I read 102 books.
Total pages 14,320. Hours ~124
Female/Male: 51/49
Fiction/Non: 78/24
New to Me Authors: 91 / Repeat Authors: 11
This year, I read my 6th Shirley Jackson. I read a 5th book by Elizabeth Strout. Four authors, I read for the 3rd time: James McBride, Wallace Stegner, Drew Rozell, and Toni Morrison. The rereads included an author that was both a first for the year and then read it with my ears for its second intake: Becoming Duchess Goldblatt. I reread The Sellout for the TOB Super Rooster and I read two poetry collections by Billy Collins. I read 4 authors for the second time: read another by Ta-Nehisi Coates but the second was fiction. I read the next in a series to catch my second by Hilary Mantel. Michael Pollan’s Caffeine was my second of his.
Classics: didn’t have the patience to figure this out; oldest book The Picture of Dorian Gray 1890. Only 2 books published before 1900. Books published in 2019 = 20, in 2020 = 23.
Shortest book: Not figuring this out because I read so many poetry collections that were < 100 pages and plenty of novellas, and I couldn’t decide how to handle exceptions to not. Plus I read a lot of kids books.
Longest book: Ducks, Newburyport at 1020 pages. Took me months.
Longest Audiobook: Ok, here’s where I admit that I didn’t keep track this year. And more truth is that last year, I created my track sheet in December! So, it is just not going to happen where I present all the stats and show pretty pie graphs. Maybe 2021. Maybe.
The longest audiobook was likely We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry, at 14 hours and 44 minutes. And it was too long. Fun! but too long. Not typical that I didn’t have any chunkster audiobooks! You might suggest it would be lack of a commute and thus no listening while driving time? But I rarely listened to my audiobooks on commute to work. Not sure…
LIke last year, I took advantage of Audible’s monthly freebies quite often.
This is last year’s pie chart just because this post needs some color. LOL
Comparing… THIS YEAR, I upped my 5 star givings to 34%! Four stars were given to 33 %, three stars to 38%, and 4% got 2 stars. No ratings of 1 star.
Which is interesting… Because I don’t feel like I had a really tremendous feel-good reading year. Maybe this actually supports that I can’t quickly think of my top reads? Too many?
Favorite poetry: Mad With Yellow by Lisa J. Starr
I didn’t do any readalongs. I didn’t do any reading projects. (Tho, @Bybee might think different?)
WAIT! not true. My poetry was a personal reading project and it was wonderful. I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams to read a poem every day. Did it change my life? Maybe. Maybe…
I did do the Super Rooster and am quite pleased with myself.
My blogging could be described as “fits of bursts”; I’m okay with what I managed to post.
I finished the What’s in a Name 2020 Challenge earlier than usual. All good.
I read 4 (2 to completion) books in 2020that were on the 1001 Books To Read Before You Die: Tender is the Night, Club Dumas, Cry the Beloved Country, Treasure Island.
My first time to read 100+ books but I feel like I cheated, to be honest. Yea, yea, I know that the book police ain’t out to get me or anything but the challenge to make it doesn’t sit right with me. I honestly have taken that last 3 weeks off. I can feel it in my brain that I’m not reading — yet I can’t seem to sit and READ. It’s such the weirdest thing.
Hoping the flip of the calendar page, will truly bring a renewed motivation and thrill with reading. But yowza, I hate to DNF.
Finally, PIE: 
and, drumroll please for the 2020 Pie in Literature Award, the WINNER of my best book with pie for this year is Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman!
The fact that it’s important not to despair though when you’ve got pies in the oven, …, the fact that you have to have mercy on your pies, be there for your pies, and in return they will be good dutiful pies and serve you, …
Honorable Mentions: Oh, goodness. I read so many more pie-themed books this year! I read a pie cookbook (wait, I do that every year, don’t I?). I sought out pie-themed books, truth.
I hail Ladybird, Collected (and NO – not just because it mimics Ducks with that comma) but because I want everyone to read it and have it get picked up for national distribution. Please visit HERE or HERE to get your copy.
I bring to your attention to We Ride Upon Sticks – some good pie mentions; make me smile just to think on. And well, sure, of COURSE: Summer of a Thousand Pies, Enemy Pie, and Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe.
Finally, the pies I made yesterday and today!
Harvey Wallbanger Pie for Dad’s birthday and the Spinach Ham Gouda Quiche made today for Happy New Year!!
Be kind, be readin’, give me a book rec. Let’s chat this year, yes?
It’s no small thing, feeling that we matter, that we couldn’t just be any diner and it couldn’t just be any pie. – Ladybird, Collected
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Care's Books and Pie 
I’m glad Ducks made it to the top of your list. It is an amazing feat.
I agree that Sticks was fun, but too long. For sure the epilogue should have been cut…not necessary IMO.
Thanks Ruthiella for the support. I love it when you agree with me! LOL
I gots to get my reading mojo back…
Look at those great stats! I’m also glad to see wrap-up posts can still be posted in January; it gives me hope that I might still write one. I’m reading a fair amount these days, but need to get my blogging mojo back. I’m going to try (as I do every January) to track my annual reading better on LibraryThing. Your pies are amazing! And you’re in Kansas now???? Happy New Year!
I hereby decree that review posts are actually most accurate and thus allowable for posting in January!
I missed the pie references in Sticks, even after you alerted me that there was pie! I noticed the pizza pie but failed to see any others. I was too distracted by the pop culture references, a lot of which seemed ever so slightly off to me. (I was in the same graduating class as the characters, and they mentioned a lot of things I was into in middle school and early high school, but not senior year.)
One of the mothers entered a pie contest at the country fair or whatever shindig it was… 😀
You can never have enough pie! I love the male/female ratio. It’s what I aspire to, but never actually achieve. A great reading year 🙂
I read a lot more female authors last year but am glad to see a pretty even split without much trying.
Hope the reading mojo returns. Maybe you just really needed a break and that’s okay!
It’s back! Long Bright River is really good. It’s permission to sit a book down and start something else that I can’t embrace and then the nonread book glares at me.
Changing the calendar to 2021 seemed to get me excited about reading again (2020 was not a great reading year for me)… hope that does it for you, too! Love all the stats and PIE charts. Happy New Year!
Yes, I think the flip of the calendar enhanced my mood, too. Happy New Year!
Well done, Carrie! As to the comment about thinking you cheated . . . no, no, and. no. If you read it, it counts. It’s OK if a book is short. It’s exciting if it’s long (I probably felt the same sense of accomplishment finishing Don Quixote as you did Ducks). Sorry you haven’t felt much like reading, lately. Last year was a rollercoaster of highs and lows in my reading. I know that yuck feeling of not even desiring to open a book. Hope the new year is motivating for you.
Thanks Nancy! yes, I am progressing on a few interesting books now and making the time. Same to you!
Those pies look delicious, and I am so impressed with your year in reading! I was feeling slightly downcast about my reading year because I read so many fewer books than in past years, but when I started going through to pick out my Best of 2020 books, there were SO many that I loved. It was actually a great reading year! (At least something went right.)
Thanks Jenny, I’m actually thinking of setting a page goal rather than a book count this year. And so it goes.
I’m always so impressed with all of the statistics you keep! I have no idea how many pages I read, for one thing. It’s always so fun to read your wrap up posts!
Aw shucks. I envy other people who REALLY track stuff! like POC and themes, etc? I am hoping to do better this year in my accuracy tracking.