Hello everyone!

So I thought I would have a look at what my reading and reviewing stats were for 2016. We are now in day 2 of 2017, and I thought it was the perfect time for it.

 

How much did I read + in what languages? 

Last year (2016) I read a total of 1504 books (!!!!).

Out of those 1504 these are the statistics on languages:

505 Dutch books

976 English books

12 German books (I started reading German manga this year)

11 Japanese (however they were all artbooks)

 

How much did I review?

I have written 707 in total (this is not counting the several manga (and some children’s books) that I just reviewed in one go (as one sometimes reads more than one volume in one go, and reviewing each of them separately is too much work), so the number could be way higher if I didn’t do bundled reviews).

 

What were the stats per language (as I review in Dutch and English)?

Out of 707 reviews:

123 reviews were Dutch

584 reviews were English (and some of these reviews might come from Dutch books that were originally English, and thus I decided to review them in English as well).

 

Some more on reviewing.

I would love to review more books (for my blog), but well… I also want to read + I have other hobbies + I am in a relationship + a house doesn’t clean itself + I could just go on listing reasons, but I won’t. I think you get the idea. 😛

Maybe if I only read 200 books a year, then I would just review everything, but with 1000+ books a year it is just impossible to review everything, not with everything else in my life. If I didn’t have to eat, work, sleep, clean, cook, be there for my boyfriend, etc. etc. I would probably manage, but now, hahaha, no. 😛

As for why Dutch is barely reviewed, well, that one has two reasons. One, I want to keep my blog mainly English (as to keep it global and so people can read my reviews). Two, for some reason my Dutch reviews find their way to the author easier, and let me just say that some authors don’t like it when I don’t like their books. Or even when I do like their book, but didn’t rate it 4 or 5 stars. I have had a few bad experiences were I came across the blog/page of an author (thanks to my blog showing from where someone came from (links)) in which they weren’t that kind towards me. So yeah, not really motivated to review much of my Dutch books.

Also, last year, I managed to review more books in total. You will see my bigger reviews on my Blog (and of course other places), but I also write smaller ones on Goodreads. Before I didn’t always post something, I left it empty if the words didn’t come, or my review turned out to be tiny, but last year? I did try to at least convey a bit of my emotions on books I read. And I do think that in the end I might have reviewed most of my books with this. I am still thinking of posting these little reviews on my blog, but that might also cost way too much time. So for now I would just direct you all to my Goodreads.

 

Amazement.

I am still really amazed at my high number of books. Every year I am amazed, because every year I manage to read a bit more, but last year was a real fireworks show.

With everything that happened last year I didn’t think I would get this high. Then again, last year I did make the resolution to just read, to just have fun, to not care if a book is short. To just read, and love, and be happy. To enjoy reading and not care about what others think about my reading (I have been called a cheater at times). I noticed that I easier grabbed a picture book that looked stunning instead of just leaving it and picking up a book with more pages. This doesn’t mean that I read only short books, oh no. I read some bigger books as well, and quite a few books that were around 200-300 pages.

 

Some stats from GR (picking up some parts from My Books > Stats, but also from My Year in Books 2016).

I read 214,331 pages. Which with 1504 books, equals to ~143 page average!

My longest non-fiction book was 720 pages (100 Interiors around the world). My longest Fiction book was 665 pages (The Marvels).

My shortest book was 12 pages (De spin die veel scheetjes laat). I also read a short story which had about ~10 pages (The Haunting of Graham House and Mistral Bed and Breakfast), so in a way that one is the shortest, but since it isn’t really a book, so I will count it as extra. J

Yes, I did read a lot of picture books, I am guessing about 300, then there were also comic books that were about 40-60 pages.

It was quite liberating to not say no to picture books, or shorter books. To just pick them up, read them, enjoy quite a lot of them, add them to my list. Some days I just wasn’t in the mood to start a book with lots of pages, sometimes I just wanted to read something small and short, but still equally awesome.

 

As for reading resolutions this year?

I will just continue to read as I did last year. If I want something short, I will pick up something short. If I am in the mood for a big book I will read that.

I will not be swayed/pushed to change my reading. It is something I see more often these days on social media and Goodreads, people telling others they are reading bad because they are not reading x and y kinds of books with x and y kind of characters. Or people pushing their believes about reading onto others. I will just scroll by, and continue on with what I am doing. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to spread out my reading, but I will do it on my terms, when I want. Not because someone dictates it. It is something that did cause a bit of sadness to me last year, at times I did feel bad. Shouldn’t I just read x and y? Am I reading badly? But now I see those were silly thoughts, that I shouldn’t feel bad. Everyone is a different reader, and everyone should just read as they want. Reading should be fun.

 

As for reviewing resolutions this year?

I am happy with how I am reviewing at the moment. Reviewing all the books is just impossible, but I will try to review as much as I can. Of course it also depends on the book. Some books are easy to review, words just flow out of me, I want to share my feels with everyone. But with others? Some just don’t want to come out. I have words, here and there, I see emotions that I felt, randomly floating in my head, but they don’t connect to one thing.

As I said some parts ago, last year I did try my hand at just writing something, and so a lot of my books from last year will have a short review on Goodreads, so if you are curious about what I thought about a book, but don’t see a review pop up on my blog, be sure to check my Goodreads, I might just have written a short review there.

I want to continue with this short review writing throughout this year as well!

 

Ending.

I am really excited about 2017, 2016 was an amazing year for reading, even with all that went on in my life. I found a lot of gems, found some new authors, read a ton of non-fiction. I really hope that 2017 will also bring a lot of new books, authors, and more!

Of course my blog will happily continue as it is now. It is almost my blog’s 3rd birthday, and I already kind of early-celebrated that by transforming my blog in December 2016. I am still very happy with blogging, it may take some time in my life, but I wouldn’t go back to my non-blog years. I love sharing my love for books with everyone in the world, I love showing the world what I read (though I am still a bit hesitant about telling the world how much I read in a year, but I hope to be over that one day and just proudly announce it if someone asks about it), I love finding new people thanks to my blog. My blog really opened a new world to me, and I love every bit of it. There are some bumps on the road, but I will just bump over those and hurry to the non-bumpiness.

I can’t wait to do this post again next year, see what I read, see how much I read, how much I reviewed!