2019: A year in books

Ready for some bookish statistics? Come on in!

Statistics

Challenges: as many previous years, I set my Goodreads challenge to 65 books, an amount I easily used to read in a year… Not this one, unfortunately. With so many courses and exams, my reading has slowed down considerably and I fell short of my original plans: I have read only 45 books, of which:

Authors: I have read 18 books written by women (40%) and 27 written by men (60%). In previous years I have been closer to 50% each.

Formats: I have read 7 digital books, 14 audiobooks, and 24 physical books.

Languages: I have read 22 books in English and 23 books in Spanish. All the audiobooks were in English, as always.

Origin of the books: of those 24 physical books, 18 were borrowed from two public libraries, one was a classic epic English poem that the teachers of my literature course provided to print, and the rest came from my own shelves.

Genres: without getting into details, I have read 21 non-fiction books, 6 comics, 4 poetry books, and 14 novels.

Pages: According to Goodreads, I have read 11,840 pages. The shortest book was a short story by Stephan Zweig (75 pages), and the longest was the third book of Justin Cronin’s trilogy The passage (768 pages).

Other numbers: I have re-read one book; I have read 2 books together with a reading group; I have read two classic English poems; and I have read 2 books on writing in English.

Best books of the year

Among the non-fiction books I have read, I particularly enjoyed Becoming, Michelle Obama’s autobiography; Atomic habits, by James Clear; and Learning how to learn, by Barbara Oakley.

I re-read again The princess bride at the beginning of the year and that makes it, of course, one of the best books of the year. It’s amazing how this book ends up in the top list every year, ha! The great alone, by Kristin Hannah, also standed up among my fiction reads.

I have read a couple of classics that surprised me positively, taking into account my reluctance to pick up these kind of books. Evelina, by Frances Burney, was one of them.

Finally, I have discovered another favourite author: Julian Barnes. I borrowed one of his novels from the library and immediately read a second one. Now I want to read them all.

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I hope you have had a wonderful 2019, and I wish you an even better 2020.

Happy New Year!

2018: A year in books

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Cal Newport, Kristin Hannah, Mary Ann Shaffer, Natalie Goldberg, Nicholas Evans, Rosamunde Pilcher

It is that time of the year again.

2018 has been a wonderful year – many of the goals achieved, some wonderful surprises that have come right until the last day of December; I have moved into a flat where I can watch the moonrise, and I have spent time with my loved ones, who are all fine…

But let’s talk about books, because this post was meant to be a summary of my bookish statistics of the year. Ready?

I have read a total amount of 61 books, of which:

• 31 were written by women and 30 by men.
• 30 were in English and 31 in Spanish.
• There were 20 audiobooks (all of them in English), 7 ebooks and 34 regular books.
• 19 were books from the public libraries of my hometown and other places I have visited this year.
• Regarding genre, 31 has been non-fiction books (all of the audiobooks were non-fiction, by the way).
• 10 were comics.
• I’ve read 2 poetry books.
• 4 were re-reads.

I didn’t reach my Goodreads goal of reading 65 books, but it has been a busy year. I should start counting text books for the challenge!

*****

Best books of the year

I rated 15 books with five stars, and I am recommending you the following:

Deep work (Cal Newport): for those who are worried about the time wasted on social media and willing to improve their productivity.

Writing down the bones (Natalie Goldberg): you don’t need to be an aspiring writer to read Goldberg’s inspirational book. I actually read it twice this summer.

Firefly lane (Kristin Hannah): a wonderful story about a friendship, with relatable characters.

The Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society (Mary Ann Sheffer): I know I should have read this one long time ago, and now I know you were right: it’s wonderful.

The smoke jumper (Nicholas Evans): I picked this one in the library by chance, and I enjoyed every line.

Under Gemini (Rosamunde Pilcher): it’s not the book, but the author who makes me feel at home in her stories.

*****

I hope you have a very happy New Year with all the reasons to smile.

2016: a year in books

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Anna Hope, Fabio Volo, Jodi Picoult, Joe Hill, Kate Atkinson, Kazuo Ishiguro

So another year has passed and it’s time to review my bookish statistics – I love to do this every year!

