Closing the books on 2021

Map indicating the author’s country of birth for all the books I have read in 2021

So, 2021 is finally over. It did have some highlights, but for a large part it was a dreary, exhausting year (I hate border closures with all my heart). Blogging largely fell to the side in pure exhaustion, but I did read quite a bit. Exactly 100 books in total.

As usual I read most of the books in English (64), followed by Swedish (30) and Norwegian (6). 53 of the books were written by women and 47 by men, a surprisingly even split. Authors from the United Kingdom (33) dominated, followed by Swedish (16) and US authors (11), but authors born in 31 different countries (a new record since I started to keep track!) were represented in my reads. In addition the books were published in 17 different decades.

Early in my blogging days I started the 30-20-10 challenge where the goal was to read books by authors from 30 countries, 20 books written by a woman and 20 by man, and in 10 different decades. At that time I had no real intention of finishing in one year (and I didn’t), but it pushed me to broaden my reading and in 2021 I succeeded without even trying, which feels really good.

Memorable first time reads

• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• A wilder time by William E. Glassley
• Daughters of smoke and fire by Ava Homa

Most read blog posts in 2021

• Why everyone needs to read The Brothers Lionheart (from 2018, a newer post on the same book can be found here)
• More a tadpole than a fish (from 2017)
• The importance of language

Reading plans for 2022

I loved the ReadIndies month that Karen and Lizzie hosted last year and really look forward to the 2022 edition. In addition I plan to join the Narniathon, but other than that my ambition is to read often, widely, but most of all for enjoyment.

Happy New Reading Year!

Closing the books – 2020 edition

The geographical distribution (author’s country of birth) of my 2020 reading. (Guide on how to make this type of maps).

It is, finally, a New Year, and thus time for my final reading statistics post of 2020. All in all it has at least been a good reading year, in total I finished 141 books in 2020 (123 in 2019, 118 in 2018 and 99 in 2017), 63 by a woman, 76 by a man and 2 by multiple authors. Although the increase in books read may be partly due to a tendency to select less challenging reads and a higher proportion of comfort reads.

Decade of first publication for the books I read during 2020.

I may not have travelled very far physically in 2020, but fortunately my reading had no such problems. As in the previous years books by authors from UK (47), US (43) and Sweden (18) dominated my reading, but I have managed to read books written by authors from 23 countries (22 in 2019, 27 in 2018 and 21 in 2017), which I am fairly happy with.

Some 2020 reading highlights have included:

• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• A woman in the polar night by Christiane Ritter
• Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Söderberg
• Asken Yggdrasil by Alf Henriksson
• The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlöf
• The thing around your neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Even though I haven’t been very active this year, writing only 19 blog posts, book blogging remains my primary place for bookish discussions, so I am very happy for all of you who keep visiting and commenting, thank you!

Most visited blog posts in 2020

• Why everyone needs to read The Brothers Lionheart (from 2018)
• Personal book canon – a self portrait in books (my own favourite post of the year)
• 1956 in children’s literature

I wish you all a happy new reading year!