My Year in Books – 2019

For my second post of the day (my first one of the day was this 2019 recap), I want to talk about BOOKS! I did a post like this last year, all about the books I read all year. I love reading, and it’s one of my favorite hobbies, so writing a summary post about my year in reading is fun for me.

Every year, I set a “goal” for myself on my Goodreads page. (Goodreads is basically just a way to track books you have already read, or want to read. You can read reviews, and rate the books you read, and follow favorite authors. I’ve been using it consistently since 2014, and I love being able to track my progress! Lists are a big part of my life. (Other Enneagram Type 1’s can agree with me on this point, I’m sure.)

Anyways, the last few years my goal has been 75 books a year, which I’ve met for three years in a row. My goal last year for 2018 was indeed 75, but I had my biggest reading year ever, at 103. So in 2019, I decided to shoot for 100. I knew I was listening to more audio books than ever, and figured I’d fly past the 75-mark with ease. And I actually did end up flying past the 100-mark with ease! I hit the 100-book milestone in mid-November, and then kind of took it easy after that. And now that I’m publishing this post, I have read 108 books. So, lets take a look at some of my favorites, and a few not-so-favorites.

 

 

And since I love lists and details and stats so much, I’m starting out with all the stats for 2019. (You can see all of my 2019 Goodreads stats here.)

• I read 108 books this year. (Some of them were “short stories,” anywhere from 4 to 100 pages.)
• I read almost 33,200 pages.
• The longest book I read was “Inheritance” by Christopher Paolini, at 849 pages. (It was the fourth & final book in the “Inheritance Cycle” series, and I rated it 3 stars.)
• The most popular book I read this year was “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, which 1.6 million Goodreads users have read. (I rated it only 2 stars – I was just not that impressed.) And the least popular book I read this year was “Take You Wherever You Go” by Kenny Leon, which only 61 other Goodreads users have read (and it was also one of my least favorites).
• The first book I finished this year was “Once Upon a River,” which was the last book I started reading in 2018, but definitely did not finish before the end of the year. And the last book I finished this year was “One Day in December.”

 

 

So, let’s then list my favorites of this past year, in no particular order, that I rated either 4 or 5 stars on Goodreads. For me, 4 or 5 stars translates to “I really liked it a lot” (4 stars) or “I loved this one!” (5 stars):

1. Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield, 4 stars
2. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan, 4 stars
3. The Boat People by Sharon Bala, 4 stars
4. Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han (book #3 in series), 4 stars
5. Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray, 4 stars
6. Reading People: How Seeing the World Through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything by Anne Bogel, 4 stars
7. Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth
8. Mither Magers Series by Orson Scott Card, 4 stars
9. Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel (third & final in Themis Files trilogy), 4 stars
10. Next Year in Havana (#1) & When We Left Cuba (#2) by Chanel Cleeton, 4 stars
11. In An Absent Dream (Wayward Children series book #4, but I love the whole series) by Seanan McGuire, 5 stars
12. Save Me the Plus: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl, 4 stars
13. Lost for Words by Stephanie Butland, 4 stars
14. From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily and Finding Home by Tembi Locke, 4 stars
15. The Accidental Beauty Queen by Teri Wilson, 4 stars
16. Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, 5 stars
17. The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding by Jennifer Robson, 4 stars
18. City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert, 3 stars
19. The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris, 5 stars
20. The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See, 5 stars
21. The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See, 5 stars
22. Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune by Roselle Lim, 4 stars
23. Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald, 5 stars
24. Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson, 4 stars
25. The Kiss Quotient (book #1) and The Bride Test (book #2) by Helen Hoang
26. The Forward Collection (short story collection by 6 different authors), 4 stars
27. Recursion by Blake Crouch, 5 stars
28. Evvie Drake Starts Overby Linda Holmes, 4 stars
29. The Plus One by Sarah Archer, 4 stars
30. Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia, 4 stars
31. Me by Elton John, 4 stars
32. Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor & Heather Webb, 4 stars
33. Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok, 4 stars

 

 

I realize that a list of 30+ “favorite” books of year seems like a lot. But really, that means I only really liked or loved about 30-ish% of all the books I read this year. Put that way, it makes it seem a little less overwhelming. I also want to mention the books that I rate 3 stars, means I did like the book, but wasn’t blown away by it. I might still recommend it to a friend, but even though it was enjoyable and likable, it didn’t amaze me. And since I love lists, here are just a few of this years’ 3-star reads: In Farleigh Field, Dumplin’, The Lighthouse Keepers’ Daughter, Sourdough, In the Woods, The Nickel Boys, Only Ever Her, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, and Shangai Girls.

