2019 Reading in Review

Time for the yearly summary of last year's reading.  I read a few more books than the past couple of years, but that is likely because I included children's chapter books.  If I had included picture books in the past, the numbers would be considerably higher (maybe that is how some people read more than 200+ books a year). So including children's chapter books, I finished 62 books in 2019.

Of that number:

Children's books not including picture books =14
Books of Poetry = 3 (if you count Christian Wiman's book My Bright Abyss, which is partly a memoir)
Fiction not including children's books = 17
Nonfiction = 28

Of those numbers, 18 were rereads counting children's books (4 not counting them...)
Published before 1950 -  6 or 7
20 or more could count as spiritual books

I also included 7 books that were literary journals or anthologies.

The winners of the "best" in each category are:
For Poetry: Wiman or Tretheway (a small group)
For Nonfiction: Harder to choose:  Educated was the most interesting, but I really enjoyed both of David James Duncan's books of essays.
Literary magazines: love Laphams. I also started reading Emergence and Orion, both of which contain outstanding nature writing.
Fiction: Probably Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather or A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Children's books: If you look at the list, you'll see that we read a lot of Beverly Clearly. Hands down, a favorite. And several we also listen to on tape in the car (Ellen Tebbits, a couple Henry books). I didn't include some of the slim children's books we read like Magic Treehouse or the color fairy books, which would win worst books of the year for sure.

So in summary, I read more (if you count children's books), but wrote less on this blog. If you count the writing I did for the academic paper that took too much time, I did do more of a different kind of writing.
This year we traveled more, so that allowed me to read more.
I also taught more = more reading for class.
We entertained more = less reading time.
Less time on social media= more reading books.

We’ll see what this year brings!