I finished 190 books in 2023, the same as 2022 and many other years previously. I did reach my Good Reads Target again. Here are my stats for the last year’s reading.
My total pages read was 49071 50636 (1565 pages less than last year!) and my monthly average of books was 15.8 again. This broke down into these monthly totals:
January – 18
February – 15
March – 18
April – 15
May – 16
June – 17
July – 16
August – 16
September – 14
October – 16
November – 15
December – 14
Author Splits
Sources
Review – 54
Library – 77
Own – 58
Genre
Non-Fiction – 124
Fiction – 48
Poetry – 18
Random Stats
Longest Book: Gnomon – Nick Harkaway – 688 pages
Shortest Book: The Last Hedgehog – Pam Ayres – 48 pages
The total cost of the books read was £2908.17
Most Read Author
Mark Stay with five books read
Stars Awarded
5 Stars – 7
4.5 Stars – 26
4 Stars – 48
3.5 Stars – 66
3 Stars – 30
2.5 Stars – 10
2 Stars – 3
1.5 Stars 0
1 Star 0
Genres
I use a spreadsheet to keep a note of the types and genres of books that I read. These are detailed below:
| Fiction | 29 |
| Natural History | 25 |
| Travel | 23 |
| Poetry | 18 |
| Memoir | 13 |
| Fantasy | 12 |
| History | 8 |
| Science Fiction | 7 |
| Art | 5 |
| Politics | 5 |
| Science | 4 |
| Environmental | 4 |
| Miscellaneous | 3 |
| Photography | 3 |
| Archaeology | 2 |
| Dorset | 2 |
| Books | 2 |
| Maths | 2 |
| Technology | 2 |
| Britain | 2 |
| Gardening | 2 |
| Social History | 2 |
| Economics | 2 |
| Weather | 2 |
| Mental Health | 2 |
| True Crime | 1 |
| Transport | 1 |
| Food | 1 |
| Biography | 1 |
| Landscape | 1 |
| Architecture | 1 |
| Humour | 1 |
| Geology | 1 |
| Folklore | 1 |
Publishers
These are the number of books read by each publisher. Amazingly I read books from 99 different publishers. William Collins were top last year. Only four of the top ten were independent this year, something that I need to address in 2024!
| Faber & Faber | 12 |
| Simon & Schuster | 7 |
| Bloomsbury | 6 |
| William Collins | 6 |
| Penguin | 6 |
| Little Toller | 6 |
| Jonathan Cape | 5 |
| Elliott & Thompson | 5 |
| Reaktion Books | 4 |
| Headline | 4 |
| Doubleday | 4 |
| Picador | 4 |
| Michael Joseph | 3 |
| Granta | 3 |
| Bradt | 3 |
| Monoray | 3 |
| Penned In The Margins | 3 |
| Allen Lane | 3 |
| Profile | 3 |
| Chatto & Windus | 3 |
| Eland | 3 |
| Saraband | 2 |
| Melville House | 2 |
| Hamish Hamilton | 2 |
| Fum D’Estamps Press | 2 |
| Orbit | 2 |
| Seren Press | 2 |
| Summersdale | 2 |
| Chelsea Green | 2 |
| Canongate | 2 |
| Particular Books | 2 |
| Unbound | 2 |
| W&N | 2 |
| 4th Estate | 2 |
| Sceptre | 2 |
| Hodder & Stoughton | 2 |
| Abacus | 2 |
| David & Charles | 1 |
| Reflex Press | 1 |
| Harper North | 1 |
| Serpent’s Tail | 1 |
| Jo Fletcher | 1 |
| Gestalten | 1 |
| Salt Press | 1 |
| Haus Publishing | 1 |
| Signal Press | 1 |
| Watkins Publishing | 1 |
| Ebury Press | 1 |
| Icon Books | 1 |
| Chroma Editions | 1 |
| Janus Publishing | 1 |
| Pan Macmillan | 1 |
| William Heinemann | 1 |
| Sandstone Press | 1 |
| Flint | 1 |
| HarperCollins | 1 |
| Basic Books | 1 |
| National Trust | 1 |
| Calon Books | 1 |
| The History Press | 1 |
| Duckworth | 1 |
| Veloce | 1 |
| Salt | 1 |
| Virago | 1 |
| Orion Books | 1 |
| Quercus | 1 |
| Galley Beggars | 1 |
| Fitzcarraldo Editions | 1 |
| Orion | 1 |
| Jo Fletcher Books | 1 |
| Gollancz | 1 |
| MacLehose Press | 1 |
| Peepal Tree Press | 1 |
| Watkin Art | 1 |
| Transworld | 1 |
| Yale University Press | 1 |
| Out-Spoken Press | 1 |
| Three Rivers Press | 1 |
| John Murray | 1 |
| Vintage | 1 |
| Bardwell Press | 1 |
| Head of Zeus | 1 |
| Halsgrove | 1 |
| Influx Press | 1 |
| Peepal Press | 1 |
| McCleland & Stewart | 1 |
| Hurst Publishers | 1 |
| Atlantic Books | 1 |
| Fly On The Wall | 1 |
| Duckworth Books | 1 |
| British Library Publishing | 1 |
| Open Pen | 1 |
| September Publishing | 1 |
| Luath Press Ltd | 1 |
| Telegram Books | 1 |
| Canterton Books | 1 |
| Allison and Busby | 1 |
| Arrow Books | 1 |
| Red Dog Books | 1 |
Very impressive! I do love stats.
All I can offer in return is this –
86 books read (disappointing, must do better).
Non fiction – 96.5%
Fiction – 3.5%
Thanks Penny. 86 books is still an amazing number
Love book stats! An impressive number of publishers in particular – I’m finding it harder and harder to keep track of all the new imprints from the majors, so I can distinguish true indies. I’ve never thought to include a total RRP£ for all the books read – I might just borrow that one…
Thank you, Annabel. Feel free, to plunder the ideas. I am sure I have seen imprints of imprints now, so I need to think of a way of making it very clear. If you need me to email you the spread sheet, let me know.
That’s a lovely lot of publishers! And nice genres. That’s one I don’t keep track of properly.
I didn’t realised it was so many. The pivot updates automatically and I hadn’t looked at the list properly. More than happy to email it to you