2020 Reading Recap (with charts and graphs for fun!)

This was year number nine of religiously tracking all the books I read. The first year I did this I set my reading goal at a modest 52 books for the year because one book a week sounded pretty manageable. 2014 was the first year I started using a spreadsheet to help me collect and analyze more data than Goodreads allows. (Yes, I am an Enneagram 3, why do you ask?) Then, in 2019, I discovered that bookriot.com had a spreadsheet template with some built-in charts and graphs, beyond what I was already tracking. So I used theirs this year while modifying it to my liking. Here is a link where you can get their 2021 reading log template.

Now on to the nerd stats:

Number of books read: 150

Number of pages read: 26,475

This was not as many books as I read last year because I was ridiculous last year and read 203 books. I was originally going to try to read 200 books again this year but then, you know, 2020 happened and I hit a reading slump for a few months before I got my reading groove back. But before last year, my highest number of books read in one year was 142 books in 2016, so you know. 

Mode of reading:

Audiobook (69), Ebook (43), Print (38)

- These percentages are very similar to last year.

Book Genres:

Fiction vs. Nonfiction is significantly different from my normal 50-50 split. This year it skewed heavily toward nonfiction, probably because of going back to seminary and not reading as much for fun during the first half of the year because of the aforementioned reading slump.

More specific genres and categories I tracked:

C. S. Lewis Studies: 10 (these overlap with various genres)

Seminary: 39 (these overlap with Bible & Theology, obviously)

Theology: 49

Bible: 43

Memoir/Biography: 10

Science Fiction: 27 (I read a lot more scifi than fantasy this year.)

Fantasy: 9

General Fiction: 2

General Nonfiction: 10

Male/Female Authorship:

This is much closer to the 50-50 ratio I would like it to be. But it continues to be something I have to be very aware of or it is easy to read way more men than women authors.

Books Read Per Month:

2020

You can see that reading slump I was talking about in February through July, bottoming out in April and June. And you can see where I started reading like crazy once my first semester back in seminary started. And here's last year's chart for comparison: 

2019

Read vs. Re-reads:

First time read: 81

Re-read: 69

I re-read a lot more books this year than normal. Part of that was re-reading the entire Bible from cover to cover and part of it was revisiting some familiar sci-fi stories I enjoyed as comfort reading. I also re-read some other theology books to refresh my memory. What I wouldn't give for an eidetic memory... oh well, C. S. Lewis said "The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers ‘I’ve read it already’ to be a conclusive argument against reading a work. [...] Those who read great works, on the other hand, will read the same work ten, twenty or thirty times during the course of their life” (An Experiment in Criticism, 2). And C. S. Lewis re-read countless books over and over again throughout his life, so at least I am in good company. =)

These are my favorite books that I read in 2020 (and yes, some of them were re-reads, but we've been over that already. =) You can see the list of these 24 books pictured here on goodreads.

According to Audible, I listened to 119 titles for a total of 279 hours. That doesn't quite match up to how many books I logged as audiobooks but I think it must be counting titles I started but didn't finish or something. And I don't include those in my reading tracking.

Audible also shows my emphasis on nonfiction this year: 166 hours of nonfiction vs 112 hours of fiction.

Feel free to tell me about your reading year in the comments or in an email back to me. 

If you are interested in reading progressive type theology books and discussing them with me and other people, click on over to this page where you can find out more about that and join the fun! We are planning on reading and discussing Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation towards the end of January.

And if you're not bored yet here are my previous reading recaps and book lists:

2019 Reading Recap and Book Stats

2018 Reading Recap and Book Stats
2017 Reading Recap and Book Stats
2016 Reading Recap and Book Stats
2015 Reading Recap

What I read in 2019 (203 books)

What I read in 2018 (130 books)
What I read in 2017 (83 books)
What I read in 2016 (142 books)
What I read in 2015 (120 books)
What I read in 2014 (111 books)

What I read in 2013 (100 books)
What I read in 2012 (56 books)