My Bookish Year in Stats – 2023

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 favourite books of 2023, I just have to check out my bookish stats. Cos you know I love a good pie chart 🤓

Last year I read 73,517 pages across 250 novels, novellas and short stories and I listened for 747 hours to 143 audiobooks. That’s 17 books and 40 audiobooks more than 2022. I read about 5,000 pages less and listened for about 70 hours more than 2022. As I never listen to audiobooks without doing something else (like gardening or cleaning), I must have had a really active year! (Or a rather sleepless one, since I also listen when I can’t sleep 😬) Unsurprisingly, the average page count is about 40 pages less (at 294) compared to 2022, and the average audiobook duration is a little over 5 hours.

Looking at format, my eBook percentage has stayed pretty much the same compared to 2022 but I listened to more audiobooks, as noted above. This is to the detriment of both paperbacks and hardcovers. In absolute numbers, I read 22 paperbacks and 18 hardcovers.

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’m not surprised that most of what I read was set in the USA, as I was actively trying to visit all the states, a challenge that I nailed and will probably never manage again, as some states are really tough to find. I did manage to visit a whole bunch of other countries too, as well as fictional worlds. I used NA for non-fiction.

I read about so many countries, the pie can’t even handle them all so here’s a map! I love it! This has a lot more colour than it did in 2022.

When we look at Source, where my books came from, I read fewer ARCs, both NetGalley and otherwise. I read more of my own books than borrow them from Scribd, which wasn’t the case last year, although I’m afraid that just means I bought more books, not that I tackled the books I already had. (Note that Scribd changed its name to Everand halfway through the year but I kept using the name Scribd for clarity’s sake.) I’m surprised a fifth of what I read was from Kindle Unlimited but perhaps I shouldn’t be, as I did have two KU trial periods last year and I saved many novels and short stories I actually wanted to buy for those free trial periods.

Looking at Genre, not much has changed, I still enjoyed a variety of genres, but thrillers are still my no. 1.

The balance between new-to-me and known-to-me Authors looks pretty good. I’m always happy to find that I enjoyed known-to-me authors, while also discovering almost as many new ones.

As from 2022, I tried to read as much from my backlog TBR as I could (inspired by Lisa @ OwlBeSatReading), so I’ve been keeping track of when I bought the books I read, or, in case of books read through Scribd or Kindle Unlimited, when I added them to my wishlist: did I #BeatTheBacklog or did I say #BallsToTheBacklog? Oh boy. This just keeps getting worse every year 🙈😄 I really need to try harder this year!

I also kept track of whether I was reading standalones, series or duologies. I read even more standalones, and for the first time in years, no duologies at all.

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 26 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 10 books, which is really rather sad 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 2024, I’m so excited to find out what this new year will bring!