It’s the end of the year! How did I do?
My 2018 reading goals were:
- Read 3 books a month (36 total)
- Read longer books ( >300 pages)
- Half of books by women
- A few books by non-western authors
- A few books by winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature
- A few books written before 1900
- A few books by writers of color
Note: a few was left generic on purpose. It’s greater than 1, but no specific number required
July Results: link
December Results:
- Yes! I read 47 books this year, surpassing my goal of 36 books by 11! I tried to see if I could reach my 2017 goal of 50 books, but I didn’t quite reach. I’m hopeful I can next year though.
- Yes. I read 13,700 pages in 2018 compared to 5664 pages in 2017.
- Yes. 23.5/47= 50% women authors. This category was the hardest to hit. To be honest, the only reason I probably even came close was because I binge read 3 series (~9 books total) which were written by female authors. I’ve also noticed a big difference in the types of books I read by female authors. It hard to find well recommended non-fiction books by female authors. Instead, most of the female authors on my list were poets or non-fiction romance writers.
- Yes. 11/47 = 23% non-western authors
- Yes. 2.5/47 = 5% by Nobel laureates in literature (The 0.5 is from reading a book by Nelson Mandela, who won a Nobel Prize, but not in literature). Reading books from Nobel laureates has so far provided my favorite reads.
- Yes. 2/47= 4% books written before 1900’s
- I’ll take it.
5/47 = 11% Black authors
11.5/47 = 24% Asian authors (includes South-West Asians)
3.5/47 = 7% MENA (middle east north africa) authors
0/47 = 0% Hispanic authors
2/47 = 4% Indigenous authors
22/47 =47% Total Books by authors of color
Overall, good but could be better. I’m glad I was close to 50% though. Kind of sad that I didn’t finish any books by Hispanic authors this year. I am also finding that when I read non-fiction books, it undermines this category. Most non-fiction books recommended to me are written by Western born white men. I read 15 non-fiction books this year (including memoirs), but only 4.5 (30%) was written by a woman (0.5 was for one that was co-written) and 7/15 (46%) by an author of color. My authors of color ratio was almost the same to my yearly average, but my female author ratio was vastly lower, and that was even including me being super conscious of my consumption.
2019 Goals:
- Read 5 books a month (60 total)
- Read longer books ( > 300 pages)
- Half of books by women
- Half of non-fiction books by women
- More than half of books written by an author of color
- A few books by non-western authors
- A few books by winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature
- A few books written before 1900
- Read more MENA books
Note: a few was left generic on purpose. It’s greater than 1, but no specific number required
Genre’s I’m interested in for 2019: Poverty Eradication literature, classical MENA literature, Political Justice books/ Books on Inequality.
You can read my 2018 Recommendations here, view my spreadsheet of data here, or follow me on Goodreads here.
