In 2014 I challenged myself to take photos of every book I read. Most of them included the rabbit editor looking slightly grumpy, which is adorable but not useful for analysis. Last year, I started a Goodreads account. It made tracking my 2015 reading much easier.

I started but didn’t finish 19 novels.
Most of those DNFs (did not finish) stories included a plot development I couldn’t read past. For one romance novel set in the 1960s it was a hero who shamed the heroine for being alone a room with a man she didn’t know. There was a chance the man raped her, and as far as the hero was concerned that would be her fault. While the story spoke to me, I couldn’t forgive him being such a jerk. (I’m pretty sure the heroine did.) The big surprise among the DNFs was A Clash of Kings (the second novel in the Game of Thrones series). I love dragons, fantasy, and epic stories, but I don’t enjoy reading violence against women. I wish someone would write a more woman-friendly version.

I read 78 novels, with a total of 23,316 pages.
The bulk of those (39 of 78) were historic mysteries thanks to the 19 Phryne Fisher novels I devoured last winter.  I promised myself I’d seek out more weird west novels but only managed to find two: The Six-Gun Tarot and The Shotgun Arcana both by R.S. Belcher. I can’t wait to read the third novel in this series set in a cursed desert town. The stunning cast includes a Chinese demi-god, Christian angels, a Native American shape shifter, an assassin/witch trained by the pirate-queen, and a gay man wielding a sword from Mormon legend. It sounds crazy, but it really works. I wanted to know more about each and every character.

I’m mildly embarrassed about the amount of YA books I read – one a month this year. I already gushed about my two favorites – Scarlett Undercover and Serafina and the Black Cloak. Both are great, but it’s Scarlett,  the teenage Muslim detective, I’m most looking forward to following. I loved learning about Scarlett’s culture and enjoyed a fresh take on the noir genre.

 

Looking forward
Last year I read roughly one and a half books a week. In 2016, I’d like to push that to 2 books per week. That’s a challenging goal considering I’m writing and editing books of my own, but reading is a fundamental part of the writing process. When I don’t read I get repetitive, using the same concepts (or even the same words) over and over again. Reading stops me from getting stale.

With that in mind I want to try some new genres this year.  Some of my favorite books from the last few years have been set in another culture or place.  In 2016 I’m making a point of adding diversity to my reading list – at least one book each month by a minority author or with a minority main character. I have some great lesbian fiction in mind but I’m still on the hunt for books where the main character has a disability. About 20% of the population has a disability of some sort but I don’t see them on my bookshelf. I want to.

When I find them, or any gem of a book, I promise to come back here and blog about it. One of the best parts of reading is talking about your latest favorite. If you’ve got one I should check out let me know, I’m always happy to hear about a good book.