 2023 Genre Challenge
- 77% of the Alphabet Challenge
- 67% of The StoryGraph’s Onboarding Reading Challenge 2023
- 90% of The StoryGraph’s Genre Challenge 2023
And I’ve signed up for like 12 challenges again this year!
The main ‘moods’ of my reading were reflective, adventurous, informative, mysterious and emotional.
60% of the books I read were medium-paced, 27% fast-paced and 13% slow-paced, which is not a surprise.
My favourite book of the year was Temple by Matthew Reilly – It was terrible and entertaining, completely OTT and ridiculous, with serious abuse of exclamation points and reminded me how much I love Hollywood blockbuster movies with shit blowing up, and I’m now on my third book of his with 2 more on my TBR.
