In what might work out to be the geekiest post ever, I thought I’d have a closer look at the 100 books I’ve read this year. I completed my Goodreads challenge this week so it seems a good time to pause and take stock.
Things that don’t surprise me a bit…
I know that I read a lot of female writers, so the gender ratio 60:40 in favour of female writers didn’t surprise me at all. A lot of my favourite detective series are written by women (Rachel Lynch, Carla Kovach, Jane Casey, Elly Griffiths…I could go on!)
Also unsurprising was the number of books that I read for free this year – I’ve always read a lot through NetGalley, plus have done some blog tours, so it is to be expected that a huge proportion of my reads (74%) were free in exchange for an honest review. I am eternally grateful to NetGalley, blog tour hosts, publishers and authors for keeping me in reading material!
Finally, because of my NetGalley obsession, it makes perfect sense that my most read format this year was on Kindle (71%). I invested in a Kindle Oasis earlier this year because I thought the warm light feature might be kinder on my eyes, especially given how long I stare at it!
Things that did surprise me…
I know I read quite widely, but I thought I’d probably be very heavy on the crime and historical fiction. This did turn out to be true – 44% of my books had some kind of crime element, whether in a contemporary or historical setting. However, only 30% of my chosen reads had a historical setting – something I thought would be higher.
What I was pleasantly surprised by was the fact that 27% of the books were non-fiction. I do love non-fiction but thought it would be more overshadowed than that in the statistics. I was also happy to see that there was a range of genres in the mix too – poetry, humour, romance and ‘other’ (contemporary fiction, play scripts) made up a good chunk.
I seem to be heavily dependent on the 4* rating (71% of my books in 2020) but it was heartening to see that nearly 1/5 of the books I read this year were 5* ones. I wasn’t too surprised to see the small proportion of 3* rating (and nothing below) because I choose my books carefully and DNF any that won’t make 3 stars!
Some lists…
My 5 Star Reads of 2020 (so far) – links to reviews where possible!
Books I Bought With My Own Money and Read This Year:
| ‘The Devil and the Dark Water’ by Stuart Turton |
| ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’ by Bill Bryson |
| ‘Practically Perfect’ by Katy Brand |
| ‘Essex Girls’ by Sarah Perry |
| ‘The Princess and the Prick’ by Wallaburga Appleseed |
| ‘Boy’ by Roald Dahl |
| ‘More than a Woman’ by Caitlin Moran |
| ‘A Tomb With a View’ by Peter Ross |
| ‘Good Samaritans’ by Will Carver |
| ‘The Book of Humans’ by Adam Rutherford |
| ‘A Chip Shop in Poznan’ by Ben Aitken |
| ‘Women Don’t Owe You Pretty’ by Florence Given |
| ‘State of the Union’ by Nick Hornby |
| ‘The Great Godden’ by Meg Rosoff |
| ‘A Rising Man’ by Abir Mukherjee |
| ‘Three Women’ by Lisa Taddeo |
| ‘Dead Famous’ by Greg Jenner |
| ‘This is Shakespeare’ by Emma Smith |
| ‘A Murderous Relation’ by Deanna Raybourn |
| ‘You Took the Last Bus Home’ by Brian Bilston |
| ‘When the Dogs Don’t Bark’ by Angela Gallop |
| ‘A Million Years in a Day’ by Greg Jenner |
| ‘The Golden Tresses of the Dead’ by Alan Bradley |
| ‘A Curious History of Sex’ by Kate Lister |
| ’52 Times Britain was a Bellend’ by James Felton |
| ‘Fleabag’by Phoebe Waller-Bridge |
9 Writers I’ve Read More Than One Book By This Year:
- Ben Aitken
- Greg Jenner
- Abir Mukherjee
- Carla Kovach
- Rachel Lynch
- Andrew Taylor
- Nick Hornby
- William Sieghart (2 poetry anthologies)
- Elly Griffiths
Brilliant Debut Novels
- ‘Cows Can’t Jump’ by Philip Bowne
- ‘A Girl Made of Air’ by Nydia Hetherington
- ‘People of Abandoned Character’ by Clare Whitfield
- ‘The Chalet’ by Catherine Cooper
- ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ by Richard Osman
- ‘The Miseducation of Evie Epworth’ by Matson Taylor
- ‘The Eighth Detective’ by Alex Pavesi
- ‘Grave Secrets’ by Alice James
- ‘The Servant’ by Maggie Richell-Davies
- ‘The Quickening’ by Rhiannon Ward (first novel published under this name)
5 Surprises This Year
- Alice James’ ‘Grave Secrets’ – I don’t read a lot of fantasy novels, but this vampire and zombie one absolutely won me over. Well outside of my comfort zone, but it was just so funny and lively and immersive.
- ‘Longhand’ by Andy Hamilton – I had some reservations about reading a book written by hand (in beautiful handwriting though!) However, I was absolutely transfixed by this extremely quirky and humorous novel with a surprising Classical theme.
- ‘The Gran Tour: Travels with My Elders’ by Ben Aitken – the charming Bill Bryson-esque travel writing had me totally engaged in this (true) tale of a young man’s coach trips with Shearings (and his Gran!)
- ‘The Miseducation of Evie Epworth’ by Matson Taylor – I was prepared for a rom-com, but what I got was a gorgeous 1960s coming of age tale packed with humour and one of the best characters of the year.
- ‘A Tomb With a View’ by Peter Ross – I’ve tried to get everyone I know to read this! I thought I’d like this non-fiction telling of stories of graveyards and their people; I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did.
Affiliate links to my books of the year (so far) – I may earn a small commission on any purchases at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting my blog!
So that’s my Goodreads 100! It’s been an odd year – I don’t usually expect to read 100 books, let alone 100 books by October. I hope you’ve enjoyed my trawl through my reading so far this year and thank you for visiting and supporting my blog.
Header photo with thanks to Floris Andréa for sharing their work on Unsplash.