Halfway

August 21, 2019 |

At the beginning of each year, I set myself a Goodreads goal to read 100 books that year. I’m not super strict about the goal (I think regulating your pleasure reading too much can suck the pleasure out of it), but it’s a good way to gauge how much reading I’ve been doing in the year and how it compares to previous years. I’ve found that 100 books as a goal causes me to read just a touch more than I would otherwise, without making me feel pressured to read when I’d really rather do something else.

I just hit the halfway point at 50 books earlier this week, so I thought it would be interesting to take more formal stock of how my reading year has gone and what the trends are in my reading thus far. Here are a few pertinent stats.

Star Ratings

I really enjoy rating the books I read. I fully understand why some people (like Kelly) choose not to – comments on reviews deemed “bad” by authors or their fans can be really aggravating (to put mildly), and the stars don’t really give a nuanced perspective on a book. But it helps me to identify the real standouts at the end of the year. The breakdown for me so far is:

★★★★★ 1 book

★★★★☆ 20 books

★★★☆☆ 24 books

★★☆☆☆ 5 books

★☆☆☆☆ 0 books

I think this breakdown gives some insight into the way I perceive ratings. I had a discussion with some friends the other day about when and why we give five stars to products and services, beyond just books on places like Goodreads. Two of us were very free with five-star ratings, giving them to anything that didn’t have a marked flaw, and the other two (myself included), were a lot more conservative. To me, a five-star book (or movie, or other product ) is one that is exceptional in some way, as you can see by the fact that I only gave one book out of fifty that rating. (For the curious, it’s Birthday by Meredith Russo). On the other hand, when rating people (like a rideshare driver), I default to five stars unless something went pretty wrong. I’m also hesitant to give anything below a three star rating, though I will do it occasionally for books that I finished but didn’t particularly care for. I reserve my one star rating for books that were so bad they upset me; this is much rarer than even a five star rating.

Audience

Adult 11 books

Young Adult 35 books

Middle Grade 4 books

Most of my reading still centers around books for young adults/teens, but I’ve definitely expanded my reading for adults compared to previous years. I’ve also been picking up more middle grade, though I know four doesn’t seem like a lot. I used to read at most four for the year, so I’m on track to double previous years. I find myself reaching for a middle grade novel when I want something a bit quicker that I can finish in a single sitting.

Format

Audio 36 books

Print 14 books

My love for audiobooks continues unabated. Lately I’ve had a really frustrating experience where every time I sit on my couch and start to read a print book, I’ll fall asleep. It has nothing to do with the quality of the book – I only pick up books that interest me – nor the time of day. I fear I’ve trained some sort of Pavlovian response in myself to fall asleep whenever I read, and it tends to happen within just a few minutes. The only surefire time I can stay awake while reading a print book is in the morning, right after waking up after the night’s sleep. While this is fine on the weekends, it doesn’t really work during the week. I work early already, so setting an alarm to wake up even earlier just to read is not really practical. This simply means the majority of my reading is done on audio, and the majority of my print reading consists of pretty short books (all four of the middle grade books) or graphic novels (six so far).

Genre

Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror 24 books

Mystery/Thriller 15 books

Contemporary Realistic 6 books

Nonfiction 4 books

Historical Fiction 2 books

As expected, my reading focuses on genre fiction. Most of the contemporary realistic books I read were Mock Printz finalists at my workplace. My mystery and thriller reading has really picked up compared to previous years, though, especially with adult titles. I just can’t get enough of the twisty plots, especially on audio – I can’t cheat and flip to the end that way! You might have noticed that the total for this category is 51, because I classified Lovely War by Julie Berry as both historical fiction and science fiction/fantasy. (By the way, if you haven’t picked that one up yet, I highly recommend it.)

Gender

Female 37 authors

Male 11 authors

Nonbinary 3 authors

I tend to read more books by women each year, so this is no surprise. The total adds up to more than 50 in this category as well because one book, Once & Future, is co-authored by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy, who are both nonbinary. Included in the female total is one trans author, Meredith Russo. I’d definitely like to increase the trans and non-binary representation in my future reading.

