Tag: Reading statistics and progress reports

Closing the books on 2021

~ ireadthatinabook ~ 6 Comments

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

Most read blog posts in 2021

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!

Three months in and what have I read?

~ ireadthatinabook ~ 13 Comments

Based on my reading statistics the beginning of 2021 seems to have been great for reading. So far I have read 47 books by authors from 20(!) countries and ranging in style from Tolstoy to Ludlum. Normally that would have been a very good thing, but I think mostly that I have been hiding within my books. With closed borders emigration feels more like exile, and I have been very homesick lately. I have had some really good reading experiences lately though, In February the Read Indies month made me discover several interesting books, and more recently I finally took the time to read Anna Karenina.

Some memorable reads

Påskekrim

For Easter my focus is on crime novels, Påskekrim, as that is the Norwegian tradition. I started with Margery Allingham’s fine WW2 thriller Traitor’s Purse, where the main characters amnesia adds complexities to the character and makes the plot feel more like a nightmare.

Having been intrigued by the way the fictional characters’ amnesia added to the mystery I decided that it was time to finally read another famous amnesia thriller, Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity, and I also re-watched the film. I wasn’t very impressed by the book, although I did not do it any favour by reading it in Norwegian, I can never take thrillers in Norwegian seriously, it just sounds wrong. However, the central idea of a man with amnesia who has no idea of who he is, but who quickly realizes that he has some disturbing skills and that everyone he meets seems to want to kill him, is excellent thriller material, as proven by the much better film version.

Reading the two books right after each other was interesting though, as it allowed me to compare how the authors used the trope to drive the plot and add complexities to the character’s sense of identity. If anyone knows of any other good amnesia thrillers or crime novels I wouldn’t mind adding a third title to my comparison.

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Summer reading

~ ireadthatinabook ~ 8 Comments

Swedish mountain

The summer vacation is unfortunately already over, but despite the odds I did get my usual mountain summer filled with hiking and reading. It is always a bit hard to return home, although I have to admit that it is lovely to again have access to hot showers…

This year I have read more than usual, a total of 101 books since January. This is probably largely due to a stronger than usual inclination to go for easy reads, many of them unmemorable, but I have had some real reading highlights during the summer. I have been thrilled by Doctor Glas, Hjalmar Söderberg’s tale about the morality of murder, read creepy ghost stories by Dan Andersson in Det kallas vidskepelse and travelled through Sweden in Selma Lagelöf’s The wonderful adventures of Nils, the latter particularly relevant in a time when travel is again difficult. I have also read two excellent, but rather different, short story collections, The thing around your neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Jag ser allt du gör (I see all you do) by Annika Norlin. All of these are highly recommended. In addition my recent discovery of the high quality publisher Archipelago Books, helped me ensure that not everything I read came from European or North American authors.

While my weeks outside internet coverage have been wonderfully restful, they have also meant that I am hopelessly behind on everyone’s blogs. So if any of you have read anything you particularly want to recommend this summer, I would be happy to hear about it in the comments…

read_aug2020
Map showing the author’s country of origin for all my 2020 reads

 

Progress report

~ ireadthatinabook ~ 14 Comments

read_aug_2019

Map showing the author’s country of birth for all books I have read so far in 2019. (Instructions for how I make these maps can be found here.)

August is at its end which I guess is a perfect time for me to look back at what I have read in 2019. So far I have read 81 books, by 35 women and 36 men (and ten by multiple authors). I have read books from 16 decades and by authors from 14 countries and I have read them in four different languages (which sounds really impressive unless I accidentally tell you that three of those languages are Scandinavian).

Some reading highligts

  • My Antonia by Willa Cather
  • Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson
  • Kolarhistorier (Charcoal burner’s tales) by Dan Andersson
  • Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag
  • Rereadings by Anne Fadiman (ed)
  • The Gentle Art of Tramping by Stephen Graham
  • My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

Reading challenges in 2019

Reading classics

For the Classics club my ambition was to read and review 12 books from my list. So far I have only reviewed four, so I am falling a bit behind on this challenge but I have a few more in the pipe-line so I shouldn’t do too badly.

Read and reviewed in 2019

Read but not reviewed

  • My Antonia by Willa Cather

Currently reading

  • The Pillow Book
  • Fredmans epistlar
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Keep reading books by African, Asian and South American authors

I am not doing too well on this ambition. Africa and South America are once again blank spots on my reading map and although I am doing slightly better with Asia and the Middle East, most of my reading comes from UK, US or one of the Nordic countries. With only a few exceptions I am afraid that I have stayed quite firmly within my reading comfort zone this year. Hopefully the autumn will be calmer and leave me with more energy to be brave in my reading.

