What a big ol’ bookish year this has been – I ended up reading the most I ever have (at least according to the years I’ve been tracking my reading)! As ever, I’ll be sharing some of my reading and book-related highlights from the year and sharing some fun Storygraph charts at the end.
So to begin with: how I chose what to read. I continued my trend of reading on theme (those being; race, Australian authors, queer and spooky) which I liked doing but do think I’m going to ease off from in the next year, as I want to be able to jump onto whatever takes my fancy. But I really do love matching my reading to the season so queer books for Pride and spooky books in the autumn will definitely remain. This year I finished up Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet which I was reading along with the seasons. I really enjoyed the vibe of these books and taking a series slower, reading an instalment every couple of months rather than ripping through them all in succession. I loved taking the books with me to the park and noticing the differences in the trees each time.
I tried out a Storygraph reading challenge which encouraged me to think about the diversity of authors I was reading from. I think it was cool to be prompted to think that way but did also find it a little restrictive at times and had to go out and buy books I had in mind for specific prompts. So I’ll be taking the lesson of having awareness for the gaps in the types of stories I read, but plan to be reading more from my own shelves in the next year. A mini challenge that I set myself was to finally tackle some of the gorgeous coffee table books that I have. I love having them but as they’re so big they can be a bit unwieldy to read and so I put it off for too long. I’m glad to have learned a lot from Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and loved deep diving into Sondheim’s brain with his Finishing the Hat books about his lyric writing while listening along to the songs.
I’m super grateful that our book club continues to thrive, giving me a bit of variety but most enjoyably cosy chats with my gals. Through my travels this year I’ve had some book-ish fun. I think reading Jackie Kay’s Trumpet on the beach by Lake Annecy surrounded by the mountains and the sunshine was probably one of the best moments in the year. I also loved my trip to London with my friend Erin that was specifically about enjoying theatre and bookshops, I got to introduce her to some of my absolute favourite bookshops and it was so much fun. Then in Vienna I visited one of the most gorgeous national libraries.
Back at home, I’ve started building my bookshelf of dreams and can’t wait to get it finished so I can finally unite all my books together in one place (the organisation of which I think will end up documented here). There’s been some lovely sundays trawling around charity shops in search of book to gift and the annual book hunt at Christmas with my mum and sister (which you can watch below).
And finally, the stats! Here’s a brief summary and my favourite charts from the Storygraph:
What Katie Did Next 