2017: Favorite Reads, Reading Experiences, and Year-End Reflection

December 26, 2017 |

2017 Favorite Reads

As 2017 draws to a close with less than a week left, I feel strongly enough that my favorite reads of the year won’t change too much. I always wonder about the lists of favorites that many post early: are they going to miss something that they read later? Are books publishing at the end of the year getting cheated a bit?

Here’s what I’m calling my favorite reads of 2017. I’ve limited to books published this year, though I did read a number of great backlist titles as well. This is a mix of fiction and nonfiction, as well as young adult and adult titles. These are in alphabetical order, not in any ranking. It was interesting to look back and see what books really hit me at the beginning of the year that I’d sort of forgotten about by this point.

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez

This story about a girl who loses her sister — the daughter who’d been the “good Mexican daughter” of the family — is a look at grief, at cultural pressures, and at how to juggle your familial obligations with the dreams you have which extend beyond the boundaries of your city. A fresh voice, with a powerfully drawn Chicago from an author who I cannot wait to read more from. Sanchez put out a poetry collection a couple of months before this book hit, and I am itching to dig into it.

I Believe In A Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo

My heart does this little fluttery thing every time I think about this book. Desi Lee lives with her single father, and she is awkward as all get out. But after one poor encounter with a boy too many, she turns to K-Dramas to help her create a list of ways to find love and keep it. This is a hilarious read, with tons of heart, and it’s a rom com that should appeal to both those who love romance, those who love humor, and those who find themselves falling in love with pop culture. This book has mega appeal to any reader who has a fandom and turns to it in times of need. Though K-Drama wasn’t a thing Desi started the story loving, it really becomes a passion for her. Goo includes a ton of recommended viewings in the back of the book, too.

Janesville by Amy Goldstein

Not enough people read this book, especially those who fell in love with Evicted by Matthew Desmond (which is also fabulous). Goldstein takes a hard look at Janesville, Wisconsin, and what happened to what was once a true middle class city that thrived around manufacturing and more specifically, a GM plant which paid great wages, when it shut down. I live close to Janesville, and I’ve worked in many of the Rock River cities nearby, which also suffered as a result of this. The book takes a peek inside the lives of a variety of families impacted by the GM closing, as well as the closing of the formerly thriving pen company Parker Pens. It’s a HARD read, but it’s a great one about the ripple effects of job loss. It’s imperfect, but there is so much to pull from here on a micro level that reflects a lot of the macro level economic changes in the last decade. There’s some really insightful stuff in here, too, about the former darling Paul Ryan and how his image has really been changed in the city that once reveled in what he could do for it. For readers who’ve ever been confused by Wisconsin politics, well, this one will help a lot.

I compare this one to Evicted a lot because Evicted takes place in Milwaukee, and it’s incredible to see what happens there vs. Janesville — the two cities are only about 70 miles apart.

The Lake Effect by Erin McCahan

I laughed so hard reading this book, and every time I think about it, I find myself trying to stifle a laugh. This is a book about a boy in the summer between the end of high school and beginning of college. He takes a job as an assistant to an elderly woman on the shore of Lake Michigan and all of the….quirks she has. But as much as her quirks are a riot, the true riot is all of the mishaps he has while trying to keep her happy and doing his job for her. Then he meets the girl next door who has some kind of secret that he wants to get to the bottom of. The second (SPOILER) is that she has crones disease and it has made her life a living hell (END SPOILER) and he learns how to lean into the fact she’ll never be anybody but exactly who she is.

There’s a scene in this book that involves funerals (okay, a lot of those) but one in particular had me in hysterics on the train. I had to close to book so as not to get too many weird stares.

Like Water by Rebecca Podos

We’ve all read a ton of YA books about the kids who get out of their small towns as soon as they graduate. This is not that book. This is instead about the girl who sticks around to help out in the family restaurant, as well as to help her father who is succumbing to his illness. It’s a book about sexuality and the fluidity of language and definition when it comes to sexuality. This is a book that’s all about a powerful voice, some gorgeous writing, and a take on the sort of “after high school” story we rarely see. Super inclusive, as well as incredibly creative (the summer job that Vanny gets is one of my favorites in YA of all time).

