I finished a book late this afternoon so it’s finally time for my reading stats and books of the year for 2023! I took part in Nordic FINDS, Dewithon, Reading Ireland, Kaggsy and Simon’s two Year Weeks, Daphne du Maurier Week (which I helped to run), 20 Books of Summer, Aus Reading Month, Nonfiction November (which I helped to run), East and South East Asian Reading Month, Women in Translation Month, Novellas in November and Dean Street December (which I ran)

Reading stats for 2023

I kept a spreadsheet recording various aspects of my reading again this year, and here are the same details from last year, with more and more archive material!

In 2023 I read 187 (187 in 2022, 185 in 2021, 159 in 2020) books, of which 103 (109, 86, 83) were fiction and 84 (78, 99, 76) non-fiction. 125 (121, 116, 94) were by women, 48 (54, 62, 56) by men, 3 (none recorded) by non-gender-binary people 8 (8, 5, 8) by both (multiple authors), 3 (4, 2, 1) by a mix of male, female and non-gender-binary people.

Where did my books come from?

NetGalley 75 (65 in 2022, 47 in 2021) – Bookshop online new (mainly Bookshop.org) 24 (12 print, 12 ebooks) (23) and second hand 3 (3) (41 in total 2021) – Gift 20 (38, 27) – Publisher 20 (22, 24) – Own 5 (14, 20) – Charity shop 3 (9, 9) – Bookshop physical 33 (2, 6) – Author 2 (2, 4) – Bookcrossing 1 (0, 2) – Subscribed 0 (5, 1) – Lent 1 (3, 1).

Still fewer from charity shops, which was down to reading books acquired during the pandemic plus a lot of NetGalley. The effect of the new The Heath Bookshop and my shelf of purchases was as predicted felt in my reading this year!

Where were they set and written?

Most books by far were set in the UK at 99 (86 in 2022, 94 in 2021, 99 in 2020) with the US second at 27 (30, 44, 24) and then 23 (33, 24, 12) other countries (some a combination of a few) plus fantasy worlds and the whole world.

129 (111, 112, 121) authors were British and 33 (34, 54, 26) American, the others from 18 (26, 13, 9) other countries or a mix.

Who published them?

I read books by 80 (80 in 2022, 87 in 2021, 76 in 2020) different publishers, the most common being One More Chapter, Dean Street Press, Faber & Faber and Virago.

When were they published?

I read most books published in 2023 at 78 (74 from 2022 in 2022, 60 from 2021 in 2021, 39 from 2020 in 2020), which is down to Shiny and NetGalley again. I read books from 33 (51 in 2022) different years, with all decades in the 20th and 21st centuries apart from the 1910s and 1980s represented and the oldest from 1914.

How diverse was my reading?

Onto diversity of authors and themes. 60.43% (67.4% in 2020, 73% in 2021, 79.25% in 2020) of the authors I read were White (as far as I could tell), with 35.3% (28.9%, 26.5%, 19.5%) people from Global Majority and Indigenous populations and 4.3% (3.75%, 0.5% 1.26%) multiple authors in a mix of White and Global Majority authors. The UK is apparently 82% / 18% so I was pleased to increase my diversity count once again this year. Out of the 187 (187, 185, 159) books I read, I assigned a diversity theme to 94 of them (82/187 in 2022, 74/185 in 2021, 43/159 in 2020), so 71 (45, 50, 21) about race, 10 (6, 17, 8) LGBTQI+ issues and 11 (17, 3, 10) covering both, 0 (1, 2, 3) solely disability and 1 (2, 1) race, LGBTQI+ and disability, none (2, 1, none) primarily about class and none (2, 1, none) race, LGBTQI+, disability and class. This doesn’t meant such themes didn’t come up in other books, just that they weren’t the main theme. I read again intersectionally this year, which is all to the good.

Best books of 2023

I read 187 books, and it was suggested to me that I did 23 for 2023 which seemed eminently sensible! I came up with 12 fiction and 11 nonfiction, by all means not all of them published or published originally in 2023 (and in order of reading date):

Best fiction

Jessica George – Maame (2023)

Claire Keegan – Small Things Like These (2021)

Richard Llewellyn – How Green Was My Valley (1939)

Jacqueline Crooks – Fire Rush (2023)

Caleb Azumah Nelson – Small Worlds (2023)

Kit de Waal – My Name is Leon (2016)

Yaa Gyasi – Homegoing (2016)

James Baldwin – Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953)

Brian Bilston – Days Like These (2022)

Gabrielle Zevin – Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (2022)

Barbara Kingsolver – Demon Copperhead (2022)

Susan Scarlett – Babbacombe’s (1941)

Best non-fiction

Bernardine Evaristo – Manifesto (2021)

Alison Mariella Désir – Running While Black (2022)

Alexis Keir – Windward Family (2023)

Amrit Wilson – Finding a Voice (2018)

Katherine May – Enchantment (2023)

Mary Keating et al. – Birmingham: The Brutiful Years (2022)

Adam Nathaniel Furman et al. – Queer Spaces (2022)

Michael Malay – Late Light (2023)

Charles Montgomery – The Happy City (2013)

Richard Mabey – The Unofficial Countryside (1973)

Lenny Henry – Black British Lives Matter (2021)

A great year of reading again and I’m working my way through everyone else’s best-ofs! Hope you all have an excellent 2024 of books!