Because I read so many books this year, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at what I read this year, and how it all added up. And because I’m doing anything possible to procrastinate working on my thesis, I decided to spend three days making an infographic. It’s my first one, so I hope it turned out okay. I think this is a really fun way too look at how I read this year, and what I can improve on for 2017 – keep scrolling, because I included some comments under all the graphics!

I also wanted to mention that today is the two-year anniversary of my first post on this blog! I’m so happy with how this blog has evolved and so thankful for all of you. And, in case you missed it, I’m hosting a giveaway on Twitter! Tomorrow is the last day to enter, so be sure to check it out!

I think the two biggest things I want to work on next year are reading more nonfiction and reading more diverse books. I did exceed my goal of in terms of nonfiction reading – which was one a month – but I would like to get that ratio up a bit. And I didn’t read nearly as many diverse books as I had hoped, and that’s completely on me. I didn’t really start paying attention to diversity until midway through the year, but it’s definitely something I am conscious about now, and will continue to educate myself about. I do also want to read more female (and genderqueer) authors, because I definitely tend toward reading male authors for some reason. I did try to fix that this year, but there were still a few more males than females in there. I want to focus on female and person of color authors next year.

Other than that, I think I’m pretty happy with how my reading year went. I read a wide variety of genres (including a few I’d never read before), really enjoyed most of the books I picked up, and read more than I have ever before. I also completed seven reading challenges (or I will have as soon as I finish Little Women later today – which is included in this infographic). Overall, I’d say this was a highly successful reading year!

Notes:

I did not include female characters or authors in the diverse books, unless they were diverse in some way. The feminist books include books with obvious feminist themes or messages. 

Diversity – as I’ve defined it above – refers generally to ethnicity or sexual orientation. I am still educating myself about this topic, but if you’d like to know which books I included, feel free to ask. 

If the numbers don’t add up, that’s because I counted different books differently, and there are more books here than on my Goodreads challenge because of rereads. (Also I suck at math.)

40 thoughts

  1. That was an awesome way of looking at your reading 🙂 I’ve been recording my years reading in an excel spreadsheet because I’m going to create pie charts for all the different categories I tracked! I’m hoping it looks as good as yours!! ❤

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  7. Happy blog-iversary! I love the graphs, you did an amazing job, makes me want to try one out with my books for the year. I tried to read more diverse books as well this year- I would strongly recommend trying out ‘In the Country We Love: My Family Divided’ by Diane Guerrero (one of my favorites this year). And one that really made me re-think my views was ‘Invisible Man Got the Whole World Watching’ by Mychal Denzel Smith. Great job and happy readings!

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    1. Thank you! I loved All The Light We Cannot See, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (which has a bit of a magical element to it), The Color Purple, The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore, and Habibi by Craig Thompson (which is a really beautiful graphic novel). There were so many good ones!

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    1. I didn’t happen to read any this year, but I think I would include it. In my mind, diversity includes anything that is different than the American model of the straight, white, cisgender person, which is highly overrepresented in my opinion (and this is coming from a straight, white, cisgender person). In my quest to read more diversely, I definitely include books from countries and cultures I’m unfamiliar with, and that would include Spanish/Portuguese lit.

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  18. Pingback: 2016 Book Stats | Reader's Review

  19. Love this! It’s funny, I stumbled upon your post while also procrastinating work on my thesis…
    I love historical fiction and tend to stick to that genre, but seeing this makes me want to try out some books I typically wouldn’t go for. Thanks!

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