Best read in this category: Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag.

Book buying

My book buying ambition this year was to spend less on books than I did last year. I am doing well so far, I have only spend 72% of what I did the first eight months of 2018, so I am optimistic.

How is your 2019 reading going? Any recommendations on South American or African books? Recommendations on short, easy, but good, fiction from these continents are particularly welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring reading and Ex libris

~ ireadthatinabook ~ 10 Comments

old oak tree

Spring is well on its way (although we did have an unexpected snowfall yesterday) and it’s once again time to look back on my reading. Overall this has been a rather disappointing spring for reading. I have been tired and overworked, and as a consequence have reverted back to safe and easy reads, such as the British Library Crime Classics. Many of these have been great fun but I miss having the energy and courage to explore new authors and literary traditions.

In total I have read 21 books by authors from seven countries, which sounds quite good but a closer look at the data reveals that all but one, The three-body problem by Cixin Liu, came from the Anglosphere or a Nordic country.

The best read so far has been Durrell’s My family and other animals but I also really liked Napier’s A late beginner, Cixin Liu’s The three-body problem and some of the British Library Crime Classics.

Reading challenges

Reading classics

So far I have read, but not reviewed, one novel from my Classics club reading list, Kallocain by Karin Boye. I have not yet reviewed any books for the Back to the classics reading challenge, although some of the books I have read could count toward the challenge.

Keep reading books by African, Asian and South American authors

Here too I am struggling, although The three-body problem gives me one author from China. Technically I could also count Gerald Durrell for India, as he was born there (I have found country of birth to be a somewhat less confusing way to organize the authors than nationality), but that feels like cheating.

Book buying

I decided not to limit the number of books I bought this year, as long as the total cost was no more than what I spent last year. So far that seems to have worked, I have spent slightly less than I did the first four months last year, finally a challenge I am managing!

Other bookish news: Bookplates

I come from a bookplate using family, both my parents and my grandmother have their own ex libris labels and I have long longed for one of my own. Frequent visits to second-hand book shops have however taught me that this is very far from the norm. Despite the fact that a substantial proportion of my books are bought second-hand, I don’t think I own any with a bookplate not from my own family. I have a suspicion that bookplates may have enjoyed a brief popularity thirty years ago, at the time when my parents got theirs, but have been out of fashion ever since.

Fortunately being out of fashion has never really bothered me, but it has made it hard to find a good-looking high-quality bookplate to use. In the end I found that Slightly Foxed had a small but beautiful selection and choose one of them, and now I am eagerly awaiting their arrival and contemplating which of my books that would benefit from an ex libris. I don’t plan to use it on all my books, just the ones closest to my heart which I expect to keep through any future moves or book culls. Right now I take great pleasure in considering which these books are.

How about you? How’s your spring reading going? Anyone else using bookplates or am I entirely out of fashion there?

 

 

Progress report

~ ireadthatinabook ~ 10 Comments

Map showing the author's country of origin for the books I've read in 2018Map showing author’s country of origin for the books I have read during the first eight months of 2018.

Autumn is here, another third of the year has gone, and I believe it is time for another progress report on my reading and my reading challenges.

So far I have read 86 books in 2018, by 47 women and 35 men (and four anthologies). I have read books from eighteen decades and by authors from twenty-three countries. All-in-all I’m having an excellent reading year.

Reading challenges for 2018

Finish the unfinished 30-20-20-10 challenge from 2017 (done)

Read 12 books from countries I read no more than 1 book from in 2017 (done, 19/12 read)

Some highlights:

For simplicity all countries listed are the author’s country of birth (as far as I could tell).

Read and blog about at least 12 books from my Classics club reading list

I’m slightly behind on this challenge. So far I have only read seven books from my Classics Club list, bringing me up to a total of 12 out of 50 since my start in October 2017.

The classics from my list that I have finished are:

I also joined the Back to the classics reading challenge

Here the goal was to read classics corresponding to different categories. I have now read books for nine of the twelve categories and reviewed eight of them.

Read at least as many of my unread books (including new books) as I buy in 2018

I knew that this one would be the worst of this years challenges and yes, I am falling behind. Only by three books so far though so there is hope that I might catch-up before the end of the year.

How’s your reading coming along? Are you also having a good reading year?