Every year I set myself two reading challenges 1) Total number of books (tracked in GoodReads) and 2) Book Riot’s Read Harder challenge. While 2017 was a rough year overall I actually completed BOTH of my reading challenges for the first time ever!
The downfall to meeting my book goal is that I am again falling backing into the cycle of increasing my goal … to 52 books …which I have never met. But onward and upwards.
As I wrote in a previous post I also completed (for the FIRST time ever!) the Read Harder Challenge – in October no less! I am going to focus on 2018 with (almost) the same focus — but letting an occasional book I really want to read in – for example I’m currently reading Sofia Khan does not Oblige which I could not fit into any category no matter how hard I tried.
So how did all of these books that I read in 2017 break out? Lets analyze:
Gender
Authors read in 2017 – 19 books by men, 32 books by women.
In 2017, 62% of the books I read are by women authors – this is a 9% increase from 2015 when I last analyzed the authorship of my reading. I’d still like it to be closer to 75% women authors though – but it can be a challenge when trying to find titles that fit all of the categories for Read Harder.
LGBTQ+
This year I read 7 books by an author known or easily identified as part of the LGBTQ+ community. This is slight improvement over the 2015 year and means I need to continue focusing my attention on expanding my reading of these authors. I think the 2017 Read Harder challenge categories did help increase this tally so I might need to make more of an effort to seek out these voices in 2018.
Race:
A look at the authors I read by race: 29 white, 5 Asian, 12 Black, 2 Arab, 2 Latinx authors which means 56.8% of my reading was by white authors. This is a significant improvement over 2015 when 78.8% of the books I read were by white people. I definitely want to keep this trend going.
Genre:
23 fiction novels – 8 fantasy – 8 memoirs – 2 multi-genre collection – 5 mystery – 3 general non-fiction – 1 science fiction – 1 romance.
I am a little disappointed by the range of genres I covered in 2017. While my fantasy count has increased (mostly because of my rekindled love of graphic novels) and I read one of my first romance novels, general non-genre specific fiction still is the dominant read. Plus I didn’t read any biographies or essays in the last year. The multi-genre counts were from a collection of short stories and a poetry collection.
Format:
As I’ve referenced several times in this blog my love for audiobooks, which I first embraced due to a commute to work that no longer exists. As a result I only listen to audiobooks while walking my dog, or doing yard work or other chores. In 2017, only 13 of the books in my 51 count were audio books (mostly OverDrive or Hoopla downloads to my smartphone but also occasionally a Playaway version). The rest of the books I read were in traditional print formats (paperback or hardcover not tracked).
Miscellaneous Classifications
In the past I’ve discussed additional classifications such as graphic novel or young adult counts under genre or format sections where they don’t really belong. In 2017 additional classifications counts include:
2 Youth Books
6 Young Adult Books
17 (!) Graphic Novels
4 Translated Books
Some of these categories overlap – for example I read 2 books that were young adult graphic novels. I’d really like to increase the books I read that are translated.
Looking Forward
I will be doing the Book Riot Read Harder 2018 Challenge and I set my Goodreads Challenge to 52 books next year. Good luck in your reading!
Librarye Keeper 