My Bookish Year in Stats – 2022

Hi and welcome to FromBelgiumWithBookLove!

I really feel that one of the best things about a new year is being able to look back on the previous one and after looking back at my 2022 goals and challenges and my favourite books of 2022, I have just one more post to share and it’s all about stats. Cos you know I love a good pie chart 🤓

Last year I read 78,854 pages across 233 novels, novellas and short stories and I listened for 676 hours to 103 audiobooks. That’s 17 books and 17 audiobooks less than 2021. Surprisingly, I read only a few hunderd pages less than in 2021 so I clearly read a few big books last year (looking at you, Sturmtaucher trilogy!). I couldn’t resist calculating the average page count, it’s 338 pages.

Looking at format, I listened to fewer audiobooks, as noted above, which I expected considering my much shorter daily commute since I changed jobs mid-2022. More than half of what I read was digital, which is an evolution I didn’t really see coming. This is mostly to the detriment of paperbacks. In absolute numbers, I read 183 eBooks, 28 paperbacks and 23 hardcovers. I could have sworn I read more paperbacks, I’m flabbergasted!

Looking at When I was reading, it’s no surprise that most of what I read was set in the 21st century but I’m really happy that I managed to read about so many other eras as well. I used NA (not applicable) for non-fiction.

Looking at Where I was reading, I was excited to find out who won the war, England or the USA, since they were battling it out all year. The USA won, but it wasn’t a landslide victory.

I read about so many countries, the pie can’t even handle them all so here’s a map! I love it!

When we look at Source, where my books came from, I doubled my NetGalley percentage (45 books) but halved my ARC percentage (31 books). I’m surprised that I used Scribd (133 books) more than I read my owned books (128), but that does also mean that I’m spending less, which is surely a good thing.

Looking at Genre, the bigger slices (thriller, historical fiction, fantasy, horror) stayed pretty much the same, but I did read fewer mysteries and more non-fiction.

The balance between new-to-me and known-to-me Authors kept shifting to the detriment of new authors, but I’m happy with this outcome.

In 2021, I looked at Publication dates, but in 2022 I tried to read as much from my backlog TBR as I could (inspired by Lisa @ OwlBeSatReading), so I thought it would be more interesting to look at when I bought the books I read, or, in case of books read through Scribd, when I added them to my wishlist: did I #BeatTheBacklog or did I say #BallsToTheBacklog? Well, I think it’s clear it’s a little of both but mostly the latter 😬 Still, I’m rather pleased with this result, it could have been worse! Also, being more picky about what I bought and trying to read the books I bought immediately instead of having them pile up, I started the new year with a much smaller backlog than last year.

Last year I also decided to keep track of whether I was reading standalones, series or duologies. Unsurprisingly, I read more standalones, but I did read quite a few series / duologies as well.

I also decided to have a look at books I read in their original languages vs books in translation. I wasn’t aiming for anything, I was just wondering how large the percentage of translated novels might be. In absolute numbers I read 29 translated books.

I hardly ever reread books. Not because I don’t want to, but because my Mount TBR shoots daggers at me whenever I do. Still I decided to keep track of rereads, in the hopes of sort of motivating myself to reread more. In absolute numbers I reread 11 books, which is rather pathetic in light of the books I want to reread so I will try to do better this year.

Well that’s it for today, if you made it here thanks for joining me and sticking it out 😄 My spreadsheet is up and running for 2023, I’m so excited to find out what this new year will bring!