This is a (very) modified version of Jamie @ The Perpetual Page Turner’s annual End of Year Book Survey. I’ve taken out quite a few questions and added some of my own, along with graphs (because everyone knows that pretty graphs make the world a better place).
2018 Reading Stats
Number Of Books You Read: 153
Fun Pie Graphs:
I thought it might be interesting to look at my reading in pie charts since I kept a spreadsheet this year and have really good stats. The first stat I compiled was how many books I read each month.
As you can see, I read a lot more during the second half of the year. There are probably a few reasons for this. First off, I was still teaching at the homeschool co-op until May and then I really jumped headfirst into revising my MG manuscript. I sent it off on submission a few places in August and took a bit of a break with revising, so I was reading a lot more. I spent the last quarter of the year mostly avoiding working on my YA WIP (but I did finish it!). Oh, and I also started reading more verse books in the second half of the year, and those are much quicker reads.
These are hard to get exact because sometimes genre is hard to define, but this gives you a good idea. I still tend to read more fantasy/sci fi than anything else. Oh, and I know Graphic Novels and Verse aren’t really genres, but I wanted to include numbers for those and this seemed like the most obvious place (I could have also put them into format, but they don’t quite fit there either).
I still read overwhelmingly YA. Over half of the Adult books are actually non-fiction (several of them are boos on the craft of writing). I’m trying to read more MG now that I’m writing it, but it’s a little hard since the books I own and the books I get for review are mostly YA (though I’ve gotten on some publisher’s radar for MG this year, so I’m starting to get more).
I read a lot more physical books than anything else (though less than last year since my overall reading was down). I listened to more audiobooks, though. Thank you, God, for my library!
Most of my books are still coming from publishers or authors in some way or another (87 in total), but I did manage to read 27 books from off my shelf and 54 books that I got from the library (this includes those 38 audiobooks) or borrowed. Those ALA/BEA books are from past years—glad I’m finally getting through some of my older review books!
By the way, if you’ve noticed that my numbers don’t add up quite right, that’s because some books I had from two different sources. For instance, sometimes I got a books from Edelweiss but ended up listening to the audiobook from my library (or switched back and forth!).
This is a pretty even split! I did a lot better about reading backlist books this year!
No surprise that 4 stars is still my go-to rating. Only books that would receive 4 stars or above on Goodreads appear on the blog now (but some of those 3.5 star books that I would easily round up to 4 on Goodreads show up here!).
I also kept track of how diversely I was reading in 2018. I read a total of 73 books that featured diversity. I only counted books where the MC qualified as diverse, not a side character. Out of those 73, 35 were definitely Own Voices (I didn’t try to research authors to find out if they were Own Voices if I didn’t already know).
These stats were a little hard to break down, especially when it came to POC vs. Cultural. Some books I just counted as only POC, but if culture was a main factor in the book, I might have also counted it as Cultural. Some books I counted as Cultural without counting them as POC (for instance, if the MC was Jewish and that culture was featured strongly).
Best in Books
1. Best Books You Read In 2018?
2. Best series you started in 2018? Best Sequel of 2018? Best Series Ender of 2018?
Listed in order of the questions above:
And while I’m at it, I thought I’d analyze my series reading for 2018. I read 68 books that were part of a series. But when I break it down by which number in the series I read, things start to look dicey:
I have a problem here, folks. I started 37 new series, and only continued 31 (that’s adding up all the rest of the series books I read). Why do I do this to myself? (Short answer: Review books and the shininess of new series.)
3. Favorite new author you discovered in 2018?
I didn’t count debut authors here, but instead went with an author who I just discovered but other people knew about. Tara Sim’s Timekeeper was amazing, and I can’t wait to read Firestarter!
4. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?
I actually haven’t reviewed this series yet on the blog because I was waiting to finish it (the final—I think—book came out in November), but I’ve been LOVING listening to the Hell Divers Series, which is Adult Sci-Fi/Dystopian, a genre I rarely read.
5. Most thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?
This book was a mystery, and I could. Not. Stop. Reading.
6. Favorite covers?
Lots of MG covers here. I’m sort of in love with them. Maybe because I love to dream about my own MG cover someday (it will be beautiful, by the way).
7. Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2018?
