On a personal level, 2018 was a difficult year for me, and naturally that reflected badly on my book reading and writing on this blog. So much so that I’ve skipped doing an overview of my reading stats, as I did previously since 2013. 2019 didn’t turn out much better, but I’m trying to get back on track with my reviews and my short articles, so I might as well return to doing reading stats as well!
The number of books read dropped significantly, from 18 in 2017 to just 9 in 2018 and 11 in 2019. The number of read pages however increased slightly in 2018, to 6917 – again because during the first half of the year I finished the massive Night’s Dawn trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton – only to fall in 2019 to 3207, less than half the previous year. I’m not sure if Goodreads takes into consideration books I have abandoned – in this case The Garlic Ballads by Mo Yan – but I would assume it doesn’t, so the actual number of pages should be about 130 higher, around 3340. More travelling, reading many long-form articles, listening to podcasts, have all constantly chipped away at my book reading time, but, as I’ve said before, I find fewer and fewer books that can capture my attention and interest. I’m considering re-reading the Dune saga for this reason alone.
Looking at Goodreads’ overviews of the year, I find my preferences diverge more and more from the general consensus of Goodreads users. In 2018 for example, Children of Time was the ‘highest rated of Goodreads’ among my read books – I only gave it 3 stars; Luna: Wolf Moon was the ‘least popular’ (read by about 2800 other users), which is a shame because it was one of my favorites of the year, along with Three Parts Dead; and Warbreaker the ‘most popular’, no doubt owing to the increasing popularity of Brandon Sanderson – I found it uninspiring and cliché, my least favorite book of that year. In 2019 I was more in line with the public, even though I would certainly not have Full Fathom Five as the ‘highest rated of Goodreads’ – it was only better than average for me. I would say my favorite was Rock Springs, recommended by a friend, which I have yet to review on the blog.
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