2018 in review

2018 was a great year for reading. I far outpaced previous years in quantity, and the quality of books I read was decidedly better, too. My stated goal on Goodreads at the start of the year was to read 60 books, but I actually ended up reading 65 (not including 5 I left unfinished). You can find my top ten here.

I'm going to divide the books I read into categories, including page number, genre, and format, and analyze from there.

page number

>300: 33

300-500: 27

500+: 5

As you can see, the bulk of the books I read were less than 300 pages, though 300-500 page books were a close second. According to my Goodreads 2018 Year in Books, the average length of books I read was 328 pages. The shortest book I read was La vida del Lazarillo del Tormes, which was 96 pages. The longest book I read was A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin, which was 1,177 pages. It is also the longest book I have ever read period.

genre

fiction: 27

- mystery: 7

- literary: 5

- contemporary: 4

- fantasy: 3

- historical: 3

- other: 5

nonfiction: 19

- biography/autobiography/memoir: 8

- Christian: 7

- other: 4

drama: 14

- tragedy: 5

- comedy: 5

- other: 4

poetry: 5

- epic: 4

- other: 1

2018 was a good year for diverse reading. I actually read more nonfiction, drama, and poetry combined than I read fiction, which is interesting considering I study fiction at college. The categories I dived into the most were mysteries, Christian nonfiction, and biography/autobiography/memoir. This year, I hope to expand my reading even further, by diving into more contemporaries and mysteries and trying other categories that I don't usually pick from.

format *

- paperback: 30

- audiobook: 20

- anthology: 12

- hardcover: 7

- ebook: 2

As usual, I read more paperbacks than anything else. However, 2018 was the year I really discovered audiobooks. I've always enjoyed them, but this year I finally signed up for an Audible membership. It was the best decision I made all year, probably. Sometimes I really just can't concentrate on a physical book, especially when I'm reading nonfiction, and sometimes I want to do something mindless while I'm reading, like wash dishes or clean my room. You'll note I also read a lot from an anthology; specifically, The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, which I used for my Shakespeare class this past semester.

Overall, 2018 was a great year for books, and I hope that 2019 will be even better! This year, my goal is to read 80 books. I'm really excited to see what those books will be.

xx Liz

What books did you read in 2018?

* total amounts to more than 100% because I read some books in more than one format