Happy Saturday, everyone!
We’ve looked at my favorite books, we’ve looked at my least favorite books, but what we haven’t looked at yet is how much I read, what I read, and how well I did at achieving the bookish goals I set for myself in 2022!
(Sure, technically you could figure out most of this information by combing through my wrap-ups, but would anyone really want to do that when there’s also the lazy option of having me do the work for you? I highly doubt it… 😂)
(If any of you want to check out my full Year in Books, you can do that either on Goodreads or StoryGraph.)
Overall, 2022 was a pretty average reading year for me. Excluding rereads, which I don’t keep track of, I read the exact same number of books as I did in 2021, although not quite as much page-count-wise. And unfortunately, I also didn’t have quite as much luck qualitywise, either. My average rating in 2022 clocked in at about 3.5 stars – which isn’t bad, but still a significant drop compared to the previous year’s 3.7 stars. I guess all the shitty books I miraculously avoided in 2021 had to cross paths with me eventually… 😅
Still, despite cheating on my Goodreads reading challenge by lowering my goal from 100 to 80 books on December 31st for the second year in a row, I’m quite happy with these statistics. Considering how insanely busy I was last year, it’s a miracle I managed to read as much as I did, and I also found quite a few new favorites. So, all in all, I’d say 2022 was a win!
But let’s get into specifics! Obviously, we can’t have a proper 2022 wrap-up without looking at pretty graphs, and we also need to check in on how I did at achieving the more detailed reading goals I set for myself in 2022!
** 2022 Wrap-Up, Part One: Bookish stats that are most definitely extremely interesting and show off the unimproved Excel skills of a blogger who loves consistency and has therefore decided to keep using her own graphs rather than fully transitioning to StoryGraph’s **
1. Distribution – How much did I read each month?
Yes, I’m already breaking all the rules I said I would stick to 🤣 I’m not being consistent by introducing this new category to my yearly wrap-up, I’m using a StoryGraph graph rather than one of my own, and I’m also contradicting myself by giving you a slightly different page count than the one above – deal with it! When I saw this graph, my math-loving heart could not resist using it, and as to those page numbers, all I can say is that I was way too lazy to always search for the correct edition of a book on StoryGraph and Goodreads… They should still be accurate enough for our purposes!
Anyway, when looking at this graph, you get the impression that my inclination to read fluctuated extremely chaotically. There’s actually a very simple explanation, though:
Source: https://www.holidays-info.com/germany/school-holidays/bavaria/
Considering the chart, the fact that I started teaching in February, and the fact that the second half of any school break is usually needed for lesson preparation, whereas you can get away with not preparing much the week before a break, I’d say I read very consistently during the free time I had! 😁
2. Genre
This chart should come as no surprise whatsoever, since it looks almost the exact same as the one for 2021 😂 There’s a slight increase in how much fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction I read and a slight decrease in the literary fiction and romance departments, but you really have to look closely to even notice.
What can I say? I just love my variety and I love my fantasy! 🤷♀️
3. Age Range
There also isn’t much of a change here. I’m still reading predominantly adult books, with about a third YA and middle-grade sprinkled in. Overall, I’m pretty happy with that!
Although I really should have kept up with those children’s books because “fewer pictures” translates to “fewer books that Naemi read in Russian because reading whole novels in that language is still something she finds utterly exhausting”… 😅
4. Format
This graph, however, shows drastic changes in my reading habits!
For one thing, my audio book consumption went up significantly, which was mainly due to two reasons:
- No more pandemic meant more commuting.
- Living alone for the first time ever meant I needed something to keep me company while doing mundane tasks such as cooking dinner or cleaning.
Even more drastic, though, was the change in my physical copy vs. e-book consumption. Which can mainly be attributed to my 2022 book buying ban. Since my rules forbade me from buying almost everything and my library and friends only had a limited supply of books I wanted to read, I became a whole lot more reliant on e-books.
Which was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it was really nice not to have to worry about shelf space or getting rid of books I no longer wanted. On the other hand, I still vastly prefer holding an actual paper book in my hands, and the ban also got in the way of me reading what I really wanted to on more than one occasion. If Scribd didn’t have the book I wanted, my reasoning was usually “Go read something else instead and wait until you can find a copy somewhere, because what if you buy the e-book, end up loving it, and then also want a physical copy? You can’t have that!“
So yeah, I think I’m going to be less strict with myself moving forward, but the book buying ban was still an interesting experiment!
4. Rating
This is almost a Gaussian curve, so I’d say I managed to distribute my picks fairly well! 😁 However, can I please still get rid of the lower end of this curve moving into 2023? The one-star reads I had this year were bad enough to last me a lifetime, thank you very much!
