Reading Round Up 2023

I read 161 books this year; I really should get a job! In my own defence, I will say that some of them were extremely short.

Kids/YA v Adult

The proportions of adult to children's/YA books that I read probably isn't going to change much while I maintain my current 3-books-at-a-time habit -- one kids, one adult fiction, one adult non-fiction. It feels like a pretty good balance.

Author Gender

I always lean toward reading more female authors than male, but I think my bias was even more extreme this year. I read hardly any fiction by men (though I very much enjoyed North Woods by Daniel Mason, Limberlost by Robbie Arnott and The Bannerman Shortlist by Colin Batrouney). Maybe I was feeling pissed off with men this year, who knows? I read three books with a mixed female/male authorship. As far as I know, I didn't read any non-binary authors this year.

Fiction v non-fiction

These proportions stay pretty steady, too, since most of the children's books I read are fiction. So it always works out to about a one third/two thirds split.

Book sources

Pretty even split between the library and secondhand sources this year (I'm including street library finds in the secondhand total rather than the library total). And the proportion of books re-read from my shelves, borrowed from friends or family, purchased on the Kindle and bought or given new, are all quite even. Doesn't it make a pretty graph, though?

And did you know that the pie graph was invented by Florence Nightingale? That's one of my favourite fun facts.

Nationality

The maths isn't going to work out on this one because I counted some authors; I wanted to see how many First Nations authors I'd read this year (7). Most were Australian but two were Native American. The German slice of the pie is mostly Sybille Bedford. Otherwise my reading was not particularly diverse this year -- lots of English authors as usual!

Notable books

Some of my favourite reads came at the start of the year, with Nina Kenwood's lively, unaffected YA novels, Unnecessary Drama and It Sounded Better In My Head. Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was unexpectedly brilliant.

I binged six Jill Paton Walsh novels, eight by Diana Wynne Jones, and read thirteen books centred on King Arthur, Merlin and Camelot by various authors, marvelling at the many angles one set of legends can inspire.

I seemed to read a lot of 'funny murder' books this year (is there a name for this genre?). Richard Osman, Janice Hallett, Benjamin Stevenson and Amanda Hampson were all delightful company.

In non-fiction, Wifedom by Anna Funder and Consent Laid Bare by Chanel Contos made my feminist blood boil. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer was a beautiful and enlightening journey that showed me many parallels between Native American and Australian First Nations cultures.

In adult fiction, some novels that challenged and haunted me were Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman (what a talented family) and From Here On, Monsters by Elizabeth Bryer. For pure enjoyment, I loved Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld, I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai and Willowman by Inga Simpson. The Things That Matter Most by Gabrielle Stroud made me cry for our teachers and our kids.

Happy reading for 2024!