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert

This was my first read of 2017, and it remains one of the best YA books I’ve ever read. It’s a story about a solid and powerful sibling relationship — half siblings borne of a blended family — and what happens when one of those siblings struggles with bipolar disorder that the other one can’t fix. It’s also about relationships and romance, about sexuality and about living one’s life on one’s own terms. Colbert is an expert at weaving in a lot of plot lines and complexities among her characters and doing so without ever making the book feel over stuffed or unreal.

Malagash by Joey Comeau

This little book is one that I saw virtually no talk about, despite the fact it deserves so much more love and conversation. Sunday’s father is about to die of cancer, and she’s figured out a way to replicate his life in the virtual world through a virus. By creating this virus, her father’s words and voice will live in the hard drives of millions across the world. Of course, this book isn’t about the virus. It’s about the way we all mourn loss, especially the loss we know is coming and can’t do anything to resolve. It has a lot of dark humor woven through, but this tiny little book (all 182 pages) is an emotional powerhouse.

Nomadland by Jessica Bruder

I picked this one up to listen to on a series of long drives and found myself unable to stop listening until I finished it. Bruder explores the new American lifestyle that came from the loss of retirement security in the great economic crash. The book followers a few individuals as they make lives for themselves in RVs and other moving vehicles, scraping together pennies in seasonal jobs that seek people just like them out. Back when my husband and I took our annual vacation this year, we went up to the Apostle Islands (a National Park in Wisconsin’s part of Lake Superior), and one of the couples we met while there had told us they lived in Arizona but had spent the summer as camp hosts in Wisconsin, and this was one of their destinations on their way back home. Bruder’s book is a look at lives like theirs.

But what made this really a strong read for me was the look at Amazon’s practices with their warehouse employees. I feel like everyone “knows” how tough Amazon working conditions are, but I felt myself getting sick thinking about someone like my grandmother being forced to walk 20+ miles a day on concrete floors, get repetitive stress injuries, being told to pill up at the pain pill stations, and more, just so they could meet unreasonable daily quotas. It really changed how I use Amazon.

This was a book I recommend with Janesville when it comes to thinking about how much our economy and the middle class has changed.

Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson

I think Watson’s YA is some of the most underrated YA out there, and this book — another read with a short page count — packs in so much about race, class, and discrimination. But in addition to taking a sharp look at all of those meaty topics, this is a book that, at heart, is about a girl who loves art. Her passion shines through, and it was such a powerful reminder that, amid all of the awful and tough things a person experiences in their daily life, there can be something that drives them and keeps them afloat.

A Short History of The Girl Next Door by Jared Reck

I’m not a crier. But this book? I was crying for the entire second half of the (again!) short little read. This is a book about a boy who has grown up with a great female friend across the street and how he feels when suddenly, their freshman year of high school, she gets a boyfriend. He has to struggle with never taking a chance with her beyond their friendship.

But then THE THING happens and suddenly, this book becomes one about learning how to grow up, deal with your emotions for yourself, and learning that the world does not revolve around you and your pain is not worse than anyone else’s. There’s a great look at toxic masculinity that, while not called that, is so clear and obvious that it begs to be talked about. I read a book earlier this year that has been gracing the New York Times List over and over which tried to do this, but failed spectacularly. But Reck’s book? Gets it.

This is one that readers itching for younger YA protags will want to pop on their reading list. Also, it’s a feels book. You’re going to have them all. And you’ll need tissues, too.

But it’s worth it.

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

If I could choose to write with the sort of brevity and emotional impact as any writer, it’d be LaCour. This is a powerful book about grief, about friendship, and about love. It’s a slower read, but it’s absolutely beautiful. It oozes with loneliness while settling into your bones and making you feel like you yourself are not alone. A literary gem.