5. Language
Oh, the shame! 🙈 Remember how I proudly proclaimed that I was going to read more in foreign languages going into 2022 and that I would support local authors by reading lots of German books that weren’t translations?
Well, I did neither of those things. That meager number of French and Russian novels speaks for itself, and although I did slightly better at reading German things – only three of those twelve books were translations this time around – I’m not sure if I was really supporting local authors. You had one job, Naemi, and then the book you decide to read is Hitler’s autobiography?!!? Honestly…
Anyway, those were a few graphs that I thought were interesting! Now brace yourselves for the second part of this post, in which I’m about to further expose my ineptitude by checking in on the book-related goals I set for 2022…
(Can it at least be noted that I tried? 😅)
** 2022 Wrap-Up, Part Two: A look at how badly Naemi failed at meeting her 2022 goals**
1. Read 100 books, maybe
❌ FAILED ABYSMALLY ❌
The goal says MAYBE, alright? When I set it, I was already aware that I might have to cheat, so I feel like reading 87 books is definitely within the realm of what that “maybe” encompasses 😇 Besides, counting my Harry Potter rereads alone, I easily made it past 100 – so there!
2. Read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in Russian
✔️ COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY ✔️
I did this!!! It took me well over a month and I truly struggled, but the bizarre name translations alone made this experience more than worth it!
(In case you’re interested, more detailed thoughts on my foray into the Russian wizarding world can be found in my September wrap-up.)
3. Read a Russian children’s book (In Russian, duh!)
❌ FAILED ABYSMALLY ❌
Well… I kind of half did this? I actually read several Russian children’s books to the kids in the Ukrainian refugee family my parents took in at the beginning of 2022!
Why, then, am I not counting this and why did I never mention those books in any statistics? Well, because half the time, I had no clue WTF I was reading! Children’s books include way more specific vocabulary than you would think, but obviously, when you’re reading out loud to a kid, you can’t stop and look up every second word… 😅
However, I do feel like a prerequisite for counting a book as “read” is that you actually know what happened in it, and I’m afraid I know next to nothing about what I told those kids. Except that one of the books was about a dragon and that another one was about a cat. Which any non-Russian speaker could have gleaned from looking at the pictures as well.
So yeah, Naemi, you’re not counting this! Although I am a little proud of managing to read something I did not understand so well that the kids did not complain about how terrible my phrasing, intonation, and pronunciation were! 😁
4. Read at least three books in French
❌ FAILED ABYSMALLY ❌
Yeah, nope. I did not do this. I don’t even have an excuse. The only book I read in French was Le Fantôme de L’Opéra, and I absolutely detested that.
5. Read at least ten German books (German books, Naemi, not books in German!)
❌ FAILED SOMEWHAT LESS ABYSMALLY ❌
Umm… Can we just mention that when past-Naemi came up with these goals, she assumed she would read 100 books total in 2022? I feel like since I only read 87 books, the number of German books I had to read should be adjusted accordingly! 10% of 87 books is equal to 8.7 books, and I did read that many German books last year!
Namely:
Okay, fine. Yes, I failed this goal by being only one book short of ten. Yes, I am extremely bitter about that.
6. Read books from at least ten different countries that do not include the US or the UK
✔️ COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY ✔️
I did this!! I actually accomplished one of my goals!!! As proof, here’s a list:
- 🇮🇪 Ireland: The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar (Also, since Adiba Jaigirdar is originally from Bangladesh, does that mean I get to count this as Bangladeshi as well? 🤔)
- 🇪🇸 Spain: Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
- 🇫🇷 France: The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
- 🇩🇪 Germany: All of the books I listed under Goal #5 – I never specified that those couldn’t also count towards this question!
- 🇩🇰 Denmark: The Shamer’s Signet, The Serpent Gift, and The Shamer’s War by Lene Kaaberbøl
- 🇳🇴 Norway: The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
- 🇬🇷 Greece: Ό Άλιβάνιστος – Όνειρο στό κύμα by Alexandros Papadiamantis
- 🇵🇱 Poland: Fiasco by Stanisław Lem
- 🇷🇺 Russia: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and The Blizzard by Vladimir Sorokin
- 🇰🇭 Cambodia: First They Killed my Father by Luong Ung
- 🇮🇳 India: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
- 🇦🇺 Australia: Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley
- 🇨🇦 Canada: Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin
Of course, it’s still somewhat embarrassing that I read absolutely nothing from Africa or South America and barely anything from Asia in 2022, but at least there are more than ten countries on the list! Compared to my other goals, this is progress!
