Around this time of year, I usually do a bunch of recaps on my goals, my website stats, or my book publishing strategy for the upcoming year. I’m not doing any of that this year, because I like my monthly goal recaps, my website stats are underwhelming and not a key focus for me, and I’m still figuring out my next steps for publishing, as opposed to just writing.

One thing I am pretty stoked about from 2023, however, is my Goodreads reading challenge, in which I achieved my goal of 26 books read for 2023.

The Highlights

I’m not going to list each and every book; you can check out the detail above or on my Goodreads profile if you like. But it’s fund to look at my reading trend/mood for the last year.

I read…

22 fiction books, including…

• 6 novels from The Last Kingdom series, which I finished in 2023
• 4 collections of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories
• 1 finale to The Wheel of Time
• 5 other fantasy stories
• 4 thrillers
• 2 character dramas

4 nonfiction books, including…

• 2 history books, usually a staple of my reading list
• 1 parenting book
• 1 book about writing

I didn’t really read any sci fi this year, but I did read a lot of historical fiction, as opposed to fantasy or just straight history. I’d like to continue reading historical fiction this year; the challenge is finding the books with the right balance of historical basis, fictionalization, and overall storytelling.

Anyway, I like that spread, but will probably try to read a bit more nonfiction and sci-fi this year, just to diversify a bit more. I’m also not sure whether or which type of super-epic fiction series I might get into this year. I haven’t yet identified a series that might dominate my reading list across the year, but we’ll see, of course.

Steve D