pagesofjulia

It’s time for the annual year-in-review, folks. (You can view past years here.) As ever, if these numbers are yawn-inducing, come back on Monday and we’ll review books again!

In 2024, I read an even 100 books (99 in 2023). This was an accident but does make working out those percentages easy!

Of those I read this year:

• 84% were fiction (Last year, 75%).
• 69% were written by female authors (70% last year). 25% were written by male ones, and the remaining handful were nonbinary or multiple authors.
• Categorizing the fiction I read continues to be messy, with the largest chunk still being contemporary (24%), and double digits in fantasy, historical, LGBTQ, sci fi, and speculative. Sci fi, fantasy and spec have a great deal of overlap, of course, and is LGBTQ a genre or a content marker of another kind? I comfort myself by saying the categories need matter first and mostly to me… Larger single-digit groups included children’s/YA, mystery, and thriller. (Last year 23% were contemporary novels, 21% were fantasy/speculative/sci fi, 14% were children’s/YA and another 14% mystery, 11% were historical, and in the single digits were a smattering of others including horror, humor, literary fiction, short stories, thrillers psychological and otherwise, and romance. The remainder were small numbers of children’s/YA, fairy tale retellings and mythology, horror, mystery, thrillers, and short stories.) If the math gets funky for you here, know that I sometimes put one book in multiple categories!
• I listened to no audiobooks this year! (Four last year).
• This year, like last year!, 48% of my reading was for pleasure, and nine of those came recommended by Liz.
• I received two gifts and checked out two library books, and purchased another 49%, leaving about half that were sent to me for assigned reviews. (These numbers are very close to last year’s.)
• I reread a whopping seven books this year (last year, just one) – all of the Murderbot series!
• I did 43% of this year’s reading via e-books (last year, 28%). (Ouch.)
• 69% of the books I read this year were by white authors, but the Black authors numbered in the single digits. I really fell down on that one: non-white authors did okay at ~30, but I didn’t read enough Black authors by a long shot. (Last year the books I read were written by white authors at the rate of 72%. Another 15% were by Black authors, with 12% marked as ‘other.’)
• 19% of the books I read were authored by people who publicly identify as queer, which I feel okay about (last year, 11%.)

As I’ve said before, there’s room for improvement in reading people who aren’t white, and specifically this year, Black authors. There’s no shortage of excellent books that qualify; it’s just that I’m fighting against some persistent trends in publishing and admittedly in the places I gravitate, because it’s easier to read people who seem like they’re more like me, even if that’s subconscious. It takes effort to diversify my reading – effort that’s rewarded with great reading! but effort nonetheless. It’s easier to fall into the lazy habit of reading what comes more easily across my desk. I’m going to keep working.

A new trend for this year that I didn’t love: no fewer than twelve books displeased me enough that I did not review them. That’s a large number. In years past I’ve done much better at either avoiding those, or putting them down early. I’ve checked in with some other readers (and book review editors!), and I hear that others are noticing a trend of dealing with more ‘duds’ (as I’ve decided to politely call them). There are a few theories, like a post-Covid publishing quality slump. I don’t have any empirical evidence, but it’s interesting that I’m not the only one.

So, goals for 2025? Read more Black authors. Keep looking out for diversity in various forms. Follow what I love. Avoid ‘bad’ books! (Meaning only that they are poor matches for this reader in particular. Life is too short.) And let’s all share what we love.

Happy New Year. Thanks for sticking around for all this rambling.

Filed under: musings | Tagged: lists, year in review |