7. Purge those bookshelves!
✔️ WORK IN PROGRESS, BUT LET’S CALL IT A SUCCESS?? ✔️
Let’s start with a quick comparison pic:
First of all, before you complain: I know my bookshelves may appear messier than they did last year because there are huge gaps everywhere. But that’s not my fault! Obviously, I can’t survive Alpine life without having a few lots of my favorites with me, but I am not reorganizing my entire shelf when I am constantly moving to new places and might return books at any minute. Those gaps are staying as placeholders!
What you should instead pay attention to is how much emptier my shelves are, even disregarding the gaps. Despite acquiring quite a few new reads in 2022, I only have one fully double-stacked shelf left! When looking at the four-step plan I came up with last year (which I’ve included below for the benefit of forgetful people like me 😜), I’d say I did rather well!
1 & 2) I did this, and, as predicted, the books on the floor drove me positively crazy! However, thanks to this tactic, I ended up getting rid of all of this:
No, I don’t have any better pictures. The only record of the purge I was able to find were these attempts to rehome the books using Instagram… If anyone should get first dibs on unappealing books, it should be your friends, right? 😁
3) I broke this rule three times. Two of those transgressions were made to buy The Atlas Six and Elantris, but then again, I couldn’t leave my buddy reader hanging, now, could I? Line @ First Line Reader should take at least partial blame for this! The third transgression is wholly on me, though – I just wanted Babel so badly…
4) I did not do this. This task is so freaking daunting that I don’t even know what was going through my mind when I put it on the list. When did I think I would have the time to scan thousands of pages??!!
8. Re-outline Ascent of Air and write at least 50k words of a first draft
❌ FAILED SO ABYSMALLY THAT IT’S TRULY EMBARRASSING ❌
I did not write a single word of either an outline or a first draft. I did write heaps of horribly depressing poetry though, does that count? 😃
9. Get to an A2 level in Swedish (and a one-year streak on Duolingo while you’re at it)
❔ PROBABLY A FAILURE, BUT LET’S GIVE ME THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT ❔
Since I haven’t taken any kind of test, I have no idea what level I am currently at in Swedish, but I highly doubt it’s A2. Especially since I made it through exactly two units in my textbook before my life became so all-consumed by school that my Swedish input was reduced solely to Duolingo and spending an embarrassing amount of time rewatching Young Royals...
However, I DID reach a one year streak on Duolingo and even wrote a blog post in celebration!
10. Figure out graphics and change this blog’s design to something I actually like
✔️ COMPLETED TO THE BEST OF MY ABILITIES ✔️
I did this!! I mean, there’s still a lot of room for improvement, but, long-time followers of mine, do you remember how freaking ugly this blog used to be? It was a horrendous shade of pink! There were no owls! And absolutely no graphics!
So yeah – now that we’ve seen how badly I did at achieving my 2022 goals, let’s make some more goals so that I can have another chance at success in 2023!
** 2022 Wrap-Up, Part Three: Goals for 2023**
1. Read 100 books, maybe
Where’s the fun in having goals if there isn’t a high probability of failure? 😇
However, since my 2023 is already shaping up to be every bit as horrible as my 2022 was, I need something that can hold me at least somewhat accountable! Whenever my reading time drops too significantly, it is usually a sign that I am thoroughly overworked and losing my sanity, so basically, I guess I’m saying that this goal is supposed to force me to focus on what I want every now and then, even if I don’t think I have the time to.
Am I going to stress about meeting this, though? Nope! After all, I have loads of experience lowering my reading challenge goal on December 31st by now. It shouldn’t be that hard to do it again! 😁
2. Read at least one book in French, Russian, and Swedish
I feel like part of the reason why I failed so badly at reading in foreign languages this year is precisely because I said I wanted to go all in and do it properly. Having to read all those books felt like such a daunting task that I felt too overwhelmed to even start – which is ridiculous because, at least in French, I had no trouble whatsoever picking up multiple books when I was doing it “voluntarily”!
However, I do still want to push myself to read in other languages – Otherwise, how will I ever be able to speak them properly? 😭 – so I’m going to give myself a goal that is so easily achievable that I have no excuse for chickening out again. I’m serious, Naemi! One book per language! Don’t you dare to fail here!
3. Read at least five German books
In 2022, I genuinely tried to make it to ten German books, but the thing is – knowing I wanted to read more in my native language meant that I didn’t really put a lot of effort into picking the books. I just grabbed the nearest available ones to fill my quota. Because, let’s face it: With almost everything in libraries and bookstores being translated, it’s hard enough finding something in German that I haven’t already read, that isn’t a classic, or by the same five authors I’m sick and tired of at this point. Which wasn’t exactly beneficial to supporting local authors because it resulted in me hating quite a few of the German books I read this year.
