Bookish Quarter in Pie Charts 2/2024

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 April, May and June look like in pie charts:

First of all: format. As always, a mix of audiobooks, eBooks and paper books, although paper books are at an all-time low. I think this is due to the fact that I cancelled my FairyLoot subscription at the end of last year and I’m also trying to keep an eye on my book budget. As such, I’m trying to be patient and wait for eBook deals or for the book to become available on Everand. My audiobook percentage is really high, I think that’s mostly due to me reading less, not so much me listening to more audiobooks, although May was indeed a great audio month.

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, as well as fictional worlds and non-fiction (NA).

I was equally excited to find out Where I was reading. The USA and England are still in pole position, with the US taking up a huge chunk, but I did manage to visit a bunch of other countries as well.

The race is on to visit as many US states as possible, and I did manage to visit a few new ones last quarter. 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 that I read fewer ARCs / NetGalley DRCs than I did in the first quarter. My reviewing has come to a near standstill and I’m reading less in general, so this doesn’t surprise me much. I also made full advantage of my free or heavily discounted Audible UK and US subscriptions, as well as my Everand (formerly known as Scribd) subscription. I also read more of my own books. I’m actually quite happy with this chart.

Looking at Genre, I see that I read even more thrillers than usually. I did go through a Freida McFadden phase, when her books seemed to be all I could focus on, so I guess I could have seen this chart coming 😅

Looking at known-to-me vs new-to-me Authors I read, I still struck a good balance but I read more known-to-me authors than in the first quarter. This seems to be a trend for me, to read fewer new-to-me authors as the year progresses. Maybe because I tend to dive into authors’ backlists if I like them? Or maybe I should just blame Freida McFadden again 😂

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 think this could be classified as an epic FAIL. Sigh.

In terms of standalones, series or duologies, I still read quite a few series but although I expected this number to rise throughout the year, I actually read fewer series than in the first quarter of the year.

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, which shows a slight increase in translated literature.

I always want to reread books but oh that glaring TBR… I reread two books last quarter, which is still sad but at least it’s more than in the first quarter 😂

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!