I feel like so many things have happened, I have completely forgotten that I had surgery in the summer, that I have had 3 different jobs (!!! - in the same building though) this year, and just generally that there has been so much change happening that I feel kind of like I have whiplash from it all! I have not been feeling excellent mental health wise this past month which has not been extremely fun, but I have been using this time between Christmas and New Year to just try to rest and listen to my body and myself and all of those other good self care things that are good. It's a bit of a weird time of year for me feelings-wise anyway, so I'm just trying to feel them all and then get on with it, really. Life, innit.
ANYWAY. Let's just talk my year in reading, shall we? Actually, to talk about my year in blogging first, I was surprised to see that I blogged more this year than last year, but not at all surprised that I blogged more in the first half of this year than the last half. I feel like I started the year with quite good intentions and then it all went off the boil a bit over the summer because of weddings and all associated events, and then I never quite got back into the swing of it? I am of course not going to make any blogging promises for next year because who knowwwws, but I have been feeling a lot lately that I NEED a project (or, like, 5) to keep my mind occupied and whatnot so maybe regular blogging could be back on the table (she tells herself).
ACTUALLY BOOKS THO. I feel as though, especially looking back over it, my reading has not had a lot of shape this year, which I have found is actually quite a good thing. Looking at last year's wrap up post, I talked about ending various reading projects etc, and I didn't really pick any new ones up, which has meant that I have really been reading whatever the heck I wanted to and just going wherever my shelves took me *mysterious smile*. The latter part of the year has been taken up with trying to read all of the 30 before 30 books (well, at least the ones I haven't read) which has been going excellently, but that list also doesn't have a particular theme or anything which has meant that I've read widely and gone with whatever I wanted to read. I have also read more books (and pages!) this year than I have in recorded history (i.e. since I started keeping a spreadsheet per year) which is weirdly exciting to me, but also makes complete sense because I have been taking the bus to work all year which is where much of my reading takes place.
Shall we talk about some stats tho? Let's!
Number of Books Read: 92
Number of Pages Read: 30,189
Fiction vs. Non-Fiction: 64/28
New Reads vs. Re-Reads: 83/9
Men vs. Women: 33/59 (makes a difference when I'm not reading Stephen King all the time, eh!)
White vs. Non-White: 73/19 (I suck, I suck, I suck)
Translated vs. Not: 13/79
Digital vs. Physical: 6/86 (hahah why do I even buy kindle books?!)
Sooo yeah. That is what that is. I think I definitely use my spreadsheet to track rather than alter my reading habits, so for example I'm finding it so interesting that I practically have a 2:1 ratio of women to men (so high!) and I'm still preeeetty ashamed at my white:non-white ratio because come on me, but then also... I'm really trying to read from my shelves and they still have quite a lot of white people on them and yes I am totally making excuses for not reading more diversely but I know that when I add too many conditions to reading, it makes me want to do it way less so... *shrug emoji*, I guess. I'm STILL going to try and do better, but it's me and I'm pretty crappy so we'll see how that goes...
Speaking of reading for my shelves though - how did:
You know what, it went ok. I have eased up on it a little based on the aforementioned 30 books before 30 challenge, where I've been borrowing a lot of books from the library, but out of 92 books read this year, 57 were books that I owned already. That means that 35 were books I didn't own last year, which makes me a bit frowny, but of these, 11 were library books (and so freeee!), another 10 were either borrowed or presents (again, free!) which leaves 14 that I bought and simply had to read straight away (one of the absolute pleasures of book buying!) either because they were charming and about food (Eat Up! by Ruby Tandoh) or because the film about about to come out (A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engel) or because they were the Neapolitan books by Elena Ferrante and I'd been to Naples earlier in the year.
Basically, I'm happy with my decision making but still want to do a little better next year (always). In overall reduction of books terms, at the end of last year I owned 256 books that I was still yet to read, and as of right now I have 240. THIS IS NOT GOOD, I realise, and mildly annoying because I was doing really well at various points of the year not-buying books and then would buy a load at once. Before Christmas, also, this number was at 232 (still high, but better!) so damn you generous family for being so damn generous! (I mean, thank you, I love you). I would really very much like to have this figure at 200 or below at the end of next year which really SHOULD be possible, so I'm going to set that as a goal now and see how I go... *steels self for challenge*
So that's me all wrapped up for 2019! I will post my usual monthly (plus annual faves!) wrap up of books read in December tomorrow, and from there it will be all new stuff. Life-wise, I have literally no idea what I'm doing in 2019 - other than, as I will be telling everyone all year until it happens, I'M GOING TO BE 30 AGHHHHHHH. I so far have plans for a getaway in January, one hen party and wedding, and one show, but I'm mainly hoping to fill it with laughter and friends and love and all good things, and maybe a touch of blogging along the way too, who knows! I wish you all a very happy new year, and may many many good things come your way in 2019.
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