In 2016 I read 65 books, just enough to finish my GoodReads challenge! Of those 65 books:

• 31 were written by women and 34 were written by men.
• 12 were “my own damn books”, meaning books I owned before 2016 started.
• 12 books were written by Spanish authors.
• I read 14 books in English.
• I listened to 16 audiobooks (all of them in English too).
• 5 were ebooks.
• I read 24 books borrowed from the library, thanks to the book club, but also because I’ve been browsing the library in search for short books to complete the challenge – I’ve discovered a handful of authors I want to read more of!

I will include more categories this year, such as author’s nationality, year of publication and fiction/non-fiction books, to make it more complete.

I’m really pleased with the amount of books I’ve read, and with the quality too: I think that we, as readers, know ourselves better every year so we chose reads we know we’ll enjoy. I have only read three books that I didn’t like or did not finished: one was a gift, another was a book club pick, and the other was my own choice.

Among the best of the year, I want to share with you the following:

I have read the two novels of Anna Hope this year, and I enjoyed both, but I fell deeply for the characters in The ballroom.

Never let me go was an unexpected favorite in my list: a sad story of love and friendship with a premise so hard to assume.

Jodi Picoult is an author that always brings up ethical and moral issues, and in The storyteller she asks if a sweet old man should be forgiven from the crimes he comitted in the past.

Daybreak is a book written as a diary in which a woman has an affair with a man, and it’s so well narrated that one just can’t believe it hasn’t been written by the protagonist, but by a man!

Life after life made me think that what we call “right” or “the best for us” sometimes brings unhappiness.

And finally, The fireman was a thriller that made me realize that I should read more books of this genre, because I have such a good time with them!

*****

Hope this new year 2017 brings you wonderful reads.

Happy New Year!

2015: A year in books

source

What a pleasure, to look back at everything you have read during the last year! Here is my summary, regarding literature, of this year.

Numbers:

In 2015 I have read a total of 65 books. Alright, I’m reading the 65th right now, but I’m confident I’ll finish it by Thursday.

I read 16 books in English and 33 in Spanish.

29 books were written by women and 36 by men.

I read 24 non-fiction books.

I read 11 ebooks on my kindle.

I listened to 16 audiobooks, all of them in English.

 

Best books of the year:

It’s easy to know them if you read my blog, because I don’t review all the books I read; only the ones I like the most. So, in no particular order, the best are:

◊ As you wish, by Cary Elwes: well, this one is in order

◊ The unicorn road, by Martin Davies.

◊ September, by Rosamunde Pilcher.

◊ A short history of nearly everything, by Bill Bryson.

◊ Sparrow: the story of a songbird, by Giovanni Verga.

◊ The martian, by Andy Weir.

◊ The bookseller, by Cynthia Swanson.

Worst books of the year:

Fortunately for you, most of them are only in Spanish, but there were a couple of them in English you should know about:

◊ With every letter, by Sarah Sundin: I didn’t even review it here. The characters were dull and they were praying almost all of the time, so this was not my book.

◊ Go set a watchman, by Harper Lee: yes, I do think To kill a mockingbird and Go set a watchman can’t coexist. They are two different stories with the same characters, and that’s why it was not published in the 60s: because it’s not a second part.

Challenges:

Oh my! This is embarrassing, but I didn’t finished any challenge. Only the Non-fiction reading challenge can be considered accomplished, but I didn’t review ten books, so I can’t say I did it.

I didn’t even finished my own challenge about reading 20 books in English, you know 😥

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Well, it’s not that bad for this busy girl.

I don’t think I can read a larger amount of books in 2016, but I hope every one of them deserves to be reviewed, because that would mean I had a good time reading them.

May your reads for this new year be enjoyable!

May in books, a monthly overview

Here you can see, once again, the books I finished last month.

I should have posted here all the text books about Law I have studied this month (Roman law, constitutional law, civil law, etc.), but somehow I thought you wouldn’t be that interested in these ones 😉

Audiobooks in English:

• The now habit (Neil Fiore): I started listening to audiobooks about habits and organization, and now I can’t stop.
• Making it all work (David Allen): a kind of second part of Getting things done that is not worth your time.

