I’ve never really kept track of the books I read before, but for 2019 I thought it would be interesting to see how many I read in the course of a year. I also hoped that recording the books I read each month would provide some motivation to read more – and it did!

While the majority of this list is novels (some of which are audiobooks), there’s also the odd bit of non-fiction, and a couple of novellas. Generally there’s at least one book each month that I read for my book club, which means I’ve been reading outside of my usual genres a fair bit as well. If memory serves, only two of these books are re-reads. I should also point out that if a book is listed under a particular month it doesn’t necessarily mean that the book was both started and finished within that month – some of the time, it just means that I finished reading the book within that month.

January

The Three Secret Cities / Matthew Reilly

February

Rivers of London / Ben Aaronovitch

Gone by Midnight / Candice Fox

Le Chateau / Sarah Ridout

March

The Ruin / Dervla McTiernan

The Lost Man / Jane Harper

Skyward / Brandon Sanderson

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up / Marie Kondo

April

The Promise Seed / Cass Moriarty

The Raven Tower / Ann Leckie

May

Spinning Silver / Naomi Novik

We Have Always Lived in the Castle / Shirley Jackson

Mr Splitfoot / Samantha Hunt

June

Junkyard / Lindsay Buroker

Trail of Lightning / Rebecca Roanhorse

The Widow’s House / Carol Goodman

A Darker Shade of Magic / V E Schwab

Hammers on Bone / Cassandra Khaw

The Bird Tribunal / Agnes Ravatn

The Near Witch / Victoria Schwab

I Am Not a Serial Killer / Dan Wells

July

The Dark Lake / Sarah Bailey

A Gathering of Shadows / V E Schwab

Naked in Death / J D Robb

Circe / Madeline Miller

The Coffin Path / Katherine Clements

August

The Unexpected Truth About Animals / Lucy Cooke

The Scholar / Dervla McTiernan

Purple Hibiscus / Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This Is How You Lose the Time War / Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Six Wakes / Mur Lafferty

September

A Conjuring of Light / V E Schwab

Longer / Michael Blumlein

And the Ocean Was Our Sky / Patrick Ness

October

Rosemary and Rue / Seanan McGuire

The Amulet of Samarkand / Jonathan Stroud

Lethal White / Robert Galbraith

The Invisible Man / H G Wells

Exhalation / Ted Chiang

Bridge Burning and Other Hobbies / Kitty Flanagan

Coal Creek / Alex Miller

November

Girl In Between / Anna Daniels

Never Never / James Patterson and Candice Fox

The Border Keeper / Kerstin Hall

Into the Night / Sarah Bailey

Widow’s Welcome / D K Fields

For Sale – With Corpse / J M Gregson

December

Angel Mage / Garth Nix

Green Valley / Louis Greenberg

The Library at Mount Char / Scott Hawkins

Burial Rites / Hannah Kent

Wanderers / Chuck Wendig

Cocaine Blues / Kerry Greenwood

 

That’s a whopping 53 books read in 2019! Credit where credit’s due, the majority of these (audiobooks included) were borrowed from my local library. I’ve been on a self-imposed book-buying ban for most of the year, with the occasional slip-up, I’ll admit, but I couldn’t have done it without making use of the library. A fair few on this list were inter-library loans that I specifically requested! I absolutely intend to keep taking advantage of the library next year, but I did receive a couple of book store gift vouchers for Christmas and I can’t just let those go to waste, can I? I’ve already got my eye on a couple of promising reads….

A few interesting statistics from my 2019 list:

Fiction: 50

Non-Fiction: 3

Audiobooks: 12

Most-read author: V E Schwab / Victoria Schwab: 4

Overall, I would judge this to be quite a successful year and I’ll definitely be recording the books I read in 2020 as well. Some of the books I read this year were fantastic while a few others had me pulling my hair out, so it’s been quite a varied experience.

My to-read pile for next year is ready and waiting!