Blog Stats for 2016

It's the start of a new year so once again I'm looking over what I accomplished last year.

Due to a large family project that took up a lot of my time and an exercise program I undertook so I could walk the Inca trail, I only managed to read 44 books (down from 53 in 2015).

Of those 44 books, one was an autobiography, one was general fiction, one was history, and one was about linguistics.  The rest broke down as follows:

science fiction = 21 (5 of which were YA)
fantasy = 10 (2 YA)
urban fantasy = 7
horror = 2

I also read two graphic novels.

My male to female ratio was 21:19, so pretty even.

In terms of diversity, I read 4 'own voices' books and 4 books where the character was POC or disabled, etc. but as far as I'm aware the author wasn't.

This was my best year for urban fantasy for quite some time. I loved the originality of the books that came out this year and hope to see more of it going forward.

I'm doing a separate post on my reading resolutions for this year, which will go live tomorrow.

Blog Stats and 2013 Favourites

I've been doing my blog stats for a couple of years now to see what my reading trends are. (Here are my numbers for 2012.)

This year I included the novellas I read (3) in with my novels but left out comics and non-fiction (which I read more of).

Total novels included: 51

Books by men: 26
Books by women: 25

Science Fiction: 17
Fantasy: 12
Urban Fantasy 2
Horror 7
Other (mystery with sf elements) 1
YA 12 (10 sf, 2 fantasy)

Again, I was low on reading urban fantasy but I did increase the number of horror novels I read last year.  I've been trying to read more books by women, which obviously paid off.  Still, I'm surprised by how close my male/female ration is.  It's usually higher on the male side.  I read a lot more new releases this year and fewer classic SF, which might account for that.

Here are some of my favourite books from last year, in the order that I read them.  It was a good year for me.  Narrowing this list to 13 books was hard (I had to leave off several great books).

Etiquette and Espionnage by Gail Carriger
Daylight War by Peter Brett
Terminal Point by K. M. Ruiz
Every Day by David Levithan
Up Against It by M. J. Locke
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Love Minus Eighty by Marie Brennan
Play or Die by Jen Cole
All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill
Delia's Shadow by Jaime Lee Moyer
Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Control by Lydia Kang

I haven't posted my reviews for Ancillary Justice and Control yet (as I read them both in December), but they're coming.

Here's to another year of awesome reads.  :D

Looking Back - Recapping 2012

I've started keeping a list of all the books I read, so it's easier to reflect on the past year.  Note, not all the books I've read have had their reviews posted yet (I've got 6 rough draft/complete reviews on my laptop right now).

So, in 2012 I read 59 books, 2 of which were novellas, 2 'other' (a history book and a psychology book), and 3 collections.  While I did read some graphic novels, apparently I didn't record those so I'm not sure how many I actually read.

Here's the breakdown of the novels:

Science fiction 26
Fantasy 13
Urban Fantasy 3 (though I'll admit I was a bit loose with this category, I'll have to read more of them next year)
Horror 1 (huh, I will have to do better with that next year as well)
Teen 12
    (broken down as 8 SF, 2 F, 1 Horror and 1 other - so once you add the teen books I read 34 SF, 15 fantasy, and 2 horror)
Other 1 (historical fiction)

Gender wise, I read 34 33* books by men, 19 20 books by women and 4 books by a mix (3 collections and one novel with 2 authors)
(*I discovered an author I thought was male is really female.  Pseudonyms, got to love them.)

I read a lot of great books last year, making a top 10 list difficult, but I'll try one.  Here they are in the order in which I read them (as it's easier than trying to rank them by preference).  The links go to my reviews.

Mind Storm - K. M. Ruiz
The Man From Primrose Lane - James Renner
Alchemist of Souls - Anne Lyle
Partials - Dan Wells
Erebos - Ursula Poznanski
Forever War - Joe Haldeman
The Rook - Daniel O'Malley
The Death of Grass - John Christopher
Three Parts Dead - Max Gladstone
Reposession Mambo (aka Repo Man) - Eric Garcia
Kop - Warren Hammond
Knife Sworn - Mazarkis Williams
The Bridge - Jane Higgins (link goes to Indigo website as my review hasn't been published yet)

And you got 3 bonus books (because I don't feel like trying to weed 3 out).

All in all I fulfilled my goal to read more SF, specifically classic SF.  Tomorrow I'll post my reading/blog resolutions for 2013.