A Year in Review!

Happy New Year book lovers! 2020 was definitely a difficult year for all of us but one thing I’m grateful is of all the books I read, the stories I transported myself to and the books that made an impact in my life. I thought today I’d share “A Year in Review” and reflect on all the books I read. The picture above includes almost all of the books I read that I own physical copies of. After I took the picture I realized I forgot to include all the books I had on my nightstand and I didn’t want to take the picture again.

The Numbers

I started tracking what I read a little over 2 years ago and it is always fun to look back and reflect on everything I read. However, one thing I learned this year is that looking at the number of books I am reading sometimes stresses me out and takes out the joy of reading. I ended up reading 80 books this year and I don’t know that I will do that again. I barely remember the details of the books I read in January! I want to be more intentional about the books I read.

Summary of Books read by Month

Looking at this you can tell I’m pretty consistent with the amount of books I read each month (with June and November being outliers). This is also the year I listened to the most audiobooks.

Genres

The genre I read the most this year was Non-Fiction! I love that so much. I really enjoy reading memoirs and other non-fiction books, audiobooks are great for the genre as well. It is also no surprise that I read a lot of contemporary fiction. The two surprises here are Young Adult and Thrillers. I hadn’t read many of those in previous years so I am happy I expanded my genres of choice. Overall you can tell I like most genres.

Authors Diversity

This year I tried to focus on reading books written by diverse authors. This is the breakdown of all the books I read in 2020. I think I can do better than this so I am prioritizing this for 2021 as well. There is so much to learn from BIPOC authors.

What I learned about my reading life in 2020

• Audiobooks are amazing! At times this year I had a hard time sitting down to read for extended periods of time so audiobooks were life savers.
• I fell in love with the Young Adult genre! Who would have guessed that my favorite book of the year was going to be a young adult book.
• I prioritized reading diverse authors and I will continue to do so. There so much to learn from books written by people from different backgrounds and cultures.
• I love sharing my thoughts about books with you all here on the blog. I am so proud I finally decided to start the blog in early 2020, it’s going to be a year of blogging soon!

Looking Forward

These are some reading goals I set for myself for 2021:

• Not focus on the number of books read but focus on the quality of the books. I set my Goodreads goal as 52 for this year
• Be more intentional with the books I pick up. I don’t have to read the super popular books right away. I want to prioritize backlist books (books published in 2020 or earlier) this year and hope to read at least 20 of those.
• Continue to read books written by diverse authors. The goal is for 50% of the books I read to be by BIPOC authors.
• Read the books I currently own and try to not purchase any more books. I would like to read at least 20 books that are currently on my shelves.

I hope you enjoy this 2020 wrap up post. If you are looking for my favorite books of the year you can check out my Top 10 Books of 2020 and Top 10 Backlist Books of 2020 posts.