So in 2023, I still want to read books in German, but I want to reduce the required number to five so that I’ll have more time to put in the research and find something I will actually like! Cornelia Funke and Kerstin Gier cannot possibly be the only decent contemporary German fantasy authors out there, right? 😅
4. Read books from at least ten different countries that do not include the US or the UK, with at least five of those books being from countries that were not among the ones I read books from in 2022
Photo by Christian Reinke on Pexels.com
This one should be pretty self-explanatory. Immersing yourself in literature from other cultures is such a great way to broaden your horizons, and my ultimate goal is still to have read a book from every country in the world before I die. Which means I need to get a move on!
5. Read all of the series finales I’ve been neglecting for years now…
Back in my naïve teenage days, I never used to understand why people dragged out finishing series they claimed to love for years and years. How freaking hard could it be to just read the ending?
After discovering the free-time-devourers that are university and work, though, I must confess that I am now extremely guilty of this sin myself. On multiple counts 🙈
In all of the above cases, I have read every single book in the series except for the finale, and in all of the above cases, I finished the penultimate book in the series at least a year ago. I really have no excuse, except that sometimes, I just kind of lost excitement while waiting forever for the last installment to be released?
This year, though, that has to change! Even if I had my doubts about the middle books in some of these series, I am too invested in these stories to not finish them! So I really need to get a move on and do it!
6. Purge those bookshelves, but with revised rules
To keep the positives and avoid the negatives of my 2022 book purging and buying schemes, here are some updated rules I intend to stick to:
- Unhaul any books I don’t ever see myself rereading. I’ve gotten rid of most of them, but there are still a few relics and newer acquisitions – such as The Atlas Six, for example 🙄 – that need to go!
- Only purchase books before at least two-week long school breaks, and no more than five books at a time.
- Purchasing books I haven’t read yet is permitted – but if I don’t end up rating them four stars or higher, they have to be unhauled immediately afterwards unless they are part of a series!
7. Get to an A2 level in Swedish (and a two-year streak on Duolingo while you’re at it)
My Swedish textbook could certainly use a bit more love than it got in 2022, so let’s try this again! Especially since I’m really hoping 2023 will be the year I finally get to go to Sweden. I need to be able to test my skills in the field! 🤗
8. Write something creative that isn’t a blog post
It doesn’t matter how long it is, what it is, or how terrible it is. I am just not allowed to stop writing completely. Whenever my days become too packed, I feel like I always sacrifice the things I love most first because the only person who will be negatively affected by me not doing them is me. Especially when these things are very time-consuming.
Well, I’m sick and tired of it! I want to be selfish for once! I want my writing time, and I need to stop feeling guilty for taking it!
9. Finish editing my Assassin’s Fate review and freaking post it already!!
Did anyone notice I never posted this when I promised I would almost six months ago? Yeah… I think I’ll crawl into a pit and hide in shame… 🙈🙈🙈
The problem with this post is that it requires a ton of editing because I had the absolutely ingenious idea that writing reaction logs would be much less of a pain if, instead of taking notes while reading, I voice-recorded them 🙄 Well, let me enlighten you, past Naemi: TRANSCRIBING RECORDINGS IS AN INSANE AMOUNT OF WORK!!! IT TAKES FOREVER!!! Going through these notes is a behemoth of a project, and besides, I also wanted to include a section on my overall thoughts on the Realm of the Elderlings now that I’ve finished the series. Which I have not yet written. And since my notes are an absolute mess, I am sure whipping them into shape is going to take forever, too.
To sum it up: Me wanting to do this series proper justice has meant procrastinating on this review like nobody’s business, and no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to find the time to write it. But it has to happen because I didn’t take all those notes for nothing!! I have so many thoughts I’m dying to discuss!!
10. Post at least twice a month
Yes, I know: I theoretically have a weekly blogging schedule. But, as much as I would like to, I just don’t think it’s realistic that I can keep up with it any longer 😭 In 2022, I tried everything – switching my posting day from Friday to Saturday, doing more tags, writing shorter posts – but I always ended up going on hiatus anyway.
So this year, I want to take some of the pressure off myself to write consistently and also be fairer to you guys by giving you a heads up that I might not be around all the time. (You know, instead of quietly disappearing from one day to the next…) I’ll still do my best to give you content whenever I can, but if I miss a week or two, so be it! I’d much rather give you quality over quantity – and let’s be honest, the former suffered quite considerably in the latter half of 2022 – so I hope you understand! 💙
Anyway, with those goals set in stone, that was it for today! As always, I’d love to hear from you, so feel free to tell me all about your own statistics and bookish goals down below. How many books did you read in 2022? Did you set any goals for yourself, and if so, how well did you do at achieving them? Do you have any plans for 2023? I would love to know!
