A YEAR IN READING

Books, books, and more books

Hey hey!

It’s 2023! What better thing to do than look back at what I read last year, just when we’re all burnt out on year-end lists. Lol. But I was running the reading clock out until the last minute. I really thought I was one or two short from beating last year’s number, but I went to make these charts and it turns out I read the exact same number of books as I did last year!!! I don’t think I could have planned that if I tried.

Without further ado, let’s get to the charts.

71 books read this year! Tbh, I’m proud of that. I wanted to read more than last year and as you will see below, I made a big push in December but eh, I’ll take a draw over a loss any day.

This isn’t super surprising, either. My whole family got Covid in April (we were and are fine) but the sickness and caregiving burnout made May tough. Summer, too, not a big time for reading for me! There is just too much going on in NYC and frankly, I want to be out in the sunshine as much as possible. Hmmm, more reading on the beach this year for me, I think.

And look at all those genres! If it doesn’t say the audience (YA, etc), then it’s adult. I just love how many slices there are in this graphic. This year, I want to read more Romance, even more Historicals, and some more Manga.

When ebooks came around, everyone was like the print book is dooooooomed! Clearly, they were wrong. In terms of format, my biggest slices here are manuscripts, i.e. client books, which I typically read on my ipad, and audiobooks, which I breeze through while I’m running or folding laundry or the like. I occasionally read an ebook, usually for a book I’m pretty sure I won’t want to keep in my collection or need last minute (like for my book club, when I forget lol), and the “hybrid” noted here means the roughly two times I read half an ebook and then switched to the audiobook (either getting one or the other format from the library then purchasing the other online), to get it read faster. Long live as many book formats as the people want to read!!!

I know this chart doesn’t look that much different than the one above, but it tells me a few different, interesting things. 1. Roughly 68% of the books I consume I do with my eyeballs. 2. Roughly 67% of the books I consume are traditionally published. And 3. Roughly 30% of my total (full length book) reading is for clients. Tbh, I thought that last number would be larger, but it doesn’t count partials, proposals, chapters, and of course emails. Can you imagine if we counted how many emails we read a year? lol/sob

I’m not shocked at all that I read almost exclusively adult books this year. The YA and MG I read this year was definitely for clients and my beloved book club (which I’ve been in for about 19 years!!!!!!). I’m not actively avoiding YA or MG right now. As I noted in my charts newsletter last week, fewer of my clients are writing YA and MG right now, so that’s reflected in my overall reading numbers. And I’m reading and loving so much adult historical fiction now. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The heart reads what it wants.

This year, I got a Libro.fm subscription. It’s amazing!! I still get a lot of audiobooks from the library, (luv you Libby app), and I am lucky enough to live near like 5 amazing independent bookstores and a B&N. (And “gratis” means I got it for free from and editor friend. Thanks editor friends!) I cannot stop buying new books—sorry not sorry. I do, however, resolve to actually read the ones I bought last year (while still buying more this year). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And here is the list of books I read this year, minus my clients’ manuscripts you can’t know about yet. I’m not going to pick a favorite and I wholeheartedly recommend all of these to you.

OXOXOXOXOX,

Kate