Statistics 2023

   

My statistics for the last years are here:
Going back to 2009-12, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 

 

And these are the results of my reading lists for 2023:

* Statistics 2023 *
 

I did 184 posts in 2023 which was about a hundred less than last year before but about the same as many others.

My regular posts are either weekly (Book Quotes, Top Ten, ThrowBack Thursday, Wordless Wednesday) or monthly (Happy Month), so I posted more or less the amount of weeks or months in a year.
Book Quotes of the Week (5 posts)
Happy Month (12)
Top Ten Tuesday (11)
ThrowBack Thursday (41)
Wordless Wednesday (2)
Six Degrees of Separation (12)
Spell the Month in Books (12)

I also did a few lists that are more or less statistics about half of the year and a comparison to ten years ago (see here):
10 Year Challenge Book Tag
Mid Year Freak-Out Tag
The End of Year Book Tag
Book Tag: 5…4…3…2…1…

Same as last year, I also participated in Non-fiction November.

And then there are, of course, all the challenges I have done over the years.
I read books that contributed to the following challenges. Some of them count for more than one category:

Challenges (number of books read for the challenges in brackets)
13 Ways of Looking at the Novel (1)
2023 TBR Pile Reading Challenge (13)
Anti-Racism Books (1)
I read more on this topic but they were not on this list.

Barack Obama Reading Lists (1)

Best European Literature (1)
Bildungsroman (2)
A Century of Books (1)
Children's Books (2)

The Classics Club (18): The Classics Spin (4)
5* for the Classics Spin, 18 in total
* There was one left from the original list and I finally finished it:

Dutch and French Books (0 Dutch, 4 French)

Favourite (German) Independent Books (1)
(Das Lieblingsbuch der Unabhängigen = The Favourite Book of the Independents)
German Books (32)

My Favourite Books Ever (15)
Every year I find some more books I can add to my list of favourite books. 24 this year. Not too bad, I guess.

Nobel Peace Prize (1)
Nobel Prize Winners and Their Books (13)
Oscar Winning Books (1)
Paris in July (6)
Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (1 + 2 previous ones from this year's recipient)
(German: Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels)
Read the Year Club (2)
We read 1940 and 1962 this year. It's a good idea to add some reads from former years that we might not have touched before.
Reading Challenge - Chunky Books 2023 (12)
I read 12 chunky books in 2023 of which 3 are considered a chunkster. Mor-book-ly Obese again.
Reading the World (1)
Suggestions from Friends (3)
I read suggestions from friends all the time, just haven't kept up with who recommended which book.

Top Ten Tuesday
I took part in 11 of the challenges, this is a great way of reminiscing or planning your reads. But I have done so many of them before.
Travel the World Through Books (1)

Some of the challenges are older and I only add to them if I happen to read one of the books. No new books on these lists:
The 100 best Non-fiction Books of All Time as Chosen by The Guardian (0)
100 Books by the BBC (0)
100 Greatest Fiction Books as Chosen by the Guardian (0)
101 Best Selling Books of All Times (0)
20 Classic and Important Books (0)
Only three more books on my list.
7 Books That Will Radically Shift Your Perspectives (0)
Books That Changed the World (0)
Emma's Book Club - Our shared shelf (0)
An ever growing list of books about and for women, a group started by Emma Watson (better known as Hermione Granger), UN Woman Goodwill Ambassador.
Esperanto Books (0)
Here we mostly read short stories.
Le Monde - The 100 Books of the Century (0)

Modern Library 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century (0)

Oprah's Book Club (0)
The non-western books that every student should read (0)
The only thing I miss from our old place is the library that would get me any book I wanted. Not so easy here where we only have a small church library and they only get the biggest best-sellers. And all of them in German only, of course.

Book Club 2017 etc. (11)

I decided not to read the September book since it was not for me and we had read a few like that before.
German Book Club (11)

We only read eleven, we usually take a little break in the summer.

Books Read: 83
Pages read: 26,717 which results in 321 pages/book, 73 pages/day, 7 books/month
Last year (2022), I read 73 books with 20,533 pages which resulted in 281 pages/book, 56 pages/day, 6 books/month. So, I have improved a little.
The average novel contains between 140 and 320 pages, i.e. 230 which would make 116 average books (compated to 89 last year). Not too bad, I thought I had read less.

Books dating from which year:
Pre 1800s: 1
1800s: 3
1900-1949: 8
1950-1999: 8
2000s: 65 (1 of which from 2023)

Male Authors: 49
Female Authors: 37
Some are by several authors, so the number is not the exact number of books read.