My Blogging/Bookish Life
1. Favorite review that you wrote in 2018?
I love my spoiler-filled discussions of these books!
2. Best discussion/non-review post you had on your blog?
I’m sort of in love with my color-coordinated bookcases.
3. Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes, etc.)?
The WIFYR writing conference was amazing!!
4. Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2018?
For me, this is a writing accomplishment. I finished revising my first novel and started querying it!
If you’d like to see my Goodreads Year in Books, click on the link!
And don’t forget to link your year-end wrap-ups to the Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up!
Did you write a 2018 wrap-up? Link me up in the comments! If not, tell me one of your favorite things about your blogging or reading life in 2018.
Fabulous post.
Thanks!
I love how you read from so many different genres. I tend to stick to contemporary and I’m find with that (it’s what I love) but I’m always impressed when I see others reading such varied genres. And so much backlist reading. Go you! That’s my goal every year and I make a concerted effort to read from my own shelves and not get caught up in all the shiny, new offerings (unless it’s from a favorite author). I enjoyed reading all your stats! 🙂
I used to read almost all fantasy, but blogging has definitely expanded my reading horizons. I think we all have genres we fall back on, though.
I am really impresses with your backlist vs new releases chart. My goal is 50/50, but that never happens. I don’t read as widely as you either. I read across age group, but I really find I enjoy contemporaries the most. I have also listened to past due ARCs. It has really helped me with my numbers on EW.
I was pretty impressed with it myself. I definitely made more of a concerted effort to read some older books this year, but I was surprised how close I was to 50/50.
Love this post and especially the charts!! I am so happy to see you loved The Lying Woods because that is on my list to get to in the next few months.
Pie charts make any post better. 🙂
Great wrap-up! I love all of your pie charts!!
Thanks! It’s funny because I’m not very organizationally-minded, but I do love a good pie chart. 🙂
This post is so much fun! I didn’t make charts of my reading life, but I’m curious to see how it would look if I broke them down into categories. Like you, I read more in the second half of the year. I think part of it is due to me being in grad school for the first half. I also read a lot more in December because I started teaching again in August, and that took up a lot of time.
2018 was the first year that I kept a spreadsheet of the books that I read, and I definitely enjoyed crunching the numbers at the end of the year!
I love stats! I still need to look at my spreadsheets and figure out what I did with my life last year. Refugee made my “best books” list too. I need to get back to reading YA. I’ve been really slacking with that age group in the past few years. I mostly read adult or MG.
I barely ever read adult, so I could definitely expand my horizons there.
Wow. I love all the graphs! That’s so fun to see the books laid out like this. I think I saw a few books here I’m interested in reading, too. Gonna pick a few up. 🙂
I’m not big on organization, but somehow graphs make me happy. I tracked my books in a lot of detail this past year via spreadsheet, which made it easy to come up with these.
It looks like you had an awesome reading year! And I absolutely love seeing the breakdown of all the stats with pie charts. The nerd in me does an excited *squeal* whenever I see one. This past year I didn’t keep track of my books well enough to do stats these advanced, but hopefully for 2019 I’ll have more to show!
In my Sunday Post this week, I linked to an excellent tracking spreadsheet that I found on Bookish. It even includes built-in graphs! Check it out if you’re interested.
I’m jealous of you and your graphs Nicole, I am such trash at tracking my reading.
I read a majority of YA as well, but I’m looking to read more adult titles (romance and mystery are my jam).
Happy 2019!
In my last Sunday Post I linked to a spreadsheet that I found on Bookish that makes it really easy to track your reading and even includes built-in graphs. You should check it out!
SO MANY PRETTY BOOKS! You always create such fabulous charts to show everything.
Here’s my wrap-up for the year, although it’s not as detailed as yours, by no means. 🙂
https://inthebookcase.blogspot.com/2019/01/2018-reading-stats.html
I kept track of a lot more stats in 2018. I like looking at everything at the end of the year.
I love all the stats posts! Can I be nosy and ask how you did your graphs? I’d love to do something similar. If I ever get any time. Glad to see someone else really liked The Lying Woods. I thought it was good, didn’t make my top 10, but I did rate it really high! I haven’t done a single wrap-up post for the year. I did my Challenge wrap-up, and a few Top 10 posts. Maybe I’ll add one of those to the links.
