Happy new year, readers! With 2016 drawn to a close, it is time for me to close up accounts on my reading challenges for the year. Check back Thursday for announcements about the 2017 reading challenges I’ll be participating in. Regular reviews resume next week.
2016 Goodreads Challenge
Back at the beginning of 2016, I set my reading metre for 130 books. I went into the final quarter comfortably with 113 books already read. Holidays and travel tend to mess up my reading, but I still had an impressive final quarter, and managed to finish out the year with 150 books read. I did a bunch of data input in mid-December, and realized that I was within striking distance of a big personal best, so I decided to go for it. I might try to pace myself a little more in 2017, but we’ll just have to see how things go.
Maintain Diversity Awareness
Reading more diverse books was one of my main reading challenges in 2015. I set formal targets that year, but in 2016 I simply kept an eye on the numbers without any official goals. Sixteen of the books I read, or about 40% of my reads, qualified in the final quarter of the year. For the year overall, it comes out to fifty-seven total books and 38% of my reads. I inevitably do better in the quarters where I track this metric on an ongoing basis, so I am thinking that this goal will be returning to the forefront in 2017.
Even out my fiction to non-fiction ratio
Without really meaning to, I listed strongly towards fiction in 2015. Only about 23% of the books I read were non-fiction, so I aimed to bring those numbers closer to parity in 2016. In the last quarter, seventeen of my reads were nonfiction, or around 44%. However, I only reviewed six of them, so this probably wasn’t terribly evident from just looking at the blog. This is pretty representative for the year overall; I read plenty of non-fiction, but I didn’t necessarily write about it. So I am only half-way satisfied with how I did on this challenge.
Read more Canadian Literature
Having read only eleven Canadian books in 2015, I decided I wanted to improve on that number in 2016. I’ve been living in the US for several years now, but I still like to keep up with the literary world back home. I finished out 2016 with a modest increase to seventeen. That’s isn’t a big jump in real numbers, but as a percentage it is pretty darn good! And three of those titles landed on my best of 2016 reading lists, so it was well worth the extra effort.
Update Blog
I did a big overhaul of the layout of my blog in 2016, and I am much happier with the new, cleaner look! I didn’t get a new photo as I had originally planned, but with the rest of the site looking good, I found myself less concerned about this one detail. I was also planning to launch a new feature in 2016, but had some seconds thoughts about the time commitment it would involve. I did most of the start up work, however, so I may still eventually launch it if the feeling moves me. We’ll see what 2017 brings.
So that’s that for 2016. How did your challenges go? Are you looking forward to wiping the slate clean?
Required Reading 
I often forget that you’re from Canada, Shay! I won’t forget again. 🙂
150 books is very impressive. I think I could read that many if I didn’t have social media and blogging taking up so much of my time. But reading is bit less fun without the community I found online :p Just a little.
I hope you do launch your new feature this year. Am very curious to see what it is!
Being brashly and unforgettably Canadian would probably be the most unCanadian thing ever ;P
Your blog is totally awesome and worth the work. Numbers are only numbers, after all.
DM me if you really want to know what the feature is. I don’t mind telling you 🙂