I track all the books that I read through Goodreads. I don't use it as a social network, or as a way to find new books, it's just an easy way to keep track of the books that I have read. I've only been using it seriously for the last three or four years, and more than once I've added a book to my To Be Read list only to discover that I've already read it! I also enjoy reading the comments on a book once I've finished it, although I very rarely leave my own reviews.
At the end of the year I love having a look at the My Year in Books feature which shows you all the books that you've read during the year along with a few stats. So I thought I'd share a little bit of my reading history from 2023! Click the link below to go to the full report.
My Year in Books 2023 thanks to Goodreads.
I read 96 books in 2023 which seems like an impressive amount! I don't like setting myself a goal of reading a certain number of books, because I think I would then be tempted to choose shorter or easier to read books. Some of the books that I've read this year have been long and challenging. In particular The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, which was my longest read. It took me several weeks, and plenty of looking up chapter summaries to keep me on track, but it was a brilliant book and I loved reading it.
Goodreads also provides some other data about the books I've read. My average book length was 367 which sounds about right. I think that's towards the longer length of a book, but I do read a mixture of longer and shorter books. My most shelved was It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover which I vaguely remember as being quite good but not outstanding. My least shelved was A Field Guide to Larking by Lara Maiklem which is an excellent little book but which I suspect doesn't have the same worldwide market.
I share some of my favourite reads every couple of months or so on the blog. But having looked through my list, here are just a few of my favourites, which have stayed in my mind long after I finished them!
Cloud Cuckoo Land - Antony Doerr
The Book of Form and Emptiness - Ruth Ozeki
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
The Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver
The School for Good Mothers - Jessamine Chan
Elon Musk - Walter Isaacson
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin
Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus
The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant - Kayte Nunn
I don't have any particular reading goals for the new year, although I would like to work my way through the To Be Read pile beside my bed which has grown since my birthday and Christmas. A large part of it is filled by War and Peace which I would love to read one day, maybe this is the year! I also have some books which I borrowed from the library during lockdown and loved that I've subsequently picked up in charity shops. I want to re-read them before I find a place to shelve them.
I've just started reading How To Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie which I'm loving, although it has drawn comments from my family members who usually don't pay any attention at all to what I'm reading!