2020, eh? What a fucker. Such a fucker, in fact, that I entirely forgot I hadn’t posted this until just last week.
But I’m not going to beat myself up about it. Simply making it through a plague year in which I lost my job and very nearly lost my cat is enough. But how did I do on my reading goals, numerically?
Read 52 books
I resolved to read 52 books in 2020. Unfortunately, when the UK went into lockdown in March, my reading fell off a cliff. I didn’t finish anything until June. I ended up with a total of 22 books read in 2020, which I’m counting as pretty decent, considering.
Read 26 books by people who aren’t cis men
Out of 52, I aimed for 26 books that weren’t by cis men—just under half. Though since I didn’t read 26 books in total, clearly I didn’t explicitly hit this target, I’m still counting it as a win. Why? Because out of 22 books read, 19 were by people other than cis men, and the three left over I’m only not counting because they’re anthologies which contained stories by cis men. (I mean, I haven’t researched them extensively, but just statistically this has to be true.)
Read 13 books by people who aren’t American or English
So hooray! What about my resolution to read 13 books by people who aren’t American or English? 13 equates to around about a quarter of my target goal. Did I hit a quarter?
No. Absolutely not. Shamefully, I read only three books by non-American or English authors: the two Locked Tomb books by Tamsyn Muir, who is Kiwi, and the novella The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho, who is Malaysian. Must do better this year.
Read 10 books from my TBR shelves
My next resolution was to read 10 books from my TBR shelves. I didn’t hit 10, but I did manage six, which is just over a quarter of my total reading, which I’m pretty pleased with.
Read five nonfiction books
Finally, did I manage to read five nonfiction books this year?
That’s a big fat no. Out of my total 22 books, the amount which were nonfiction was… exactly zero. I started at least three nonfiction books this year, but they’re still languishing on side tables and beside my bed. I suppose this just wasn’t the year for non-fiction.
Let’s leave that in the past where it belongs. 2021 is a brand new year, with no doubt brand new horrors and maybe even brand new joys in store. Time to focus on new goals!