Sorry it took me so long to respond – I was actually nosy and asked Shannon how she did her graphs, and she told me that she used Meta-Chart.com, so I used them too. 🙂
Yay for lots of SFF books! You read a pretty good balance of diff formats, and definitely a great balance of backlist/new! I was surprised to find my backlist/new was also about 50/50. I really want to read Timekeeper, so I’m glad to see it on your list! I’m also glad you’re loving the Hell Divers series! And wow, those really are some gorgeous covers!
Yeah, I was pretty happy with the breakdown of the books I read this year. I feel like I evened things out a bit (at least in some ways).
I am kind of shocked that we didn’t have a lot of favorites in common this year! The only one that also made my list is A Thousand Perfect Notes! Granted, the only other one I read was Obsidio, and I think my thoughts on Obsidio mirror literally no one else’s since everyone loves it haha. I got The Lying Woods for Christmas though, and I have a Spark of White Fire, so hopefully I will get to those soon! Also, SUPER impressed with all your stats. I feel like the ratings one would be a really interesting one to keep. And the sources, because I would probably hate myself for never reading any of the stuff I buy ?
I read a LOT more middle grade this year since I’m writing it, and I just now noticed that four of my top ten are MG (plus one writing book). I think my change in focus made me enjoy those books even more than I used to. I’ll bet if I just looked at my YA books, we’d have a lot more in common. Hope you love The Lying Woods and Spark of White Fire!!
I love your graphs every year and I love how many backlist books you read! Looking at your favorites, this year I really want to discover The Illuminae Files. I bought the first book a little over a year ago and it’s just sitting on my shelf. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I love that series as much as you!
The graphs are so much fun for me!
I truly envy your statistical capabilities! XD
Ha! I was sort of obsessive about tracking my reading in 2018. Keeping it up in 2019!
I love looking at pie charts, because who doesn’t love pie? You had an amazing book year in 2018 and I’m so happy I could participate in reviews with you. I think 2018 was my best ever reading year and I upped my Goodreads challenge to reflect this. Happy 2019!
I really enjoyed reviewing with you too! I feel like you’re a part of my blog. 🙂
I just reread your post and realized that one of your favorite books was one we did a dual review of. I had to let you know my husband gave me book 2 for Christmas and a preorder of book 3 for our anniversary (the big gift is the current kitchen remodel that’s making home life interesting to say it rated G).
Ha! I can relate to home improvement projects that make life interesting. I hope it’s all worth it in the end! I still really need to read the second book and preorder book three of that series!
Middle Grade covers have blossomed over the last year, and it looks like there are many more to come over the next year. I have added so many to Goodreads just based in the beautiful cover art. Ha ha. ?
I read more MG and Adult Fiction this year. So many of the new YA offerings sound like re-hashed best sellers from from previous years I have been steering clear of most of them. ? I didn’t read the Darkest Minds series until last year and it was really refreshing to read a good “old-fashioned” Dystopian. It really showed me how a lot of YA dystopic novels have evolved into mush.
You had a great year in reading!?✨
I really need to finish that series. I read the first two books, but I never finished it!
Lovely stats! I am glad you were able to read more diversely and keep an even split between new releases and backlist books. I think I mostly read backlist. Also, I love how you balance the formats too. 153 books in a single year is an amazing number DD: Congratulations on having read so much!
I like being able to see all these stats at the end of the year to get the big picture on my reading.
omg you are such a productive bookish beast! I can’t believe you read 17 books a month AND blog AND have two WIPs!!! You are awesome Nicole! Most of your best of 2018 are already on my TBR since I read your reviews. 🙂
It’s funny because sometimes I feel so woefully behind—it’s actually really nice to hear it from another perspective and realize I AM doing a lot!
Awesome post Nicole! Love the mix of genres and how you worked at your backlist. I think the graphs help to see what you’ve done. Blogs are such a work of in progress. Wish th3very best for you in 2019 Nicole! ?❤️
I love seeing my reading in the form of graphs!
It looks like you had a great year of reading. I don’t usually track my reading outside of what Goodreads does for me, but I’ve started a spreadsheet this year just to see if I can keep up with it. See what I read in December at Girl Who Reads
2018 was the first year I kept a spreadsheet, and I love having all that info at the end of the year!