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

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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!