Books! I want to read them all the time, I always have at least one on the go, and yet despite all that and my two months of unemployment at the end of the year, I still barely made it to 52 books read in 2016. I suppose the rest of life holds a lot of distractions. Anyway, I read several excellent books last year, several good ones, and a few duds. I made a concerted effort to read mostly books by women.

Let’s break it down.

Books read: 52

Books by women: 46

YA fiction: 12

Non-fiction: 8

Adult fiction: 32

Series read or completed: 3

Books read because I wanted to evoke a certain time and mood while I was in a certain place: 2 (The Paris Wife and A Moveable Feast)

My favorite fiction titles: The Interestings, A God in Ruins, How to Be Both, My Brilliant Friend, All Our Pretty Songs, The Girl with All the Gifts, Texts From Jane Eyre

My least favorite fiction titles: The Quick, Burial Rites, The Heart Goes Last, My Life Before Me, Innocent

My favorite non-fiction titles: H is for Hawk, Notorious RBG

Non-fiction titles that surprised me by being disappointing, given how much I like the authors’ other work: Bad Feminist, Scandals of Hollywood

Hard copies read: 5

E-books owned: 3

So… e-books borrowed from the library: 44!

Books written before 1900: 1

Books written 1900-2000: 13

Books written 2000-2010: 1

Books written after 2010: 37

And with an eye to the future…

For 2017, I’m hoping to read:

• 60 books
• at least half by authors of color
• at least half written before 2000
• at least a third from cultures other than the US/UK

How about you? Any books coming out this year that you can’t wait to read, or authors who you’re hoping will do a Beyonce-like surprise release?

I keep track of the books I read on Goodreads, and I also write mini-reviews of nearly every book I read on there. If you’re on Goodreads, or if you’re looking for a way to keep track of what you read/what you want to read/what your friends recommend you read, feel free to add/follow me on there. There’s a link and a list of what I’m currently reading to the left on this blog’s main page, or down at the very bottom if you’re reading on a mobile.