As we start to turn our attention to the year ahead, there’s one last opportunity to look back on 2019. I’m going to take stock of how I got on with my reading goals, reflect on my reading year in general, and set some new goals for 2020 accordingly.
- My first goal for 2019 was to read 100 books. Having read 124, this one gets a tick.
- My second goal was to read more non-fiction. I read 9 non-fiction books in 2018, and upped this to 10 in 2019 (12 if you count a couple of graphic memoirs). It’s a tentative success, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.
- My third goal was to read more plays. I did not read a single one. Epic fail.
- My fourth goal was to read more Daphne du Maurier. I read one of her novels in 2019, so we’ll call this one a very soft victory.
- My final goal was to keep mood reading. This one is hard to quantify. I’d say I managed it fairly well, though committing to a book prize longlist and a month’s worth of translated lit did throw a bit of a spanner in the works in terms of avoiding TBRs and going with the flow.
That brings me on to a couple of supplementary goals I added as the year went on. Alongside an excellent group of blogging friends, I decided to read the entire longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. It was something that had been on my bookish bucket list for a while, and though we arguably didn’t pick the best year to do it, I’m really glad to say I managed to read and review the entire selection before the shortlist/winner was announced.
August is women in translation month. At the very last minute, I decided to read only books that would fall into that category for the whole of the month. Again, I’m glad I did this, and it pushed me to pick up some excellent reads I may otherwise not have prioritised.
Taking a more general look at my reading year, I would describe it as fairly… meh? It certainly wasn’t a bad year for books; I read 124 of them, gave an average rating of 3.5 stars, and certainly uncovered some gems – the best of which I talked about here. I suppose the reason I feel somewhat underwhelmed is that, despite reading lots of great books throughout the year, I didn’t find any new all-time favourites. I know we can’t expect to do so every year, but still, we can’t help but hope.
I never do or don’t read a book based on the author’s gender, but I decided to analyse my reading based on authorship purely out of interest. It showed that I’ve been reading far more books by women than men (which I’m more than happy with), but it also highlighted an obvious lack of books by non-binary authors on my shelves (recommendations to help with this are very welcome!).
I then decided to break down my 2019 reading based on form. I wasn’t at all surprised to see that novels are my book of choice, but I am sad to see that poetry largely fell by the wayside. That’s something I’d like to address moving forward.
As for 2020 goals, I’m going to keep it pretty simple:
- Read 100 books. It’s a solid number that will help me make a dent in my TBR without feeling too daunting.
- Read more poetry. I touched on this already, but I’d definitely like to start reaching for poetry more often again.
- Do more buddy reads. I read and chatted about a few past Women’s Prize winners with the same group of aforementioned friends in 2019, and I’m hoping we’ll pick up a few more this year.
- Keep reading translated lit. English language literature dominates the market, and it’s sad to think about how many amazing books fly under the radar as a result. I read 17 translated books in 2019 (2 of which made my top 10 of the year), and I’d love if I could match or better that number in 2020.
- Pick up my ‘Spotlight’ and ‘Let’s Recommend’ series. This is about blogging more than reading, but a bookish goal nonetheless. I’ve been reviewing everything I read on Goodreads for ages, but 2019 was the first time I reviewed everything in full on this blog, rather than just in monthly wrap ups. I’m so glad I made that switch, but it did mean a few of my previous blog series fell by the wayside a little. In particular, I’d like to do a few more spotlights and themed recommendation posts in 2020.
That’s it for specifics at the moment. I may commit to reading the Women’s Prize longlist again, and I may commit to reading only women in translation in August again. But in the spirit of embracing mood reading, I’ll see how I feel about both of those tentative goals nearer the time.
I’ll end this post as I always end my reading year in review; by bringing together every book I read throughout the past 12 months. If any covers/titles catch your eye, feel free to ask about them. In the meantime, happy reading, and all the best for 2020!
The books I read in January
The books I read in February
The books I read in March
The books I read in April
The books I read in May
The books I read in June
The books I read in July
The books I read in August
The books I read in September
The books I read in October
The books I read in November
The books I read in December
There we have it! Did you have a good reading year in 2019? What are your goals for 2020?
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This non-fiction book aims to normalise the struggles of mental health in a warm and candid way. These are admirable intentions, no doubt, but the execution was bad. Really bad. The presence of painfully forced humour, erratic structuring, cultural insensitivity, and potentially problematic relationship dynamics made me cringe throughout. I know Lawson’s work has been popular with a lot of people, but her style is definitely not for me.
The only time the old man ever stops talking about fishing is to talk about baseball, or to club a dolphin over the head. Not my jam. In all seriousness, I found this so dull, repetitive and lifeless that I didn’t even care enough to try and find any deeper allegorical meaning. At least I can now say I’ve tried Hemingway for myself, and know for sure that he and I aren’t going to be friends.
This is one that feels particularly harsh to include here, because it’s a pretty good book overall and there are certainly things about it that I liked. BUT, on paper it sounds like my ideal read (historical fiction set partly in Iceland, with themes of female agency and the power of storytelling). Plus, it got glowing reviews from readers and critics alike. My high expectations simply couldn’t be met, with the uneven pacing stopping me from ever feeling fully invested.
Science fiction from a pioneer of the genre that explores themes of colonisation, war, environmental destruction, othering, and cultural erasure sounded so promising. Sadly, this ended up being a huge slog, especially for such a slim novel. The glut of invented terminology was so exaggerated – the effort to constantly contextualise every piece of information we were given so great – that I felt no investment whatsoever in the plot or characters. What initially held great promise became dry and frustrating; a particular shame given how much I hoped to love this author’s work.
I loved this book’s singular concept, and was excited by its claims of a gothic, mysterious tone, but if a novel requires notes from both the author and the translator for the reader to stand a chance of discerning any kind of narrative or thematic sense, I’d argue that the book hasn’t worked. Any interesting ideas about gender roles and suchlike were danced around so ambiguously that I was left feeling cold and perplexed; any fleeting moments of brilliance swallowed up by alienating tangents and nonsensical goings on.
This is another one I feel particularly sad to mention here, because I fully expected it to be making an appearance on my list of favourites. Logan is a writer I already love, and a collection of feminist horror stories is so in my wheelhouse it felt like this book had been tailormade for me to love it. Though I thoroughly enjoyed its overall tone, and many of the haunting images it presented, I found the collection bloated; too many of the 20 stories blending into one, and too many of them dipping into the weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird territory that I’m not a big fan of. It’s a shame, as when this book is good, it’s very, very good; it just wasn’t the new all-time favourite I so desperately wanted it to be.
Chang is another author I had wanted to try for years. This collection of short stories was described as ‘gripping’ and ‘intensely atmospheric’, which put me in completely the wrong frame of mind for what I actually got, which was perhaps the quietest, most understated slice-of-life stories I’ve ever read. I enjoyed the post-war setting, and the themes Chang touched on (like the role of women within Chinese society, class divides, national identity, and the shift from a traditional patriarchal society towards a more liberal, Westernised way of living), but the use of a different translator for every story led to a very uneven narrative voice that I found hugely jarring. I haven’t given up on Chang yet, but it seems I picked an unfortunate place to start with her work given how much I hoped to gel with her.
I read and loved A Spell of Winter by the same author this year, and rushed out to pick up another of her novels. I was excited to find that she’d written a ghost story, described as a ‘haunting flesh-creeper’. In reality, this was a paranormal romance that lacked any of the evocative prose and arresting atmosphere that made A Spell of Winter so special. I will definitely give this author another try, but if these first two reads are anything to go by, it seems her stuff is going to be very hit or miss.