Nobel Prize Winners: 14

Fiction: 52
Non-Fiction: 33

Chunky Books - more than 450 pages: 12, of which more than 750: 3
Library: 6
Re-Read: 2
TBR Pile: 18

Oldest Book: 1759
Voltaire "Candide, or Optimism" (F: Candide, ou l'Optimism) - 1759
Newest Book: 2023
Weiler, Jan "Älternzeit" [Eldertime] - 2023
Longest book: 1,057 pages
Rutherfurd, Edward "New York" - 2009
Shortest book: 48 pages
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi "We Should All Be Feminists" - 2014
Longest book title: 35/38
Wickert, Ulrich "Frankreich muss man lieben, um es zu verstehen" [You have to love France to understand it] - 2017

Funniest Book:
Bythell, Shaun "Seven Kinds of People you Find in Bookshops" - 2020
Saddest Book:
Perry, Matthew "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing" - 2022
Weirdest Book:
Canetti, Elias "Auto-da-Fé" (Die Blendung) - 1935
Most disappointing:
Kazantzakis, Nikos "The Last Temptation of Christ" (Ο τελευταίος πειρασμός, O telefteos pirasmos) - 1951

New author (for me) that I would like to read more from: 13
Ewald Arenz, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Dilek Güngör, Andrey Kurkov, Heinrich Mann, Matthew Perry, Bernd Schroeder, Heike Specht, Karosh Taha, Paul Theroux, Benedict Wells, Iris Wolff, Levison Wood
 
Translated Books:
6 from 6 languages
1 ea from Arabic, Greek, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish

Books read in another language:
Dutch: 0
French: 4
German: 32

Numbers in Book Titles: 2, 7, 1913
Place Names in Book Titles: Brussels, Constantinople, Crow Lake, Flanders, France, Frankreich, French, English, German, Greece, Hook of Holland, London, Longbourn, Midaq Alley, New York, Northern Ireland, Paris (2), Rotenburg, Rue Morgue, Silk Road, Syria, Turkish
Names in Book Titles: Barabbas, Barnaby, Caleb, Candide, Christ, Coraline, Hans, Idefix, Ishmael, Leo, Lina, Lukas, Maria, Rudge, Schmitz, Sommer, Winter
Colours in Book Titles: Blue, Purple, Red

My Favourite Books: 24
Arenz, Ewald "The Big Summer" (GE: Der grosse Sommer) - 2019
Brooks, Geraldine "Caleb’s Crossing"
- "People of the Book" - 2008
Bythell, Shaun "Seven Kinds of People you Find in Bookshops" - 2020
Dangarembga, Tsitisi "Nervous Conditions" - 1988
Güngör, Dilek "My Turkish Grandmother's Secret" (GE: Das Geheimnis meiner türkischen Großmutter) - 2007
Hajaj, Claire "Ishmael's Oranges" - 2014
Heidenreich, Elke; Schroeder, Bernd "Rowing Dogs" (GE: Rudernde Hunde) - 2002
Hislop, Victoria "Maria's Island" - 2021
Ibrahimi, Anilda "Red Like a Bride" (IT: Rosso come una sposa/Rot wie eine Braut) - 2008
Keefe, Patrick Radden "Say Nothing. A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" - 2018
Kurkov, Andrej "Grey Bees" (RUS: Серые пчелы/Seryye Pchely) - 2019
Mahfouz, Naguib "Midaq Alley" (arab: زقاق المدق/Zuqaq El Midaq) - 1947
Obama, Michelle "The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times" - 2022
Perry, Matthew "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing" - 2022
Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "The City of Mist" (E: La Ciudad de Vapor - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #5) - 2020
Rutherfurd, Edward "New York" - 2009
Şafak, Elif "The Island of Missing Trees" - 2021
Taschler, Judith W. "The German Teacher" (GE: Die Deutschlehrerin) - 2013
- "Summer and Winter" (GE: Sommer wie Winter) - 2011
Weiler, Jan "The Awning Man" (GE: Der Markisenmann) - 2022
- "Eldertime" (GE: Älternzeit) (Pubertiere #5) - 2023
- "In My Little Country" (GE: In meinem kleinen Land) - 2006
Wells, Benedict "The End of Loneliness" (GE: Vom Ende der Einsamkeit) - 2016

 
With my books, I visited places in the following countries:

Africa (4):
Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Asia (13):
Afghanistan, China, India, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, Syria, Turkey
Australia/Oceania (1):
New Zealand
Europe (23):
Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom
North America (2):
Canada, USA
South America (3):
Argentina, Paraguay, Suriname,
Extra-terrestrial (0):
Countries "visited" in total: 46

Authors come from:

Africa (4):
Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Asia (4):
Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Sri Lanka, Syria
Australia/Oceania (1):
Australia
Europe (15):
Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom
North America: (2):
Canada, USA
South America (0):
Author countries in total: 26

See also "My Year in Books" on Goodreads.

You may find some even greater statistics by better bloggers than me, e.g. at "Stuck in a Book".

 

If you want more information on any of the lists mentioned, please, let me know.