Books in English:

• Dancing backward in Paradise (Vera Jane Cook).
• The princess bride (William Goldman): a re-read I thoroughly enjoyed again. It’s my favourie book.

Books in Spanish:

• The fault in our stars (John Green): a good young adult novel.
• Intemperie (Jesús Carrasco): this time I add this book, which is not available in English for the moment, because I know it is being translated into several languages, so I suppose that sooner or later it will be in English too. A great story, but leaves you quite depressed.

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And that’s all.

They are a lot if we consider that all those books I mentioned above about law have been also deeply read this month. I’m finishing the exams at university this week, so I think that in a few days I will be reviewing as always here on the blog.

Meanwhile, enjoy your reads!

A month in books: April

April has been a great month: I have read all these books you see in the picture and three more that are only available in Spanish, which is the reason why I don’t show them here.

Two audiobooks that I listened to in English:

• The power of habit, by Charles Duhigg (review)
• Willpower, by Roy F. Baumeister (review)

Two books of short stories, again in English:

• Xingu, by Edith Wharton: it is a short story
• Children on their birthdays, by Truman Capote, which includes three short stories

A novel in Spanish:

• The postman, by Antonio Skármeta

I also want to show you that, for the first time this year, I’m ahead of schedule at GoodReads. Will this last? 😉

Hope you also had a great April, and now let’s go for May!

March in books

You might think I read eight books, according to the picture, but they were actually ten – the other two are only available in Spanish and I didn’t include them here. ¡¡Ten books!!

The power of habit (review) and The honest truth about dishonesty were audiobooks.

I read Clash of kings in Spanish as part of a joint reading, and Comfort of fences as part of a book tour.

I recieved Tea and primroses (review) from the publishers, and I couldn’t be happier because I love romance.

The returned is everywhere since the TV series is also on air in Spain, but the book disappointed me a little.

There is a collection of short stories, Flowers in the rain, by one of my favourite authors.

And finally, my favourite book of the month, chosen for my book club, was The kite runner.

Hope you had a good month as well. Now let’s start April!

February in books

I have thought about  writing a monthly overview of the books I have read; at least about the ones that I have read or which are available in English, and today it’s a good day to start, don’t you think?

There weren’t so many books on February, as you can see, but among them we have one of the novels that I will include in the Best of the year list, The horse whisperer (review); another non-fiction, Hidden in plain sight (review), thanks to which I have discovered Norman Rockwell’s work; and a romantic novel by one of the authors I began to read last year and now I know I will look for every book by her, Caramel and Magnolias (review). The fourth book wasn’t as good as I expected: The Korean word for butterfly (review).

Besides, I also spent one afternoon making some bookmarks full of love 😀

Regarding my academic life, I had my exams at the beginning of the month, so I didn’t have so much time to read for pleasure, as you can imagine; but fortunately enough I did it well and passed all of them! It seems that I have found something I’m good at from the beginning, and it gives me the energy I need to keep on studying these subjects that are so different from everything I knew before.

It has been a great month. Now I’m ready for March!

Summary of readings, 2013

Like every year, I would like to show you what I’ve read during the last twelve months.

Last year was the first one I participated in the 2013 Reading Challenge on Goodreads: I pledged to read 85 books, but in the end I didn’t get the challenge because I read a lot of them in English, as you’ll see in a moment, and I’m a very slow reader in this language (very-very slow).

I’ve finally read 76 books in 2013 and I’m planning to read a lot of them in English in 2014 too, so this year the challenge will be for 75 books. Fingers crossed!

Of those 76 books:

• 36 were written by women and 40 by men.
• 25 were written by authors whose mother language is Spanish.
• 27 were in English; 3 of them were actually audiobooks, my first audiobooks in English!
• 18 were on my To-Be-Read Pile since 2012.
• I read 6 non-fiction books.
• 3 of them were compilations of short stories.
• I’ve re-read 6 books; the three audiobooks I mentioned above are among them.
• I read 23 books on my kindle.