A Book Owl's Corner 
Is it weird that I was super interested in that graph about your school holidays? 🙈 Like, your summer basically starts when ours end and I’m also pretty sure you have more days off than we do (which I’m extremely jealous about) because, like, why are your Pentecost and Christmas breaks so long?!?
Okay, back to what the post is actually about! I’m actually really surprised that your adult percentage was higher than mine because I feel like you enjoy YA and Middle Grade more often than I do (so it makes sense for you to read more of it). I’m hoping my graph looks a bit more like yours next year 😄
You adding that Russian reread under languages 😂😂😂
I also think you’re being very hard on yourself about the goal of reading ten German books! You read Mein Kampf! That should count for at least two with all the fact-checking that book included! So I think you accomplished that goal 😁
Also, confession, I couldn’t tell the difference between your two bookshelf pictures 🙈 I’m sorry, but if you say they are emptier then I believe you 😄 And I do take the full blame for making you buy The Atlas Six and Elantris! I’m a bad influence, clearly 😁
Finally, I’m still rooting for you and that Sweden trip! You’ll manage to be fluent in the language before you go there if you keep putting it off 😉 And I also totally forgot that you hadn’t posted that last Hobb review 😂
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Of course the graph you found most interesting has absolutely nothing to do with reading 😂 But since I just googled Denmark’s holidays to compare, I guess I can’t complain… Bavaria is the last state to get summer holidays, though – to avoid everyone clogging up the highways for going on vacation, everyone starts at different times! Like, my dad has a cousin who lives in Saxony, and it’s almost impossible to meet up with her and her kids because our summer breaks only overlap for one week or so… So it’s complicated! But we need the long breaks! Think of all the poor teachers who have to grade exams and prepare lessons during them 😭 There need to at least be a few days left for relaxation! Also, January 6th is a major holiday here (children go around dressed as the Three Wise Men, sing Christmas carols, and collect money for charity), so Christmas break kind of has to last until then 😇
But to get back on topic: You’re probably not completely wrong about how much YA and middle grade I read. It’s just that I don’t really pick up that much new YA and middle grade anymore – I simply keep rereading my favorites over and over again, and since rereads aren’t included in the graph, my adult percentage probably looks a lot higher than it actually is 🤔
And I had to put the Harry Potter book in there! My already badly bruised ego couldn’t handle not mentioning Russian in the graph at all! Not when it took me forever to read that book and was thoroughly confused by name choices such as “Golden Evil” the entire time! 😫
Also, I’m totally using that Mein Kampf excuse 😎 Especially since Mein Kampf also has two parts in addition to all those footnotes, and the first part was originally one book!
My bookshelf looks very different, though!! You just have to pay close attention to where two rows of books have been replaced by one!! It’s emptier!! However, I’m glad you accept the blame for The Atlas Six and Elantris 😂
And as for that Robin Hobb review, I guess I should just make it my goal to post it before you finish reading the series 😜 That should give me enough time, hopefully!
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(I need to preface this by saying I’m sliiightly hungover and therefore can’t be judged for any typos 🙈)
But it was just so interesting that your “summer” holiday lasts until September! Avoiding everyone going on vacation at the same time makes sense, but don’t people from your neighboring countries clog up the highways instead? I mean, you’re kind of hard to avoid and I definitely know people who are on less than friendly terms with the city of Hamburg because of the traffic 😅
But of course I’ve come to understand that the long breaks are only there for the poor teachers, although I still can’t wrap my head around you being forced to work outside of designated work hours 🤔
Of course, when your rereads are YA, it makes sense to me again!
And I’m glad to help you “complete” a goal with Mein Kampf now that I fucked up the one about buying books 😁
If you haven’t posted the Hobb review by the time I need to read it, you might actually have to do some sort of punishment because it’s going to be a looooong time before I get to that 😅 Like, years, maybe.
