Monday, February 3, 2025

January Reading Wrap-Up+

New Year, same me? I certainly started the year with a repeat read. I'm not huge on resolutions so I haven't really made any, other than in general try to get more exercise because if I don't move around and stretch, my body gets mad, so it seems like a good thing to do more of. I even started a bullet journal for moving around (I mostly just like tracking things and colors) but I digress. Let's get into reading. Which I did a fair amount of this year because, you know, the horrors.  

I do have a 2024 Fav Reads post that has been written since early Jan. However, one of the books on there is a repeated re-read and fav of mine, The Graveyard Book. And given everything that has come out with Gaiman, I'm still processing/deciding what that means for me. Thus that post, which includes that book, hasn't gone up yet.

But hey, that was sort of depressing and I'm sorry, I am trying to keep things light and happy as much as possible cos there is enough stress just everywhere else. Let's look at some books.

Total books read
6
How To Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Mike Schur
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller
Knife Skills for Beginners by Orlando Murrin
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray
The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki

How To Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Mike Schur
This is the third time I've read this book and it feels like a good way to start the year, with the hope, with the goal of being a little better than the year before. Does it work? Who knows. But a fairly easy-to-get-into refresher on moral philosophy, read by Shur and the cast of The Good Place isn't a terrible way to try. And some does seem to be seeping in, such as when an in-law was explaining to someone times when maybe you don't tell the whole truth and I was thinking "Kant wouldn't approve of this". I didn't say it out loud because I'm not that insufferable (at least, not that way), but it could be in my future.
Rating: 5 stars

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
What is there to say about this? It's a classic, it's funny, it's just as readable today. This was another get-the-boy-to-sleep reading choice* and unfortunately, I don't think this resonated with the little monster quite as much as A Christmas Carol but it did help put him to sleep so it did its part. Lizzie and Darcy, love it.
Rating: 5 stars

The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller
Arthur Crockleford (A+ English name) has been found dead in his antique shop under what his friend feels are mysterious circumstances. She enlists the help of her niece Freya, who used to look to Arthur as a mentor until an estrangement happened 20 years prior, causing the two to never speak again. Freya is initially presented as a sort of quiet figure, dealing with a messy divorce and seemingly lacking a backbone. Which means, relatively early on when she says something to the effect of "I wasn't afraid in the dark alley because I know Krav Maga," I out loud to myself said "No you fucking don't," and that was the energy both the book and I brought to the rest of the story. Anyway, mystery whodunit and what was Arthur's antique business wrapped up in and will Freya and her aunt find out at this weekend at a secluded English mansion/castle?
Rating: 2.75 stars

Knife Skills for Beginners by Orlando Murrin
Murder at a fancy cooking school with a motley crew of staff/students/suspects. Out of work chef Paul Delamare is filling in for a friend (and TV chef) Christian as a teacher for a week-long cooking course. But someone turns up dead, and Paul is a key suspect, so what is he to do? The tagline describes it as "The Maid meets Knives Out with a dash of Top Chef" and at some point, I will stop getting taken in by things described as "like Knives Out" because you are just saying that regardless of truth. But maybe that is harsh because while this is not really like Knives Out it was entertaining, there were plenty of good suspects, though some pacing made it hard (for me) to try to follow the clues.
Rating: 3.75 stars

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray
Historical fiction about Belle da Costa Greene, personal librarian to J.P. Morgan and his fancy Pierpont Morgan Library with its impressive collection of renaissance books at art. But Belle has a secret. She's actually Belle Marion Greener and she's not actually of Portuguese descent, despite what she tells people to explain her darker complexion. Her farther was the first Black graduate of Harvard and a fighter for equal rights. But this is American in the 1900s. I liked the idea of the story and overall I liked Belle but I had a few issues. There is a lot of telling rather than showing, which is especially frustrating in a first-person book. She will mentions "rumors of her race going around" but we hardly ever see her actually dealing with it first hand. She also seems amazing from the get-go at blending into high society and navigating the world of fine arts auctions, so the work she must do to "blend in" seem pretty easy for her. Once I got into it, I liked it enough but did yell at it in frustration a few times.
Rating: 3.25 stars

The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki
Talking cats read astrological charts for people. I'm not sure what prompted me to put this on my to-read list. I really should keep track of it. It wasn't what I was expecting but to be fair to it, it is pretty clear in the description that's what it's about, so that's on me. A café appears to people seemingly in their dreams, staffed by talking cats who explain to people why things aren't going right in their lives via astrological readings. I'm not big on astrology so this might have been more of a hit for me otherwise. Also I bet if a talking cat serving me tasty drinks and snacks was teaching me astrology I'd be more into it. Maybe not for me, but it felt successful it what it was trying to do and it is a quick read so if astrology is your thing, this is a cozy read.
Rating: 3.5 stars