Now a book for each category:

• The author I read most books by was Arturo Pérez-Reverte: 3 books.
• A book I read twice in the same year: Lord of the flies; I read it in Spanish and English for the exam, and I didn’t like it that much!
• The shortest book: Territorio Comanche, by Pérez-Reverte (110 pages).
• The longest book: Under the dome, by Stephen King (1,130 pages).
• A book that made me cry: The snow girl, by Eowyn Ivey.
• The tenderest book: The incredible story of Henry N. Brown, by Anne Helene Bubenzer (it will be published in English in 2014).
• The scariest book: The passage, by Justin Cronin.
• The funniest book: Miss Pettigrew lives for a day, by Winifred Watson.

The worst books of 2013

One hundred years of solitude (Gabriel García Márquez): the world is divided into two kinds of people; the ones who think that García Márquez should have written a novel after the draft, instead of publishing directly the draft itself, and the ones who, for an unknown reason, like this novel.

The end of the summer (Alex Smith): I read it because it was for free on Amazon. I obviously made a mistake.

The best books of 2013

This is the list of the books I liked most, but not all of them have been published this year:

All creatures great and small (James Herriot): what a lovely book! These are the real anecdotes of the author’s first years as a rural vet, and it has been the second time I read it.

English Creek (Ivan Doig): this author is one of my favourites, and his stories are always special. Don’t miss how life in Montana was like at the beginning of the last century.

The life list (Lori Nelson Spielman): my first Netgalley read was awesome and I enjoyed every page.

The snow child (Eowyn Ivey): the atmosphere of this book is what made it unforgettable; the author describes very well the tough life of the first settles in Alaska, mixed with a magical story.

The passage (Justin Cronin): another re-read which has been one of the best of the year. This is not my genre, but it got me gripped from the beginning to the end.

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I hope you discover lots of wonderful books in 2014; I will try to do the same 😉

The last page of April

Bookish activities I have participated in in April:

Weekday Readathon: I told you all about it here.

La corte de Carlos IV joint reading: this is the second of the National Episodes by Spanish classical author Benito Pérez Galdós. I organized the joint reading of the first episode and one of my blogger friends has organized this one. We are enjoying very much reading these novels!

Giveaways:

On April 21st, 22nd and 23rd I won 3 giveaways in 3 Spanish book blogs – one per day – and I just couldn’t believe my eyes and my luck! I have received two of the books and I’m waiting for the third.

Meeting friends:

Last weekend I had a chat through google hangout with Allison and Rebecca and I was able to speak (more or less) to them and understand (more or less) them. I had never done this before and I have to say I spent a great time talking about everything with them plus they didn’t complain about my English!

List of readings:

I will summarize the books I have read this month and I will talk a little bit more about the ones I won’t review in this blog:

• The summer before the storm (Gabriele Wills): a book that I loved. My review here.
• A modest proposal (Jonathan Swift): this was a funny text in which the author exposes his solution to the poverty problem in Ireland: eat the poor children. Then, there won’t be more poor children. Easy! I haven’t reviewed it in this blog, but I recommend this short text.
• Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn): I liked it very much; you will read my review at the end of this week.
• House Rules (Jodi Picoult): this book and author have been a wonderful discovering for me. My review here.
• 3rd generation and beyond (Danna Pycher): it will be reviewed soon.
• Brújulas que buscan sonrisas perdidas (Albert Espinosa): Espinosa is a Spanish author and this is the third book of him I have read. I have found it repetitive; once you read one of his books, the rest are more or less the same.
• La corte de Carlos IV (Benito Pérez Galdós): this book is on my Classics club’s list. Last year I started to read the National Episodes – the first episode was Trafalgar, and you can read the review here – and this is the second one. The National Episodes are a enjoyable way to learn about Spanish history; I’m very glad to read them little by little.
• Fantasía (Emila Pardo Bazán): Pardo Bazán was Galdós’ partner and this is the first time I read one of her short stories. She talks about the idea of heaven, hell and purgatory; a journey through God’s domains in Christmas Eve.

 Hope May brings wonderful stories to talk about!