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(Don’t worry – I am in absolutely no condition to judge typos right now, either 😅 The Ministry of Education called on Friday to let me know that I’ll be staying here for the second half of the school year, and my neighbors immediately decided that meant we needed to celebrate. Let’s just say that I lost track after we opened the third bottle of wine last night and that “sliiightly hungover” is also a pretty apt description of my current state… 🙈)
And yeah, I guess our neighbors do clog up the highways, too, but it’s not like Germany has any influence over that – our politicians would probably love to regulate you if they could! 😂 Although I also wouldn’t recommend ever driving through a city like Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin or Munich regardless of school holidays – you should take trains and complain about those instead! 😁
That Hobb review deadline sounds great to me, though 😂 “Years” is more generous than “a year”, after all, so I feel like if I don’t make that, punishment is probably a fair consequence 😅
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Wow. Your goals are certainly ambitious so I don’t see any reason why you should beat yourself up for not achieving them. I am in awe of anybody who can read fluently in a language that’s not their native tongue. I managed to work my way through an Agatha Christie that was in French but that was when I was studying French at school. I’ve been doing Italian on Duolingo for over two years now but I’m fairly certain I couldn’t read a book in Italian. Maybe I ought to try?
I hope that you do get to finish your series. I loved the R F Kuang and M K Jemisen series but just got bored with Week’s Prism series.
I do love the idea of reading a book from every country. One thing I would like to do is to diversify my reading away from UK?US books although I have quite a lot of European books in translation.
Good Luck with all of your 2023 challenges.
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Haha, thank you! I’m definitely taking me not meeting these in good humor as well – otherwise I would never have set goals that are probably equally unrealistic for this year 🤣 But I still like to aim high because what’s the point of setting goals you already know you’re going to achieve?
I definitely would not describe my reading in languages that aren’t German or English as “fluent”, though 😅 My brain always feels thoroughly exhausted afterwards, which is a big reason why I procrastinated so heavily on trying to meet this goal. After an exhausting day at work, I’d just rather reach for something I can effortlessly understand! Still, I do really want to get better and push past that point of being intimidated by these languages, so 2023 will hopefully give me another chance 😊 I definitely wish you the best of luck with Italian as well! Starting out with picture books is always a great way to go, I think 👩🏫
And I’ll let you know my thoughts on those series finales when I get to them! I’m actually currently reading The Burning God, so I’m making progress 😁 I’m definitely enjoying it, but I still think it and The Dragon Republic just don’t live up to The Poppy War for me. So many of the character relationships have been pushed into the background in favor of overpowered military tactics, and I’m just not as interested as I was in Rin’s training at Sinegard… But we’ll see! And yeah, I also get where you’re coming from with Brent Weeks. I found the previous book rather mediocre as well, which is a big reason why I haven’t picked up the finale yet. But I do want to know what happens and love the magic system, so it has to happen!
Anyway, good luck with your challenges as well! If you find any gems among your translated works, I’d love some recommendations! 🙃
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Your goals are pretty exceptional. Even failing them should feel like an achievement. Isn’t it better to have ambitious goals and fail rather than set meaningless goals and still not do anything?
Your 2023 goals have inspired me too — particularly the one about reading books from different countries except for US and UK. I could undoubtedly expand my reading.
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Oh, don’t worry, I’m not too cut up about my failures 🤣 Like you said: If you don’t have to push yourself to reach a goal, what’s the point of making one? 🤷🏼♀️ Except for the writing thing, I feel like I made good progress on all of these, so I’m satisfied!
And yes, I love reading books from different countries! I’ve found so many gems that way and learned a ton of interesting facts 🤓 So should you stumble across any good international recommendations, let me know!
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You’ve said a lot in this post but the last bit on blogging schedule hit me the most. I tried hard in 2022 to be consistent and post once a week (which was my schedule in 2021) but I went on multiple spontaneous hiatuses and had a major burnout as well. It simply wasn’t working out. This year, I don’t have goals for it but I am hoping for two posts a month.
All the best with your goals! Especially for your writing one. Be selfish and take your writing time!!
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Yes, I found your post on feeling burnt out and unable to keep up with blogging really relatable, too! I guess it’s only natural that, over time, life is going to get in the way of a hobby you used to be able to spend more time on, but it can still be hard to face that it’s just not as easy to keep up anymore… Still, I hope we both manage to find a good balance this year! And I’ll definitely try to get that writing in! 💙
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87 books is AMAZING ahhh, but hopefully the quality of the books increases this year :,))
ALL THE GRAPHS MAKE ME SO HAPPY, I really should start sticking to storygraph so I can get access to all the pretty charts
Fantasy was my most read genre too, it’s definitely the best genre out there 😌
You definitely succeeded in the bookshelf purging, please teach me your ways please I’m in desperate need of some unhauling tips 😔
Good luck with all your goals, and hope you have a GREAT reading year!
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YES, GRAPHS ARE THE BEST!! 🤩 Honestly, all the pretty charts were the sole reason I decided I needed StoryGraph, and I don’t regret that decision at all 😂
And lol, the only reason my bookshelf purging was so successful was that I literally did not have ANY space left. So I guess my suggestion is: Temporarily move back in with your parents while you’re apartment hunting and realize that you suddenly have twice as many books to cram into one bookshelf? Would not recommend! 😫
But anyway, a great 2023 to you as well, Suhani! Hopefully we’ll both do great with our resolutions!
