2013 Year in Review, and a Look Ahead to 2014

It’s a new year, which means taking a look back at my reading stats for 2013 and looking ahead at plans for 2014. I’m going to be as brief as possible because I really want to just sit down and read, which I haven’t had a chance to do a whole lot of lately. So instead of typing out all my stats for 2013, I took some screen shots of the app I use to keep track of my reading:

Totals for 2013

The numbers for 1001 Books (You Must Read Before You Die), The Classics Club, and The Non-Fiction Adventure are all-time totals, but the rest are my totals for 2013. I did a lot more reading on my Kindle this year than I’ve ever done since I bought it, and I used the library way more than ever. This also means that I spent quite a bit less money on books this year than I usually do. That’s a plus in the banking department. 2013 ended up being the year of rereads, which was a lot of fun, although I didn’t read as many books from my TBR pile mountain as I would have liked (understatement of the year). I have over 500 books on that mountain (the curse of the library book sale), so I really need to put a bigger dent in it this year. 2013 was also the year of 21st-century fiction, apparently, and I usually read more nonfiction than that. I’ll have to get back into the nonfiction this year if I want to meet my goal for the Non-Fiction Adventure. I also totally slacked off on the classics this year–I need to get back into those, too. I’m pretty happy with my male to female author ratio this year, but disappointed in my authors of color stat. I also need to work on reading more LGBT literature (by LGBT authors). The entire list of books I read in 2013 can be viewed here.

Some other interesting statistics that I didn’t keep track of with that app:

My friend sj and I started a project in 2013 to read all of Stephen King’s books in order of publication. In the first year, we read 25 out of his eleventy-billion published books. That’s actually pretty good. We averaged two a month. We also read a bunch of non-King books together, for a grand total of 39. Some of the other books we read together included the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde and the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane. We always have great conversations about books when we read them together. So much fun.

According to Goodreads, I gave a 5-star rating to 57 books this year (they actually say 56, but they’re not counting my reread of Infinite Jest in any of my stats); I gave 106 books a 4-star rating; 46 books received a 3-star rating; and I gave a 2-star rating to 5 books. I tend not to give out 1-star ratings because that would just be a DNF for me (which wouldn’t get a rating anyway, if I didn’t finish it). I’m not going to attempt to list my favorites of 2013 because it would be a long list. There were far more than 10 and I would feel bad leaving any of them out. Les Misérables was the longest book I read in 2013.

Plans for 2014:

2013′s YoRWtFIW was a relative success, but again, because of my ever-growing TBR mountain, I’m hoping to be more staunch about it in 2014. I’ve started a new page to keep track of the books I read in 2014–you can find it in the blog menu under YoRWtFIW.

sj and I will be continuing our READ ALL THE SK project, obviously.

2014 is also going to be The Year of the Comics/Graphic Novels. sj keeps telling me about comics and graphic novels she thinks I would enjoy, and they are both something I’ve been meaning to spend more time with for a few years now. Since getting hooked on the TV adaptation of The Walking Dead, I’ve been wanting to read the comics the show is based on–I will be doing that starting this month. I don’t have a definitive list of the comics/graphic novels I’ll be reading in 2014 (I’m just going to play it by ear as sj recommends them to me), so if any of my readers have recommendations for me, please leave them in the comment section.

I have decided not to finish Project Read All Of Atwood as it was originally planned. I have read/reread 14 of the 21 books that were on the original list (which didn’t include MaddAddam). The rest of the books on the list were going to be rereads for me anyway and I really, REALLY want to reread Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood so I can finally read MaddAddam. (And I wasn’t looking forward to rereading The Blind Assassin since it’s not one of my favorites of hers).

#SlutsInTheAttic is still going strong through January 10th on Insatiable Booksluts. This part hasn’t been officially announced yet, but I think we’re going to try to get a watchalong together for the airing of the new Lifetime version on January 18th, so keep your eyes on IB if you’re interested.

I set my 2014 Goodreads Challenge goal at 150 books again this year. I probably could have bumped it up to 175 considering how many books I read in 2013, but I have been sucked in by the boob tube again. Sigh. After my favorite Sunday night lineup on HBO ended (Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Sex and the City), I basically stopped watching television. The only thing I’ve regularly turned the TV on to watch for years now is college basketball. Then Eric got me into The Walking Dead a few months ago. About a week ago, a friend of mine kept updating Facebook with intriguing posts about The Vampire Diaries…and now Eric and I are into that, too (we’re currently watching the old seasons on NetFlix). Once we’re caught up on TVD, we’ll have to watch the spin-off (The Originals). Not to mention that we’re still enjoying Sleepy Hollow, although the first season of that will be over at the end of this month. Needless to say, all of this has cut into my reading time. Stupid TV. (stamps foot)

Blogging. I really need to get back into blogging regularly. I said this last year, too, but then all I wanted to do was read, read, read. I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting in front of another screen. I just need to schedule one day a week to sit down and do the blog stuff without feeling bad about not getting as much reading done that day. I can do it.

I think that’s it. I don’t think I’ve forgotten anything. If I have, I’ll update this post when I think of it. I hope everyone has a wonderful year, full of books and happy times. Thank you to everyone who continues to read Between the Covers even though I’ve slacked off a bit over the past year or so. I appreciate all of you. You’re the greatest.

2013 Year in Review, and a Look Ahead to 2014

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