Total pages read
1,838

Fiction
83%

Female authors
67%

BIPOC authors
33%

US authors
33%

Rereads
33%

Translation
17%

Book club book
17%

Format
audiobook: 83%
ebook: 17%

Where'd I get the book
library: 67%
gift: 17%
Kindle/Audible: 17%

Decade published
1810s: 17%
2020s: 83%

Resolution books
83%
Pride & Prejudice is published a bit before 2000 and by a UK author
The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder and Knife Skills for Beginners are both by UK authors
One of the 2 authors for The Personal Librarian is Black (which I'm not splitting the % of how it counts towards total because that is too much work)
The Full Moon Coffee Shop is by a Japanese author and is a translation


*I've been reading random, boring-to-a-six-year-old books to help my son get to sleep after reading his usual bedtime stories.

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

2024 Year End Stats

2024 was another busy year. I said in my last wrap up post how we'd moved (and then moved again) because the housing market is crazy in this neck of the woods. It's no less crazy now but the good news is that we were able to somehow find something in our preferred neighborhood, not far from the place we were renting which meant there was no need to worry about pulling Matthew out of school because we were still in the district. We moved in May but are still in the process of unpacking (it feels like a never ending task) but the books are unpacked! All 980 of them! 

Work has also been something. Again, in my post last year I mentioned I started a new job because my old one sold the brands I was working on. I'm still at that (not so) new job, BUT this company has announced that they are selling off the brand I work on so again, things are a bit up in the air. Good news is I'm a bit more relaxed about it all because what are you gonna do? 

And then my reading for the year was surprisingly strong. Moreso than I would have thought though I couldn't really say why other than reading is great and audiobooks make it at all possible to read while having to get everything else done (cooking! cleaning! commuting!) Again. ididn't make any cool graphics which I'm sure I should have because it would definitely make this more visually interesting to look at but is just not going to happen. Instead please enjoy this list of stats compared to my historic average (2013 - 2023)

What will 2025 hold? Who knows? I 'm just going to try not to make any sudden moves or spook it in any way and we'll just see what happens. 

Total books read
63
Last year was the most books I had read in a year over the past 10 years.
This year, I exceeded that. I dunno why. Meaning I didn't go out of my way to try to read more than last year and indeed, I didn't actually realize that was the case until writing this just now. 
Historic average: 54
Year with the most books: 2024 / Year with the fewest books: 2016 & 2018 (48 books)

Total pages read
20,365
Historic average: 17,758
Year with the most pages: 2013 (21,681) / Year with the fewest pages: 2018 (13,525)

Months with the most / fewest books
November (9 books) / Feb, May, Jun, Sep (4 books)
Historic average: as I said last year, every month is either 4 or 5 books on average with the exception of July which for whatever reason is a light year and the average is 3

Months with the most / fewest pages
November (3,135) / June (1,170)
Historic average: Sept (1,699) / May & July (each with an average of 1,243)

Fiction
74%
Historic average: 60.7%

BIPOC authors
15%
Historic average: 18.7%

Female authors
56%
Historic average: 57.8%

Author's nationality
US: 52% (Historic average: 67.4%)
UK: 29% (Historic average: 20.4%)
Canada: 5% (Historic average: 1.7%)
Australia: 3% (Historic average: 2.0%)
Japan: 3% (Historic average: 1.5%)
Sweden: 3% (Historic average: 0.8%)
Malaysia: 2% (Historic average: 0.2%)
New Zealand: 2% (Historic average: 0.2%)
South Korea: 2% (New country!)

Translation
8%
Historic average: 3%

Rereads
24%
Historic average: 19%

Book format
audiobook: 85% (Historic average: 45.1%)
ebook: 10% (Historic average: 27.4%)
hardback: 5% (Historic average: 3.9%)

Where'd I get the book
library: 69% (Historic average: 29.2%)
Kindle/Audible: 19% these weren't new books but rather me finding rereads (Historic average: 34.1%)
gift: 10% (Historic average: 9.0%)
indie bookstore: 2% (Historic average: 15.6%) though a few of the gifts came from indies

Decade published
1840s: 2% (New Decade Unlocked)
1970s: 2% (Historic average: 1.4%)
2000s: 3% (Historic average: 14.9%)
2010s: 23% (Historic average: 55.7%)
2020s: 71% (Historic average: 15.3%)

