While 2021 was not necessarily my best blogging year, it was a record year for reading. Not just in the amount of books I read, but also for the one genre I returned to again and again.

In 2020 I read 62 books, which did not meet the numeric goal I set at the beginning of the year (72 books), but it was a 14 book increase from the year before. I’m never too hard on myself about falling short of a numeric reading goal; I’m including that stat simply because I like to see how my reading fluctuates from year to year (and if you are hard on yourself about meeting numeric reading goals, here’s a gentle reminder that we are still in the throes of a global pandemic, so if reading is adding to the stress you are already feeling, maybe change your reading goal to something like “read when I feel like it” rather than “I must get x amount of books read).

At the start of 2021, I once again set my sights on the 72 book goal, with an additional desire to maybe, possibly, read at least 96 books over the course of the year (I broke it down to reading six to eight books a month). Well, reader, as I mentioned in the intro to this post, 2021 was a record reading year, in which I read 88 books.

I relied heavily on Scribd for ebooks in 2021, which made up the majority of the books I read over the past year. I don’t consider myself as an owner of those books (or the few audiobooks I listened to on Scribd), because if I were to delete the Scribd app or discontinue my membership, I would no longer have access to them (please don’t let my opinion about digital book ownership impact your own thoughts on what makes up your personal library).

There were two or three books I officially did not finish/have no plans to return to, and countless others I haven’t finished but plan on continuing at some point in time. There are a handful of books that I could have put on my DNF list, but because they were under 100 pages, I followed through with reading them to the end.

I did not log into my StoryGraph account as often as I would have liked (something I will work on in 2022), but as of this afternoon I have added all of the books I read in 2021 to my profile so I could share some of my reading stats in graph/chart form! To start, my numeric reading goal (including the number of pages making up the 88 books I read):

And the genres/subjects I read:

88% of the books I read in 2021 came in under 300 pages (12% were between 300 and 499 pages):

Fiction made up almost every book I read (I only read one piece of nonfiction all year, which is not out of the ordinary for me), and ebooks reigned over print and audiobooks. I may not have read many books from my physical bookshelves, but my digital bookshelf expanded significantly this year.

What’s in Store for 2022

In my 2020 Review and 2021 Goals blog post, I mentioned that I wanted to focus on reading mainly the books I own. Officially, I’m going to stop incorporating that into my yearly reading goals, because I always fail. Especially considering I will continue to add books to my shelves that I have not read or have no plans to read…

And once again I am opting for a much more open-ended, non-tbr-focused reading plan. I’m going to continue the monthly reading previews and subsequent wrap-ups, and am going to aim for at least one book review per month. While that’s not my ideal amount of reviews, it’s a lot more than what I wrote in 2021.

There are a few 2022 reading challenges on my radar, but I am going to prioritize The Classics Club challenge. I announced my related reading list last year, and have all but neglected it—I don’t want to repeat that this year.

I’m also going to stick to the goal of reading six to eight books each month, though I have it in my head that I can definitely [maybe] read 100 books this year. I also want to continue my habit of listening to Agatha Christie audiobooks—at least one per month should be feasible.

As for which book(s) I’m starting 2022 with—and, since it’s January twelfth, the books I’ve started with—I’ll talk all about it in my January Preview.

Finally, if you want to follow me on The StoryGraph, you can find my profile here. I’ll also be keeping track of the books I’m reading in my planner, as well as on Instagram.

So there it is – my 2021 reading year in review and my goals/plans for 2022. If you read through to the end of this post – thank you! And if you have made any reading goals or plans for the new year, share them below, and feel free to leave any book recommendations for me and others – my TBR could always use new additions. 😉

Cheers to another year of reading! 📚
-Kelsey