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Congrats on all you were able to achieve in 2022! I think with all your life changes, the number of books you read and still blogging is impressive! I love that your last goal was to put less pressure on yourself to blog– I used to blog a lot more than I did now in 2019 and it took like 2 years to recover from that 😂 Getting your blog to work with you and when you want to do is great! I look forward to any content you post! 💜
All the graphs were as pretty as promised and I loved looking at them all. The monthly storygraph graph is always a satisfying one to see and the pattern of school holidays was well-matched.
Yay for fantasy and I’m glad you enjoyed a few more audiobooks this year. It is nice to have some background noise at times! Especially when you have a good narrator. The audio for The Starless Sea was probably what made me love this book as much as I did.
I admire your pursuit of reading books in other languages and I hope your goals for 2023 are more manageable! I often think about getting Duolingo but I have never taken the leap, but a 1-year streak sounds very impressive from what I’ve heard!
Good luck with all your goals and I hope you have fewer 1-star reads in 2023! 🥰
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Aww, thank you so much, Sophie! 💙 I wholeheartedly agree that it’s important to remember to have a healthy balance with blogging – after all, even something you love can be time-consuming and draining. As hard as it is to accept, I’m just way busier now than I used to be and need to remember to tweak my schedule accordingly! I’m glad to hear you were able to find a way that works for you – hopefully, I’ll be able to follow in your footsteps, though maybe without that two-year break in between 😁
And I’m glad you liked the graphs! Those are probably my favorite parts of these yearly wrap-ups, honestly 🤩 I can also definitely see The Starless Sea working well as an audiobook. I absolutely adored the whimsicalness of the first 80% or so, but the ending unfortunately lost me a bit. I hated how meta everything suddenly became! 😫 Still, I am dying to grab whatever Erin Morgenstern writes next because I am simply beyond obsessed with her writing and imagery 😍
I can definitely recommend giving Duolingo a go, though! Since lessons are super short and free, I feel like it’s not that big of a commitment, which has helped me enormously in consistently getting at least SOME language input. Besides, I’m super competitive, so all the badges you can get really helped me stay motivated! 😂 Also, my nosy self has just got to ask: Are there any specific languages you’ve been thinking of learning? 👀
Finally, though: Fingers crossed for both of us for a fantastic 2023! I really hope you manage to avoid those 1-star reads as well!
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Honestly, if i had these goals I would’ve been proud of having achieved even half of these 😂. I only read novels properly in the first half of 2022 and very less in the second half so your stats are making me drool 🤤.
Also once again those bookshelves 😭, can i have them please?!
And you should’ve read more German books Naemi!!!! Butttt I’m so glad to see an Indian book in the list too 🤩. Hope you read many more this year.
And yeah, I’m not surprised by the amount of fantasy books you’ve read, considering those dragon reviews were my enjoyable pasttime 😂.
Ooh i almost forgot, the graphics are so good! 😊
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Lol, I guess these goals might’ve been a bit overly ambitious 😂 Despite the failures irking me a little, I am actually pretty satisfied with the progress I made, though!
And ah, yes, The God of Small Things was great! So if you have any further Indian book recommendations, I’m all ears! 🤓 Especially if they involve dragons, I guess – I need to be able to provide you with more fantasy reviews, after all 😁
And I’m glad you like the graphics! 🤗 They’re definitely way better than what I had before, but then again, that isn’t exactly a big achievement 😅😂
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I actually don’t have many good Indian book recommendations since I haven’t read that many 😂. The books by Indian authors that I have read are magazines or story collections and like that and they’re in Hindi. Hehe
Also you need to seriously cut yourself some slack 😑😂
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I am impressed you struggled through Harry Potter in Russian. Being originally from Russia, that was my original Harry Potter, and in fact I read at least the first four books in Russian before I even got to the English edition. I am sure that my edition has now been re-translated many times, but I don’t think Russian HP is that bad of a translation or there many name changes. For example. the translation of the Houses makes sense and I agree with, such as Когтевран (Ravenclaw), but not so much others, including Снегг for Snape.
I often pick up HP in other languages to strengthen them, and the French HP has got to be the worst (followed closely by the Italian). I am not sure if you read it in French, but I have the original French translation, and it is one big horror, for example, for the surname Wood we have there Dubois. I mean, I understand it may be difficult for the French to pronounce English surnames and other tricky words, but there is got to be the limit and let me mention the fact that the French changed the original title of the first book. I hope the most recent translation does not repeat this horror.
