Book Stats: 2022 Edition
In the early days of 2022, my younger sister got super pumped about reading more books in the year to follow; she chose 10 books in advance to knock out during the year, and, inspired by her, I decided to do so too. I didn’t quite finish all the original 10 books I chose (spoiler alert), but the habit of choosing 10 books at the beginning of the year helped jumpstart the most productive year in reading I’ve had since I was probably in elementary school.
To help me keep accountable to my newfound reading habits, I’m posting about the books I finished in 2022, the books I shelved in 2022, and finally, this post: my book stats for 2022. But before I run the numbers, I want to take a minute to reflect on how I began the year re: my reading goals (and where I ended up by the end).
My Initial 10 for 2022 were:
The Poet X, Elizabeth Acevedo
Othello: The Moor of Venice, William Shakespeare
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
My Year of Meats, Ruth Ozeki
Convenience Store Woman, Sayaka Murata (translator: Ginny Tapley Takemori)
The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World, David Eagleman and Anthony Brandt
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom, Felicia Rose Chavez
Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner
Lord of the Butterflies, Andrea Gibson
Why these books?
As I was in the process of minimizing my library at the time, I tried to include books that I already had as well as books I would have to read for work (these included The Poet X, Othello, and To Kill A Mockingbird). The oldest book (to me) that I owned on this list was The Runaway Species — I had purchased it after attending one of David Eagleman’s talks in Iowa City some years ago and never really cracked it open. I had found My Year of Meats in a lending library in Boston and had (at the time) recently purchased Convenience Store Woman from a bookstore down the street from my apartment in New York. While also living in Boston, I attended Felicia Rose Chavez’s extremely spicy reading at Iowa via Zoom and had ordered the book afterward from Prairie Lights since it seemed like such a good teaching guide and memoir-hybrid. Crying in H Mart and Lord of Butterflies were intended to be book club books with my sister and sister-in-law respectively (which alas never happened — but more on that below).
Why only 10 books?
While my goal was to read one book a month (or twelve a year), I didn’t want to overly dictate to myself what books I would read in the year to come. A complete plan, in my experience, ends up being a plan I don’t actually execute. Allowing some flexibility was necessary for me to feel like I could breathe.
Book Stats for 2022
Note: the totals above do not include my very embarrassing Webtoons habit; the page numbers may vary depending on editions of books (and the fact most of them were in fact audiobooks).
Takeaways:
Overall, I’m really happy with the number of books I read last year. It’s way more than the goal of 12 I made for myself and after years of not reading (not to mention reading grad school papers which are not included here), this is quite the feat. I know it wouldn’t have been possible without access to library audiobooks. If you’re interested in seeing the full list, you can see it here.
While I’ve only listed my top 5 genres of the last year, I actually read many different genres, including science fiction, young adult, short stories, horror, memoir, thrillers, essays, historical fiction, and fantasy. Other interests included science, psychology, nature, education, feminism, politics, technology, health, and business. Additionally, Storygraph allows you to track the various moods in your books, which for me were mostly reflective, informative, and emotional, with a little humor and darkness thrown in for good measure.
Next year, I hope to continue to read more diversely, but hopefully less self-help books (just go to therapy already, jeez).
Note: “Other” here refers to a book ascribed to a “collective” rather than any individual person.
Takeaways:
Overall, this isn’t a bad spread if the goal is to read diversely and more or less equally between genders. I am noticing a distinct lack of transgender and gender non-conforming/genderless folx in my reading habits that I would like to correct — especially considering the J. K. Rowling TERF controversy of 2022 and the bigoted proposed laws targeting transgender folk and drag performers bouncing around the Iowa legislature in early 2023.
Note: “Other” here refers to a book ascribed to a “collective” rather than any individual person.
Takeaways:
Yeesh. I obviously read very white last year. Even if you added up all the non-white writers I read to completion in 2022, it’s still less than the number of white writers. Truthfully, that’s pretty embarrassing. If you consider the data available on writers working in America, while it’s basically half-and-half regarding gender, but race is another story: over 75% of writers working in America are white, which leaves precious space for everybody else. While that’s not an excuse for my reading habits, I do wonder if my uncritical consumption of books last year led me to choose white writers more often due to the sheer volume of white writers available. I definitely want to temper the whiteness in this chart next year, but I also want to add a few Southeast Asian and Arab writers as well (they’re woefully missing here).
How did I do re: my initial 10?
Of the original 10 books I chose for 2022, I read…
…6 out of 10! Not terrible, not great (technically failing). In my defense, I started both Frankenstein and The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop and will finish them in 2023. As for the viral sensation Crying in H Mart and Lord of the Butterflies, I hope to complete them in the year to come as well (they were, as I said previously, intended to be a mini book club book with my sister and sister-in-law respectively, but it never materialized). I’m actually going to be performing at the Mission Creek Literary Festival in April 2023, where Michelle Zauner is the prime attraction — so perhaps I’ll pick up a signed copy then!
To not have completed all these books or read diversely in the ways I wanted to in 2022 isn’t something I’m beating myself up about. Frankly, the year is arbitrary and beginnings and ends don’t really matter; the meat of the matter is the process and the attention and the reflection reading brings. Taking the time to unpack what information I’m taking in and taking steps to ensure that I maintain a well-rounded diet, so to speak, is what I’m interested in.
Who wrote this post?
Skylar Alexander is the author of Searching for Petco (Forklift Books, 2022; edited by Matt Hart), a book which the poet Adam Fell called “a mutant blast radius of righteous Midwestern anger and tender observation.” Her writing has appeared in many places, including Cutbank, Smokelong Quarterly, Hobart, and Forklift, Ohio. She studied English and Entrepreneurial Management at the University of Iowa and recently received her Master's in Education from NYU. A book designer and teacher, her home base is just across the Hudson from NYC.
Enough about me. What about you?
How did YOU do? Did you read all the books you intended to last year? How are you going to hold yourself accountable to your goals in 2023? Let me know in the comments below.