You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie

This book gave me a lot of the same kinds of feelings that LaCour’s did, but this one is a memoir about Alexie and his relationship to his mother. It’s vulnerable. Told through short vignettes, this explores relationships, family, life on the reservation, and the challenges Alexie had with his mother…while also offering compassion and insight into why and how she did what she did as a mother and what it was he was able to get from his relationship with her. Readers who love Alexie’s YA book will want to give this a read, in part because he talks about the book and the process for how it came to be. It’s not an easy nor a quick read, but the format and style make it one you can pick up and put down over the course of time you need to read it.

2017 Favorite Bookish Moments

I was so lucky to be able to do so many things relating to Here We Are‘s release this year, and I got to meet so many incredible readers and writers. Here’s an abbreviated reflection on some of my favorite moments relating to that, as well as some of my favorite/biggest reading moments:

I attended two literary festivals: the Tucson Book Festival (wherein I got to see this gorgeous city with the help of Hannah Gomez, who gave me a grand tour as a local) and the San Antonio Book Festival (wherein I spent the morning of my event wandering the River Walk alone, visiting the Alamo again, and then having my event in the most amazing cathedral talking about feminism with Jessica Luther and Siobhan Vivian).

I’d asked my publicist about doing an event at Book People — the bookstore which really was a buoy for me during my time in Austin — and it happened. Not only did it happen, but it was a standing room only event, and I’ll never forget seeing so many faces from my time at school down there. One of the folks who attended said it was likely the biggest assembly of UT iSchool students in one place that wasn’t a study session.

After my annual review for Book Riot, we’d talked about dreams/goals/what I’d like to do. We did not once talk about beginning a YA podcast, but a month later, the idea was floated to me, and then when I floated to Eric Smith that I’d love him as a cohost, it was born. This is such a fun little biweekly podcast, and it’s fun to talk enthusiastically about books and reading with someone who is as enthusiastic as Eric is.

For my 33rd birthday, I set a goal of funding 33 classrooms through Donors Choose. This was in mid-August. By my birthday at the end of September, one of my editors at Algonquin asked if she could take part and up the number of funded classrooms to match her birthday age (her birth date was a few days after mine). We funded over 56 classrooms in a little over a month. It was incredible and reminded me how, when a community can come together, big changes can happen.

I did a bookstore event in Vermont, driving there by myself from Providence, Rhode Island. It was my first time renting a car alone, and it was my first time driving through the northeast. It was my first time in Vermont. When I got to the bookstore, I was surprised to see not one, not two, but THREE of my friends from various parts of my life. Unbelievable love.

And that day? It only got better when I then drove from Vermont to the Hudson Valley for an event at Oblong Books, where another friend had surprised me by showing up. Book people are the best people.

I sold my second anthology (Don’t) Call Me Crazy, about mental health, and spent almost all year putting it together. It’s in copyedits now for a fall publication date.

I rediscovered my love of nonfiction books on audio. I finally got an audible subscription — a perk of being a podcast host for my job — and I’ve listened to a lot of great nonfiction while doing various household tasks. I’m considering installing one of those bluetooth shower speakers when we move into our new home early next year (we’re moving from Wisconsin to Illinois, which isn’t bookish news, though I guess saying we’ll be 4 blocks from an amazing local indie and under a mile to the local library IS bookish).

I made the difficult, but necessary, decision to step down from my role as a panelist on this year’s first round YA Cybils committee. It wasn’t giving me what I needed in terms of discussion or critical evaluation, so I did what was best for me and left. No hard feelings with the Cybils or anyone involved; it was 100% for and about me and my needs.

I read all of Harry Potter for the first time. I revisited all of the Ramona Quimby books. I read through all of Stephen King’s It. I’ve started thinking a bit about what it is I’d like to make my reading project for 2018, and I’m thinking about the LM Montgomery books I never read (I tried reading the Emily series at one point, but I wasn’t ready to commit).

This here little blog celebrated 9 years. I continue to love what Kimberly and I are able to do every week and continue to appreciate those of you who are new readers, long time readers, or who happened to stumble upon us.

