My 2023 in Books: 110 Read, and More Stats

I’m proud of myself (a feeling that’s hard to get comfortable with!) for recommitting myself to reading in 2022 and 2023. I’ve always been lover of books, but in my mid-to-late 20s because of life, I dropped off considerably in my reading. When I tell you there were entire calendar years that would go by where I could count the numbers of book I read on half a hand, I’m not being facetious. So, to recommit myself to reading on a regular basis is a gratifying feeling. To put it into perspective, in 2021, I started getting back into the swing of things, and I read 21 books, which I was really proud of doing! In 2022, I read 84 books; I had the Goodreads “Reading Challenge” goal of reading 100 books. Again for 2023, I set the goal of 100 books, and I surpassed my goal this time by reading 110 books. Wohoo!

Some things to know about my 2023 in reading:

• I read 41,166 pages, up from last year’s 31,787 by 9,379 pages (an increase of 26 books will do that!).
• Unlike 2022, I decreased my audiobook listening to just one, Garrett M. Graff’s Watergate: A New History, which I highly recommend, especially given where we are politically today.
• Technically, Goodreads counts the latter as my longest read of the year, which if in hardcover book form, would represent 832 pages. But in terms of an actual book, I’m thinking one of my last reads of the year, Robert K. Tanenbaum’s Escape at 736 pages, but it’s hard to compare mass market paper to hardcover.
• My shortest book was 124 pages, Alan Wolfelt’s You’re Not Crazy—You’re Grieving: 6 Steps for Surviving Loss, another book I recommend. (Spoiler alert: If I read it this year, I recommend it!)
• My average book length was 374 pages, which to be honest, is a great sweet spot for a book!
• One book quite literally changed my lifestyle: Melanie Joy’s Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows encouraged me to go back to trying the vegetarian (and ultimately, I opted for pescatarian) lifestyle again, and I’ve stuck with it since beginning in April 2023.
• Obviously, it wouldn’t be a reading year without reading Stephen King, and I quite literally started 2023 with him, reading Fairy Tale. I read seven Stephen King books, including his most recent, Holly, and I finally started his fabled Gunslinger series with the first three books in the series. (I had hoped to read the entire series before the year was out, but alas.)
• Aside from King, I did fall back on other favorite authors, like John Grisham, Jeffery Deaver, and of course, Lee Child (well, Andrew Child now), catching up on prior books and reading the most recent one, No Plan B.
• I read many new authors this year, but to shout some out, I read Colleen Hoover finally, Agatha Christie (can you believe it?!), John Marrs, John Saul, Kim Slaughter, Iris Johansen, Michael Connelly, Mary Higgins Clark, and even James Patterson. I’d recommend them all, of course.
• If you put a figurative gun to my head and made me choose my favorite nonfiction read of the year: Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins was a fascinating biography that didn’t read dry like one could in terms of Coppins’ flowy, inviting writing style.
• Same figurative gun, same dire choice with fiction, and it’s even harder to narrow it down to one. Again, if I read it and wrote a review of it, then that means I enjoyed it and would recommend. Nonetheless, you can’t go wrong with Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry. And I got to meet Garmus at a book event near me! But for one that might be more under people’s radar: Check out Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy.
• One thing I’m particularly proud of is how many women authors I read now because there used to be a time in my teens when I rarely ventured beyond male authors. I think it was some stupid thought that I would relate more to a male author’s “voice.” How dumb that was! Anyhow, out of the 110 books I read, 41 were by women authors.
• I joined my first official book club at the library this year! I wrote about it here.
• And yes, I wrote reviews of all 110 books. Generally speaking, my reviews are at least around 600 words and can be upwards of 2,000 or more words. Let’s say my average review was 900 words because that seems more normal. That’s 99,000 words I spent reviewing books! To put that into perspective, that’s nearly a 200-page book, depending on how it’s designed. Obviously, it’s not about quantity, but I’m always fascinated by the dichotomy between how many words I write about X things and how many words it takes to do the one thing I’ve always wanted to do and still haven’t, write one book.
• Finally, I’m setting a more modest goal for 2024 scaling back even from 2022’s goal, with a 2024 Goodreads “Reading Challenge” of 80 books. That’s because I have some other recommitments I’m interested in. More on that soon, hopefully!

Thank you for following along with my “good reading” (see what I did there?) in 2023, and here’s to fun times in 2024!