I love tracking my reading and compiling my stats at the end of the year. 2019 was an excellent reading year for me. I finished 210 books, and an amazing 46 of those were 5-star reads and another 112 were 4-star reads for me. So many good books! My top 19 of 2019 are shown above, but here are some highlights.
Favorite audiobook of the year: The Stand by Stephen King, narrated by Grover Gardner.

Favorite new-to-me author of the year: Susan Fletcher.

Favorite classic of the year: Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.

Favorite fantasy of the year: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.

Favorite post-apocalyptic of the year that was not The Stand: Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich.

Favorite historical fiction of the year: The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton.

Favorite #1001BooksToReadBeforeYouDie book of the year: The Cider House Rules by John Irving.

Favorite NetGalley ARC of the year: The Water Dancer by Ta-Nahisi Coates.

Favorite new release of 2019: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett.

These selections really just touch on what I read, but fortunately I have lots of stats to evaluate as well, thanks to my slightly obsessive tracking and my monster book spreadsheet.

Audiobooks comprised the majority of my reading: 143 of my 210 books were audio (68%). I love that audio helps me get through more excellent books each year than I normally would be able to. I love that audiobooks free me up to ‘read’ while I cook, clean, drive, exercise, etc, and I don’t feel I’m wasting nearly as much time watching mindless television as I used to.
Some stats I’m happy about:
- The majority of the authors I read were women (68%).
- I finished 38 books from the #1001books list.
- I saved $2,376 by using the library.
- I finished FIVE different annual reading challenges, and used different books for each of the 138 prompts.
Some stats I’m not crazy about:
- I spent $238 on new books for myself, despite owning 674 tbr books at the beginning of the year. 😬
- My unread tbr count on 1/1/2019 was 674. My unread tbr count on 12/31/2019 was 715. Whoopsie.
- I didn’t read nearly enough books from POC authors. I thought I was doing well on that front, but ended up only 16% of total books read by non-white authors. I plan to watch these stats more closely throughout 2020 and do much better.
All in all, I’m happy with my reading year. I read some great books, joined NetGalley, interacted with wonderful bookish people on Litsy, started this blog, and overall just enjoyed books and life.
On to 2020!
Until next time,