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I must’ve read a different translation from yours, then – the name changes in mine were certainly on par with the French one (which I have read – I’m still permanently traumatized by Hufflepuff being called “Poufsouffle” 😅🙈)! Like, Snape was called Злей in mine, and pretty much every minor character had a different name as well… Do you happen to remember who translated the version you read as a kid? I might have to check it out because it sounds a whole lot better!
I think the award for the worst Harry Potter name translations I have ever seen has got to go to the Netherlands, though. They renamed Neville “Marcel Lubbermans”! 😳🙈 There’s just no coming back from that… 🤣
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My Russian edition of Harry Potter is Moscow, Rosman, москва, росмэн 2002, translator Igor Oranskii, Игорь Оранский. My edition cover (first book) mirrors the American/English edition, not the one you presented above. And, ha, Snape was called Злей in yours? No way! Given this, I have to say I now do prefer Снегг for Snape if choosing between the two. I don’t claim that my edition is brilliant, it is still relatively problematic (and Neville there is долгопупс), but I still found it more than ok and other English names were not translated into something horrific there, as the French edition does it, but they are simply written in Russian letters. My favourite translation remains the Spanish one. They did an excellent job, or so I thought when I read it some years ago.
I am unfamiliar with the Dutch translation, so that is very interesting. Marcel Lubbermans. I really cannot believe this. I am in shock 🙂 I mean we do live in the age of globalisation, and English is taught universally. Certainly, no foreign tongues will be overly twisted by foreign names, safe where they may have a different meaning in that language, but I doubt even then there is an excuse for change.
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Yeah, that’s definitely a different translation then – the edition I read was translated by Maria Spivak, and after some googling, I have learnt that may Russians apparently aren’t happy with it, either… I’ll have to check out Oranskii’s as an alternative, despite Spivak’s bizarre translations also being kind of entertaining 🤣
And yes, exactly! I don’t see why all of these names had to be changed when the books are set in the UK! Don’t we want kids getting an authentic look into other cultures? I mean, I get that in some cases, they wanted to preserve Rowling’s puns, but are these weird names really any better???
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I hope you are able to fine that balance that works for you without the two-year break as well 😂💙
The ending of The Starless Sea was the weakest part for me too, but you are right, Erin Morgenstern has a gift with the pen!!
I’m glad you recommend Duolingo as it has been so helpful– always love things that are free 😆
Haha I get the desire to earn all the badges. I only had audible for 3 months but I wanted them all on there too 😂
Well French I did at school and I would love to spend weekends going to France (as logistically an easier country to get to from Britain) so I think it would be handy.
I would also love to learn Greek but I think a language with a different alphabet is a hard choice for my first one as a very amateur “linguist”. Perhaps one for the future!
There is no language I wouldn’t want to know so it hard to pick 😂
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Haha, I feel you so hard on wanting to know all the languages! I’m constantly getting distracted by new ones as well because they’re just so interesting 🤩
I also took French in school and have been getting worse and worse at it due to lack of practice, so I definitely relate to that, too. I know absolutely no Greek apart from a few phrases I learnt while staying there this past summer, though… But I CAN read the alphabet thanks to mathematicians having stolen it for their notations – so I think it should be doable for amateurs, too! 😉 Something like Chinese definitely intimidates me way more… But I wish you the best of luck with whichever language(s) you decide to go for!
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Thank you, I think I will need your luck. 💙
I am with you on finding Chinese intimidating, another language I would love to know though. One of my friend’s friend has been learning Mandarin for a while, he can speak parts but the written skill takes longer I think. We were eating out and the receipt was in Mandarin, we asked what could he read and he said probably just rice 😂 Slow progress is still progress though!
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Just the fact that you can read in more than one language blows your “failed” goals out of the water.
I read The Phantom of the Opera last year too! Did you like it?
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Haha, thank you! Though trust me, my foreign language reading skills aren’t as impressive as they look – getting through some of those books was a real struggle!
And no… I despised The Phantom of the Opera, unfortunately 🙈 I found it entirely ridiculous and the characters beyond stupid! I do like the musical, though, if that’s any consolation!
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Haha, but you did get through them!👏
I liked it, but yeah, it was kinda stupid. I love the musical!
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I had the same idea as you: I’m trying to read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in Ukrainian. But as I currently only understand about 10 words per page, I’ll be happy if I get the first chapter done this year 😉
Kudos for making it in Russian 🙂
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Well, when I tried reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in Russian about two years ago, ten words per page was pretty much what I understood as well – so there’s hope! 😂 Fingers crossed you’ll eventually tackle that Ukrainian edition; I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!
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