Goodreads recently released their annual Your Year in Books review, and I read 23 books over the course of 2023! Ever since I started tracking my reading a few years ago, I’ve steadily increased the number of books I read each year:

2020: 7 books

2021: 14 books

2022: 18 books

2023: 23 books

I acknowledge that “number of books read” is a flawed metric, but it’s good enough. I’m pretty happy with these numbers — I was an avid reader growing up, but I saw a severe decline during college. Between classes and social life, being on campus kept me quite busy, and reading for pleasure fell on my list of priorities. I would occasionally finish a book or two over summer or winter breaks, but otherwise I was an infrequent reader. These days I’m reading everywhere: at home, on the subway, at cafes, while waiting for appointments, among other places. Truthfully, I was able to build back this habit almost entirely due to my Kindle. I bought mine in 2020 on the recommendation of a good friend, and I’ve grown to love it. While I understand why many people prefer physical books over e-readers, the ease of instantly getting any book I want on the internet has made the Kindle experience more than worth giving up the tactile experience of a physical book. I’ll purchase any book I really loved from my local bookstore, to keep my physical collection growing.

I mostly read a mix of fiction and non-fiction books, with my book choices in the former heavily skewing towards all types of science fiction. I fall on the sci-fi end of the sci-fi versus fantasy spectrum. As for non-fiction, I lean towards reading lots of historical non-fiction, focusing on time periods that fascinate me. These include 20th-century political history, the origins of computing, early human history, etc. I’ll often throw in a a book about urbanism or science here or there.

I’m really excited to have been able to get back into it over the last couple of years! All my progress is on my Goodreads :)