2022 wrap-up

2022 All Wrapped Up

What an amazing year for me, including my reading life! 2022 was filled with fulfillment, enjoyment, love, and further gained knowledge. I’ve traveled (physically as I was reading but more so mentally through my books), I’ve learned, I’ve engaged and analyzed what I’ve read more than any year before.

I learned this year that I’d rather track my stats if I want them done. I was happy to track my stats; it wasn’t really that hard to do myself and I was getting really frustrated with Storygraph. I tried it, but it didn’t work for me.

It was aggravating a few days ago when I figured out that I can’t remember how to code for charts. I’ll hopefully learn before 2023’s stats so I can see that data presented visually.

Monthly Stats

The month with the most pages that I read was January, with 3,246 pages from 10 books (with some pages from December 2021).

I read a whopping monthly maximum of 12 books in December. I pushed myself at the end (which wasn’t hard with Birdman by Mo Hayder because it was pretty intense and entertaining) and snuck a couple extra books in there.

The month with the least amount of pages that I read was 1,387 in June and the least amount of books tied in June and March with a total of 4 books each.

Reading Goals

To begin, I hadn’t come up with these reading goals until some time between August and October. I feel that this was a better time to set my goals as it helped me accomplish more things throughout the year rather than try to reach a numbered goal.

I had one goal of surpassing the number of pages read from last year. Last year in 2021, I read 27,589 pages. This year I read 27,628 pages and beat this goal with the mindset that David Goggins gave me to push through and never give up.

I had a second goal of reading as many books as possible before the year 2000. Having made this goal as vague as possible, I’m glad to say that I’ve met this second goal.

I partially wanted to read more books than last year when I hit around books in the mid-70s or so, but after trying to read that goal for a week or so I decided to change that to a higher number of pages read. I beat both the number of pages read and number of books read, just skimming by.

Beating these goals weren’t just about the numbers for me – I know a lot of people argue against reading a lot and say quality is best over quantity. Which I agree with for my personal reading life (I don’t feel the need to comment on other people’s reading styles and habits, other than lifting them up, and helping them push their potential if that’s their goal). I feel like beating those goals were quantity as well as quality. I wrote more reviews and interacted with what I was reading more than I ever have before. And I also got to learn more about blogging and learn how to navigate WordPress and insta’s [constant] updates/changes.

I had another goal of reading as many “older” books as possible, which I guess for these stats I’m deeming anything published before the year 2000. 21 of the 95 books I read this year were published before 2000. Which is actually 1 less than 2021’s 22 books that had been published before 2000. That’s so interesting that I thought more of seeking out titles published before 2000 this year and read less than when I wasn’t thinking much of it.

Nonfiction goal – not counting poetry as nonfiction

I didn’t have a specific goal to read more nonfiction than I had last year, but I found myself walking over to the nonfiction section of my library a lot more. Or maybe I was more mindfully borrowing library books. I’m guessing about half, or skewed towards a little more than half, of the library books that I borrowed were impromptu checkouts. Which, honestly, are so enjoyable. Which means I’m going to keep impulse borrowing from the library. And I honestly see no problem in that. That’s what it’s there for, right?

25 Nonfiction read in 2022
20 Nonfiction read in 2021

Library books

I am so grateful for my local library – with my eagerness to read and learn as much as possible, I’ve excessively borrowed from my library (in years past as well). As well as allowing me to divulge in books old and new, my library has saved me a whopping $1017.73 (USD).

January – 5
February – 5
March – 1
April – 3
May – 0
June – 1
July – 0
August – 0
September – 5
October – 4
November – 8
December – 7

Secondhand books

I love used books, which isn’t a new surprise if you’re a reader of the blog. If you’re new to my blog, btw I love secondhand books!

January – 2
February – 4
March – 3
April – 3
May – 4
June – 3
July – 3
August – 3
September – 2
October – 5
November – 1
December – 3

Favorites

My favorites of 2022 were such personally impactful books that I couldn’t stop thinking about, that I became obsessed with after reading them. I loved a lot of the books that I read this year, but these favorites were easily 5 stars as soon as I closed the book, in some cases even before closing the book.