Attending and speaking at NCTE/ALAN was one of my favorite experiences, as was moderating a panel at ALA on feminism, inclusivity, and the need for all of us to do better — where I got to have five excellent women of color talking about their work, about their stories, and learn so much that, I hope, makes me not just a better person, but also a more thoughtful and critical reader.

I created the #RiotGrams challenge for Book Riot and ran this Instagram bookish photo challenge in February, June, and October (which, incidentally, will be when it hits again this coming year if you want to take part). It was so fun to build such a fun bookish community on Instagram and build my TBR simultaneously.

I kept up with Litsy (you can follow me there @kelly) and with Goodreads, as well as kept a massive reading spreadsheet for myself. My longest read this year was It by Stephen King. And with a good estimation, my total page count landed somewhere in the 145,000 range, with roughly 135 books read total.

One fun thing I did this year: I tracked my library holds on Instagram. I’m going to do this again in the new year, perhaps with a special tag so I can round them up periodically for sharing.

Thanks for this year, 2017. I’m eager to see where 2018’s reading leaves me. I know for now, in this last week, I’m ready to pick up a few “for me only” reads, tackle some of the excellent gift books I’ve received, and relaxing.

Reading Records: An Informal Analysis of My Reading

July 20, 2016 |

I’ve been tracking my reading on Goodreads since 2008. (Unlike Kelly, I haven’t been tracking my reading in print before that, but I wish I had!) My reading tastes have changed a lot since then – I’ve focused more narrowly on young adult, but I’ve also branched out genre-wise and read a lot more contemporary and nonfiction. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how my reading has evolved, and I thought it would be fun to put together an informal analysis based on my Goodreads shelves. What have you noticed about your reading tastes over the years? Has Goodreads – or some other method of tracking – helped you identify your personal trends?

The number of books I read has definitely spiked. I read about 140 in 2014, which was the first year I was on Round 1 for Cybils, but the increase in my reading really began in 2010, which is when I started blogging in earnest here at Stacked. Blogging helps me read more, which in turn helps me blog more. Lucky me and lucky you! I’ve read a total of 753 books since 2008, give or take a few re-reads and missed records.

Since I started tracking my reading, I’ve read 184 adult books, 535 young adult books, and 97 books for children (which includes middle grade and picture books). I don’t actually record a whole lot of the picture books I read, so that number is likely higher – but these numbers also include random titles I added that I read prior to 2008, which includes a lot of children’s books. The data is not perfect. Still, these numbers aren’t surprising at all.

This graph shows how my YA reading has increased over the years. 2014 is a bit of an outlier since I read just a ton of books that year, period, but the overall trend is definitely upward.

This graph shows what percentage of my total yearly reading was spent on YA vs non-YA. I think it gives a clearer idea of how my reading really has skewed more toward YA as the years have passed, starting at about half in the first two years and gradually increasing each year. The exception is 2015, when I went back and re-read a ton of adult fiction that I loved years ago.

A lot of my reading has included non-traditional formats – audiobooks and graphic novels. Almost half of my reading is one of these two formats, and they’ve both seen an overall increase in the share of my reading over the years.

I credit the Cybils with significantly increasing my audiobook reading over the past two years. Also of note is that 2016 is about half over but I’ve already almost matched my audiobooks from last year!

I really started getting into graphic novels in 2010 and my interest in them has been pretty sustained since then (I don’t know what happened in 2012). I haven’t picked up many this year yet, but I’ve a feeling that 2016 number will be higher by December.

The figures that make up this chart include anything I added that I read prior to 2008, which is about 86 additional books. They were too tricky to eliminate from my genre count, but I don’t think they skew the data that much. This was a somewhat surprising graph for me. I consider myself a pretty avid romance reader, but it only makes up 5% of the books I recorded on Goodreads. A lot of my romance reading happened when I was a teenager, and not many of those books made it to my Goodreads account. The fantasy and science fiction, though – that’s not a surprise at all.

