A Reading Reflection

I cross-posted this on December 30, 2016 on I Heart Yearly Reads, the blog where I keep track of the books I’ve read and reviewed over the years.

Today I wanted to reflect on my reading habits ever since I started my blog, I Heart Reading, and how (and if) they changed since I started reviewing. I started my blog in November 2010 but only actively started blogging about books in 2011.

In 2011, I read and reviewed 89 books on my blog. Back then, I didn’t review every book I read, so it’s likely I read at least 100 books that year.

In 2012, I kept track of the books I read, and the ones I actually ended up reviewing. I read 136 books, and reviewed most of them (if I counted correctly from my list, I ended up not reviewing 25 of them, for various reasons, totalling my reviewed books for that year on 111). So, I reviewed 22 books more than the year before.

In 2013, I only kept track of the books I reviewed, but I vowed to review every book I read. I may have missed one or two, but the count is mostly correct. That year, I reviewed 210 books, an extraordinary 99 more than the year before, almost doubling my count from 2012.

In 2014, I read and reviewed 289 books. Amazing. That’s almost one book a day. And add to that, I also introduced mini-reviews: short reviews of books I’d read during the past years that I still had galleys from (or had stored on Netgalley) but I had never gotten around to reviewing. My Netgalley review ratio was at about 10%, but I had read most of the books I’d received, so I vowed to bring that up to a healthy 80% ratio through mini-reviews. 56 mini-reviews later (and each mini-review post counts 3 reviews, totalling 168 individual mini-reviews) I had caught up and had raised my review ratio to about 80%. These were mostly reviews for books I’d read earlier, so not that year, but still, 2014 was one of my best reading years ever.

In 2015, my review count went slightly down, to 218 – still an amazing amount of books. But 2015 was a busy, challenging year for me, with having to move, finishing my university degree, and other adjustments I had to make. I kept on with the mini-reviews this year, writing 11 mini-review posts consisting of 3 mini-reviews each, totalling 33.

And now, 2016 is coming to its end. This year, I read and reviewed 199 books on my blog. Not my best year, I admit that, but still, pretty good, isn’t it? It’s less than in 2013, 2014 and 2015, yes, but it’s not that far apart, and it kept me sane, and I can balance it with my other activities. On top of that, I also wrote 34 mini-review posts, consisting of 3 mini-reviews each, totalling 102 mini-reviews.

Having these numbers here is a good eye-opener. Since I started blogging, I doubled the amount of books I read in a year (one year even tripling it, but that’s bordering on crazy), and now I average about 200 books a year. That’s a good number. I hope to keep that up for the years to come. But reading is still a hobby for me. If I get bored, or it’s no longer fun, then the number will go down, and I’ll just read less. If it keeps me entertained, then I’ll read more.

Either way, for 2017, I’m not really setting any reading goals. If possible, I want to read about 200 books, but one or more less won’t hurt me. I would like to meet my reading challenges goals (I read about 5 challenges every year I participate in), and I would like to read more books of my own choosing, books I bought myself or specifically requested.

Here’s to 2017. May it be a good year for blogging, writing, reading, and love and happiness.