Bookish Quarter in Pie Charts 1/2024

Hi and welcome to FromBelgiumWithBookLove!

This is my fifth year of keeping a spreadsheet to keep track of my reading in a more organised fashion than Goodreads offers. I’m not a numbers person, never have been, but I do like stats and pie charts so once again I’m going to have a look at my bookish year through pie charts, and see what they might reveal about me as a reader, and how I might have evolved since I first started keeping track.

This is what my bookish January, February and March look like in pie charts:

First of all: format. As always, a mix of audiobooks, eBooks and paper books, what can I say, I love books in any shape or size! I read 10% more eBooks in the first quarter of 2024 than I did in all of 2023. It’ll be fun to see what happens to these stats in the course of the year.

I have been trying to diversify my reading, finding I’m really enjoying historical fiction, so I started keeping track of When I was reading. As always, the present takes up the largest chunk, I don’t think that’s ever going to change, but I did manage to visit a few other eras as well. The Victorian era clearly had me captivated, as did the future, and apparently, I read a lot of non-fiction (NA).

I was equally excited to find out Where I was reading. The USA and England are still in pole position, as expected, but I did visit quite a lot of countries in only three months time, even my own, which is a rarity.

The race is on to visit as many US states as possible, and I’m surprised at how many I’ve already managed to visit this year! I’ll have to update my list so I can target the ones I’m missing. I visited them all last year, will I be able to do the same in 2024?

And for those of you who like maps:

Looking at Source, where my books come from, I see I read more ARCs and especially more NetGalley DRCs than I did last year. This doesn’t surprise me, as I’ve been visiting NetGalley more often than last year, since I’m trying to spend less this money this year. I also made full advantage of my free or heavily discounted Kindle Unlimited and Audible subscriptions, as well as my Everand (formerly known as Scribd) subscription. This of course means I had less time to read my own books, but it does also mean I bought fewer books, so I’m actually rather happy with this chart.

Looking at Genre, I see about half of what I read were thrillers, which is even more than usual, but I did read a bunch of other genres, and a surprising amount of sci-fi.

Looking at known-to-me vs new-to-me Authors I read, I reached a nice balance. I wonder if I’ll read more known-to-me authors as the year progresses, as that’s what happened last year.

This is always the most exciting chart for me: did I manage to read more books from my backlog TBR, i.e. books bought or added to my Everand list in or before 2023 (#BeatTheBacklog) or was I more seduced by the new 2024 releases (#BallsToTheBacklog)? I am so happy to say I beat the backlog! Makes total sense, though, it’s a new year, I read many books I bought or added last year. I have a sneaking suspicion the tables will turn in this second quarter of 2024.

In terms of standalones, series or duologies, I read quite a few series. I expect this number to rise throughout the year since many of my favourite series will have new instalments, and I will try to squeeze in a few more Kim Stone novels as well.

In terms of books in their original language vs books in translation, I don’t have specific goals, but I do want to read translated books as I feel you can learn so much from them and it allows you to read authors you couldn’t otherwise. I’m happy with this chart, 9% is not bad at all.

I always want to reread books but oh that glaring TBR… One book, you guys, I reread one book in three months 🤦🏼‍♀️

Well that’s it for today, if you made it here thanks for joining me and sticking it out 😄 Do you keep track of your reading, would your pie charts look anything like mine or not at all? Let me know below!