I did the star rating graph this way because I think it kind of looks like a grading bell curve. Most of my ratings are in the 3-star territory, with the fewest receiving 1 star and 5 stars. I’ve only given 15 books one star, and most of those are books I read several years ago. If a book is looking like it’s going to be a one-star read nowadays, I usually set it down and it goes on my “unfinished” shelf instead.

Tracking My Reading & Tracking Myself

May 9, 2016 |

I got a really interesting pitch email the other day. It wasn’t what was being pitched, but rather, one of the means in which I could highlight the book: I could share it on Instagram.

I’ve become a big fan of taking pictures of what I’m currently reading. I use it both on Instagram, as well as on Litsy (where I’m simply @kelly). Instagram because it’s available on the web; Litsy, since it’s a community limited for the time being to iOS mobile users. The photos are not just about the book. They’re also about where I am right now, in my life, in my space, and the entire atmosphere of reading. Photos capture something more to the reading experience than an update on Twitter or Pinterest or Goodreads or right here on STACKED could.

These images, these ways of sharing, are also very public. There’s intentionality in how I choose to share; I highlight things I like in images, talk about books on social media after I’ve finished them and mulled them over, and I am deliberate in the ways and hows. I like doing it, plan to continue doing it, and cannot imagine a reading life without it.

But despite the new technology and the fun there is to be had on each, I still track my reading in a very personal, private, long standing way: I keep a list of books I’ve read in a spiral-bound notebook.

The notebook on the bottom I began in 2001. That was my sophomore/junior year of high school. I picked up the habit of doing it after my mom began doing it herself as a way to remember what books she’d read. Rather than keeping a “to read” list, I began keeping a “read” list.

It’s weird to look at this list now, 15 years later. I don’t remember reading Harry Potter back then. It mustn’t have left a huge impact, since I didn’t pick up (most of) the rest of the series until well into college. But I do remember why I picked up Ishmael — it was sitting on a bookshelf of a friend’s when we snuck to her house between the end of school and badminton practice and I remember thinking a book about an ape sounded interesting. I remember picking up Innocence and then needing to pick up Mendelsohn’s other book immediately after. Fifteen years later, I still recall the visceral reactions I had to Innocence and how much I loved it.

And there’s no shaking the vivid memory of picking up Push and not just reading it, but being moved by it and immediately seeking the chance to talk about it with fellow book lovers (who, yes, at the time were on the internet — we had a whole teen community of book lovers and writers).

I lost this notebook for a period of time, somewhere between the end of high school in 2003 and the beginning of college in the fall of that same year. I picked up another notebook, same brand, same size, but with a pink cover. From the beginning of college until this very day, this is where I’ve written down every single book I’ve finished.

Between those lines are the memories of the books in some pieces, and in others, it’s the memory of the where, the when, and the why. I read so many debut YA novels in 2011, which is reflected; in 2015, my reading went a little broader, though was still mostly YA. I didn’t snap a shot of this year’s pages, but of the 40ish books I’ve finished so far, it’s almost an even mix of adult novels and non-fiction with YA.

I remember spending a long time on that first day of 2015 debating what my first read should be and choosing my all-time favorite book. I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed then.

I’ve cut back on reviewing here at STACKED, and I’ve also cut back quite a bit on Goodreads. But I still take notes on things, and I still keep my read list up. I’ve added new things to the mix, ways to talk about books with people in a way that will compel them to read it or pair it up with the reader who it’ll be the right book for. Nothing, though, no matter how fun and exciting, will ever take the private part of my handwritten reading notebook away from me. In no way are the stories of the books I read all the kind I need or want to share because they’re for me and me alone.

It’s a reflection of me, my growth, my thinking, a snapshot of time in my life, that I could never capture in any sort of digital world. What began as a simple way of making sure I don’t read something I’ve already read has bloomed into this incredibly personal way of seeing my life and my development as a thinker.

Tell me: do you keep a read list? Do you keep anything of your reading life private, just for you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

2014 Reading Stats and Data Sheets

January 2, 2015 |

Every year, I like to take a look at my reading in terms of data. Who was I reading? What was I reading? Were there any trends? I’ve been doing a statistical breakdown of these for a few years now, and I’ve gotten it to a science where I don’t need to look at too much information to get a clear picture of where I am, what I want to do in the next year, and where I could improve.