 

 

The books listed above were “read” in all of the the different formats: audio book, Kindle book, paperback book, or hardcover. Y’all should know by now, I’m a big proponent of audio books (there are numerous studies proving “listening” is the same thing as “reading”), the following is a short list of my favorite audio-specific books I listened to this past year. Also note, I get all of these for free, through the Libby app, which goes through the local library, with your own library card!

1. Defy the Stars, 2. The Gate Thief & Gatefather, 3. The Death of Ms. Westaway, 4. the Flavia de Luce mystery series, 5. Daisy Jones & The Six, 6. The Gown, 7. The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, 8. the Forward Collection (read by 6 different actors), 9. Me by Elton John (read by the actor that plays him in the most recent movie about him, “Rocketman”), and 10. Girl in Translation

 

 

Quick note – I loved the audio of Daisy Jones SO MUCH. There were like 15 or so different narrators for each of the characters, and it just worked so well. I also really, really liked the narrator for Daisy herself. I loved her voice. Actually, I liked the book so much, that I requested the library’s hardcover version, just so I could bring it home to take a photo for my Instagram! I had read somewhere that the book was loosely inspired by 70s-era Fleetwood Mac, so I started listening to them for the first time, and fell in love with this album. So much so, that I ordered it from eBay, so we could listen to it on our hand-me-down vintage 70’s record player!

 

 

Another thing of note that hasn’t been mentioned yet, is the Chief Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny. Up to this point, she has written 15 books in this series (#15 just published back in August), and I have read through #11. The first one, “Still Life,” is okay (I rated 3 stars) but they really pick up speed after that, and I’ve rated all but one of them 4 stars. If cozy, complex, intriguing murder mysteries sound like your thing, you should definitely read this series. (But don’t worry, they’re not scary.)

I feel like I’ve gotten better at choosing which books to read, but also I’ve gotten better at abandoning books that just aren’t for me. I used to be a strict had-to-finish-the-book kinda gal, but why?? (Because that’s just my personality.) But now, I can let myself off the hook, if I’m just not that into it. But my least favorite books this year were:

1. Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, 2 stars
2. The Night Child by Anna Quinn, 2 stars
3. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, 2 stars
4. The Spy by Paulo Coelho, 2 stars
5. The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin, 2 stars
6. The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker, 2 stars
7. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance, 2 stars
8. The Disappearing by Lori Roy, 2 stars
9. A Stranger on the Beach by Michele Campbell, 2 stars
10. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, 2 stars

The books listed above are the ones I liked the least, but I did at least finish the entire book. On top of those however though, I started but abandoned somewhere around 15 others books, that honestly aren’t even worth listing…

 

 

Another random thing I noticed this year, I ended up (kind of accidentally) reading a good number of books whose main characters were Asian, or the book was written by an Asian author. I don’t know how exactly this happened, but I just thought it was interesting. And of those 12 (I just counted), nine of them ended up being in my favorites of the year list above.

And since I love to read so much, I’m trying my hardest to raise my 2-year-old daughter to love reading as well! We have TONS of kids books and it seems like she does really like to read. We read all sorts of books together when we play, but we also make sure to read every night before bed as well.

 

 

I like setting goals and pushing myself to achieve them, even if that means a specific number of books to read. But I’ve also noticed that sometimes in order to meet my goal, I find myself purposefully not choosing larger/longer books, in favor of shorter ones, so that I can read it faster & move on to the next one. But what if I’ve missed some truly great books, because I don’t want to spend more than 5-7 days reading it?

At the end of the year, and after this being my highest number of books read in a single year, I’m already contemplating what next year’s goal should be. I would love to set a crazy goal of like, 120 books for 2020 (I like the repeated “20s”), but that sounds unnecessarily insane, and basically just too much. So I’m actually thinking about scaling my number back again to 75, or maybe even 50, just to give myself plenty of wiggle room to read slower in general, and to read longer books, and not feel like I’m in a race with myself for the entire year. What do y’all think?

I also want to focus on reading more of the books I already own, since I tend towards collecting more than reading, and instead getting books from the library.

What were some of your favorite books in 2019? Does anyone else set yearly reading goals? If so, how many books do you read? I love talking about books, and would love to chat with y’all anytime!