Time to have a look at my 2023 reading year. You can find my Year in books from Goodreads here, but I keep additional data in my bullet journal.
General
- I read 43 books in 2023. Three books less than in 2022 and three books more than my reading goal of 40.
- These 43 books counted for 18.427 pages.
- The average amount of pages per book was 428, which is a bit higher than the previous years.
- The biggest book I read was A column of fire with 916 pages, the shortest In her own right (231 pages).
- My average rating was 3,4 stars, a bit lower than other years. I gave three books five stars.
Format and language
- I borrowed 17 books from the library, in both Dutch and English
- I read 19 books on my Kindle e-reader, all in English
- I picked up 7 books from my physical shelves
- I read 9 books in Dutch and 34 in English
Setting and era
These are the countries in which my books took place:
- United Kingdom: 22 books
- Italy: 7 books
- France: 6 books
- Greece: 5 books
- United States: 3 books
- Russia: 2 books
- Germany: 1 book
- Egypt: 1 book
- Norway: 1 book
- The Netherlands: 1 book
- Ethiopia: 1 book
- Austria: 1 book
As always, the United Kingdom tops the list. This year, I also read 7 books set in Italy. I went two times on holiday to Italy (Florence and Rome) and so I read more books set in that country. I didn’t read many books that are set outside Europe. I tend to stay in the UK, Italy and France with my reading. And I read some Greek myths of course.
As always, I seems to read about quite a lot of different eras. This is the overview of the centuries in which my books were set:
- B.C.: 7 books
- 1st century: 1 books
- 7th century: 1 book
- 10th century: 1 book
- 11th century: 1 book
- 12th century: 1 book
- 13th century: 1 book
- 14th century: 3 books
- 15th century: 2 books
- 16th century: 12 books
- 17th century: 5 books
- 18th century: 3 books
- 19th century: 2 books
- 20th century: 4 books
- 21th century: 3 books
This year, I read 12 books set during the 16th century – so I really focused on my favourite period. I read less books set in the 15th century compared to other years. I read a few Greek myths and 1 book about Ancient Egypt that I all count as B.C.
People
These are some of the historical people I read about for the first time this year.
- Madame Tussauds – Little
- Nefertari – The heretic queen
- Sisi – Empress on her own
- Simonetta Vespucci – The most beautiful woman in Florence
- Bess Of Hardwick – Venus in Winter
Other historical people I read about were Anne Of Kleves, Henry VIII, Mary Tudor, Henry II and Eleonor Of Aquitaine, Frances Cromwell, Lucrezia De Medici, Emma Of Normandy, Artemisia Gentileschi, Bernini and Borromini, Joan Vaux…
All in all, I’m quite happy with my reading year. Keep posted for my 10 favourite reads of 2023.
How was your reading year?
In Another Era 
That looks like a good variety of countries and eras. I’ll be posting my own data for 2023 soon and I think the 19th and 20th centuries are going to be the most popular for me this time.
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I like the structure of your record-keeping here. Think I might do something similar over on my blog – I already keep a list of books read, in each year’s diary, so half the work is already done. But by ‘eck, that’s a lot of books!
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Thank you!
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