I’d planned on posting this before the end of 2014, but I made some decisions in terms of stats keeping that I wanted to change. I wanted to look not just at the books I read, but also the books that I bought. Am I putting my money where my mouth is when it comes to things like diversity? What am I buying?

Then I decided, too, that I wanted to set up a series of spreadsheets for 2015 that looked not just at my books read and books purchased data, but also the books I received from publishers. Am I getting diverse books if I don’t ask for them? What is being sent to me in multiples? I’m not sure this data will tell me a whole lot at the end of this year, but I know it’ll be interesting to look at. I’ve already found there are books I’m getting in multiple.

Because it’s the start of a new year and I know other people are looking to be more mindful of their own reading and purchasing habits, I’m making my basic Google Doc available for anyone to use. There are three sheets here — one for reading, one for purchasing, and one for review copies received. Save a copy of this publicly-available doc on your own Google Drive or download it to your computer and feel free to adapt it to your own needs. All of the categories are pretty self-explanatory.

If you want to push your reading and data collection even further, I can’t recommend the Ultimate Reading Spreadsheet from Book Riot highly enough. It looks at way more than I do, but I know how useful that can be. Sarah Enni also created a really robust reading data spreadsheet, especially good for tracking genre/audience of books read, if you’re looking for more options.

Here’s a look at my last year in reading.

In 2014, I read a total of 113 books. There were a total of 119 authors represented, which included illustrators and collaborators on graphic novels and comics. I did not include the translators of the two books I read that were in translation in that count.

By gender:

I read a total of 24 books written or illustrated by men and a total of 95 written or illustrated by women. I’m okay with this break down. I might try to read more men — specifically men of color — in 2015.

By audience/category:

Out of the 113 books I read in 2014, 82 were YA, 27 were adult, and 4 were middle grade. I was surprised to see that I read that many adult books. I’m hoping in 2014 to read more adult books — I’m especially hoping to read a good chunk of memoirs by women of color.

Other data:

21 of the books I read were written by authors who debuted in 2014. This is a stat I’m pleased with.

8 of the books I read had LGBTQIA+ themes to them. This is a low number, especially considering I thought I was reading a good spread of these books. But it turns out I happened to read many in a row, and then I didn’t read many more after. I’m going to improve here in 2015.

32, or 28%, of the books I read this year were written by people of color or featured main characters of color. I’ve included Native authors here, even though Deb Reese explains why Native authors aren’t “people of color,” for the sake of my own record keeping.

Here’s a look at my 2014 in terms of books purchased.

Before I looked at the books I bought, I thought I didn’t buy many books. When I pulled them all out, I’d purchased a total of 46 books, which is more than 3 per month. That’s way more than I thought and far higher than the average person (which ranges somewhere between 6 and 11, depending on what sources you read). There were a total of 47 authors and for some reason, I didn’t include the illustrators in this round.

Not included in this data are the books I bought for prizes for readers here at Stacked. These are only titles I added to my personal library.

By gender:

36 of the books I bought in 2014 were written by women, while 11 were written by men. These percentages look pretty darn close to the ones for the genders of authors of books I read in 2014.

By or about people of color:

Almost one-third of the books I bought were written by people of color or featured main characters of color. Again, I included Native authors and characters in this grouping. This number was solid; this is something I am conscious of when I buy books. One night I walked out of a bookstore this year — a chain — because I could not find one book in the YA section by a person of color that wasn’t on the New York Times list to buy.

In 2015, I hope to up this percentage even more.

By category/audience:

I bought slightly more adult, when non-fiction and fiction are combined, than I did YA. But not much. Since I tend to read more YA, I tend to borrow it much more frequently than I do buy it, because otherwise, I would never have any money.

Keeping track of my reading means when the year winds down and I start thinking about the next year’s reading, I’m able to be more intentional in my choices. Intentionality is what guides my reading, not a set of goals or bench markers.