Luggage and Literature

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. - St. Augustine

2020 Reading Statistics

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In 2020, I read A LOT of books, 196 to be precise. And although I know it’s not a competition, I can’t help but be just a little impressed with myself on that. To note, I don’t ever strive for a particular number of books read each year, but rather do try to read books that I truly enjoy or gain something from, and do try to structure my reading so that it’s a blessing to me rather than a burden. So without further ado, here are some pretty little charts that break down my 2020 reading statistics, with a few notes about what stood out to me in them.

November, what with the election coverage (and me being a political science major in college), was a seriously down month in my reading.

My goal was to read 75 books that I already owned, as part of the Unread Shelf Challenge. I met that plus a couple more, with 77 old or already owned books.

I clearly don’t do as may audiobooks as physical or e-books, which makes sense, since I typically listen to those while driving or doing other things around the house. But 42 audiobooks is still quite a few, and maybe demonstrates that I don’t listen to them at 1x speed (I usually bump them up to 1.2-1.4x speed depending on the narrator, topic, and my level of interest).

Also, if you actually counted up the number here (197) compared to the total number of books that I read (196) and noticed a discrepancy, you’re a nerd. Also, I had one book in two different formats, so that accounts for the discrepancy there.

2019 Reading Challenge

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In 2016 I participated in the PopSugar Reading Challenge. In 2017 I participated in the Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading for Growth and Reading for Fun Challenges. And in 2018 I completed another PopSugar Reading Challenge. I loved that the challenges expanded and directed my reading, rather than it being completely haphazard. But in the last few months of 2018, the categories started to feel restrictive and constraining, rather than liberating or fun. And I’ve noticed that I have started to accumulate more and more books that I don’t seem to get to.

So, for my 2019 reading challenge, I’m participating in The Unread Shelf Project, a challenge to read books that I already own before turning to Amazon to purchase new books or to Libby to borrow more books. I’m not saying that I’ll not do either, because that is not realistic. But before turning to these other sources, I’ll start with the books already on my Kindle and on my own shelves.

To start the challenge, I thought I ought to count up how many total books I already own, that I haven’t yet read. Between books on Kindle, Audible, and physical books, I own 375 books that I haven’t yet read. 375! That number is astonishing. I know that I will not get through all of them this year, but my goal is to reduce it by at least 75. My goal is to have 300 or less unread books in my possession when 2020 begins. It’s a big goal, but one that I think that I can achieve.

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