Top Genres
Mystery: 33% (Historic average: 10.2%)
Adult fiction: 10% (I didn't have this genre previously and I dunno even know if it's entirely right now but whatever)
Fantasy: 7% (Historic average: 5.2%)
Humor: 7% (Historic average: 7.3%)
Literary Fiction: 7% (Historic average: 9.8%)

Resolution books
55%
Historic average: 49%

Thursday, January 2, 2025

December Reading Wrap-Up

December is always such a crazy month. It's a fun month. We had fun this month. But there's just so much going on it feels like there's stuff every weekend, and even multiple times during the week. And yes there's stress because there's so much to do and get done but Christmas was a success! We decorated gingerbread houses! We saw a symphony perform the music of A Muppet Christmas Carol (the best Xmas movie, IMO) while watching the movie so the monster's first trip to the movies could be a fancy one. We had family over for Christmas Eve. We spent Christmas Day in the city. We took a quick trip to D.C.

It was also, surprisingly, a month with a lot of reading again. As I mentioned in a previous post, some of this is because I've been reading to Matthew at night (beyond his normal routine of kids books) so that's contributing. Then there's the fact that I'm trying to replace some social media scrolling with something better (sometimes that's reading, sometimes it's MarioKart). Let's see how January goes.


Total books read
6
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
Mother Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
Have you ever wondered about the science of actually getting people up into space? And did you know that the early space missions were way grosser than I might have initially considered? (Did you know it takes about 5-7 days before your body quits producing so much body oil, because that's about how long it takes clothes to reach a saturation point, because bathing in space is a challenge!) This was a book I read to Matthew as he was sleeping, with a fair amount of skipping bits that were let's say not six-year-old appropriate. Interesting and makes me appreciate all of the details that go into something like this.
Rating: 4.5 stars

Mother Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon
It's really more like Grandmother, Mother, Daughter since in this case Lana, a high-powered realtor in LA finds herself staying with her daughter Beth and granddaughter Jack in a small northern CA town as she battles cancer, missing her old life. But murder night is right in the name so you know something is gonna happen and in this case it's that Jack comes across a dead body and when the cops start looking into Jack, Lana decides she needs to figure out what's going on and clear her granddaughter. 
This was described as Gilmore Girls but with murder and I have seen maybe 2-3 episodes of Gilmore Girls but the tone of this seemed pretty far from what I remember of that show, so keep that in mind if that's a big selling point.
Rating: 3.8 stars

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
Martha has had something of an unconventional upbringing, with a sculptor mother and an aspiring poet father. Beyond that, something has been wrong with her since she was a teen, where she would spend days in bed. It's a story of mental health and Martha's relationships, especially that with her husband Patrick. The story is far more Sorrow than Bliss (there's a La Croix of bliss). But it's mostly Martha self-sabatoging over and over again, knowing she doesn't want to be like this but seemingly unable to help herself.  I liked the style of writing and some turn of phrases but perhaps the weeks following the election were not the right time for a book with so much sorrow.
Rating: 3.65 stars

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
I've basically read it every year around this time and I love it each time. Even knowing it's going to make be bawl repeatedly.
Rating: 5 stars

The Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray
The second in the Diviners series. I read the first a few years ago and I don't have a particular reason for waiting so long between books but it was enough time to forget most of what happened. Luckily this gave me enough to remember the important beats while not giving a full recap of The Diviners. We're still in 1920s NYC, following Evie (reads objects), Sam (great pitpocket and something of a conman), Theta (Ziegfield girl with a past), Henry (New Orleans musician who can lucid dream), Memphis (healer), and the others we met in the first book as they navigate a world of speakeasies, occult museums and now dreams with the aid of a new character Ling who can contact the dead through dreams. But there's a sleeping sickness sweeping through the city and is it more than a virus. There are a lot of plates spinning with this book and a lot of characters to keep track of, with various levels of success. But the story kept me engaged and interested and I'm sure I'll read the next book in the series. Maybe this time I won't even wait 2 years to pick it up.
Rating: 4 stars

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Come on, you know this one. Good for the season and apparently entertaining enough for my six-year-old that even though I didn't think he was paying attention, once we finished the book he asked if we could read it again.
Rating: 4.75 stars

Total pages read
2,056

Fiction
83%

Female authors
67%

BIPOC authors
0%

US authors
50%

Rereads
50%

Book club
17%

Format
audiobook: 50%
ebook: 33%
hardback: 17%

Where'd I get the book
Kindle/Audible: 50%
Library: 50%

Decade published
1840s: 17%
2000s: 17%
2010s: 33%
2020s: 33%

Resolution books
50%
Sorrow & Bliss is by a New Zealand author
The Graveyard Book by a UK author
A Christmas Carol is also by a UK author and oh also, originally published a bit before 2000