Ranking the 50 Books I've Read This Year & Mid-Year Reader Stats
This was a wild exercise because I'm comparing nonfiction books I read as audiobooks in the background of doing the dishes with lit fic I've anticipated all year with classics and poetry and things I read for school. Things that do not compare at a 1-to-1 level and that don't make any sense ranked alongside each other. But I thought I might as well take on the challenge as a fun literary game. I'm rolling purely on vibes here, not looking at the star ratings I gave out when I first read the book or any past notes.
Methodology: Stupid simple. I started with the first book I read this year—Sense and Sensibility— and decided if the next book I read was better or worse and then repeated the process until every book was on the board. The unsurprising part is that most of the bottom of the list are books that I purely finished because they were on audio and it was easy enough to power through them. What I am surprised by is how buried in the list some books I genuinely really enjoyed are. I've loved a lot of books this year, and when they're not broken out by genre where everything can have their individual flowers, some things get a bit lost. I would honestly recommend over half of this list depending on what you're looking for. I've been super picky with my reading this year, and (with the exception of audiobooks) I have brutally dropped books I'm getting nothing out of, so there's something recommendable about everything here, even about the books that ended up on the bottom.
If you want all the fun stats of the classic mid-year freakout, I'll include those at the end of the post as well.
I'll link all the reviews I've posted so far if you want to dive into any of these titles further.
50. Semi-Well Adjusted by Alyson Stoner 
This one was just truly terrible and unreadable, which is unfortunate cause I was really rooting for Alyson Stoner and have enjoyed former child star memoirs in the past. Sadly, this was no I'm Glad My Mom Died.
49. The Art of Frugal Hedonism by Annie Raser-Rowland and Adam GrubbWhy did I even finish this one???? Or start it in the first place.
48. Life After Cars by Aaron Naparstek, Doug Gordon, and Sarah Goodyear Totally on board with the premise, sadly the execution was not there.
47. Everybody Behaved Badly by Lesley M.M. Blue 
This book enraged me on a craft, research, respect, and ethics level, but props for making me feel something. I don't think it's a stretch to say this is one of the more polarizing books of the year.
45. Barbieland: The Unauthorized History by Tarpley Hitt
44. On Writing by Stephen King
43. Ultra-Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken
I love Bryan Washington books! But they're all just getting really similar, and this wasn't one of my favorite iterations.
41. Delusions by Cazzie David
Similarly, I loved Cazzie's first essay collection but this one missed the mark for me. I do love the cover though.
39. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Was so hyped for this book because I loved Service, but it just felt a bit bloated to me.
37. Open, Heaven by Sean Hewitt I really did like this book! I think it was mostly just the headspace I read it in.
36. Pulling the Chariot of the Sun by Shane McCrae 35. The Lonely City by Olivia Liang I want to read this in print at some point. I think I'd like it more.
34. In Love with Love by Ela Risbridger 
This is my year of Sheila. I'm still thinking about this one but didn't love it as much as Alphabetical Diaries.
31. Fuccboi by Sean Thor Conroe (review TK)I have such a love/hate relationship with this book.
29/30. Hollywood's Eve / Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik
(Same note as above (but I do love Eve Babitz))
28. Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart (review TK)
26. Ernest Hemingway: The Short Stories by Ernest Hemingway
25. Strangers by Belle Burden
24. A Long Game by Elizabeth McCracken 
Maybe the best craft book I've read this year.
22. My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy (review TK)My brain felt blissfully clean after this one.
21. P***: An Oral History by Polly BartonBlogspot has already tried to take down a post I've referenced this in, so sorry for the childish censoring. It was fascinating to read these conversation transcriptions, though sometimes it got a bit tedious.
I adore this book, but as you'll see, rereads got pushed down the list cause the impact is never as hard as the first time and I wanted to make room at the top for books that were new to me.
A total surprise with this one.
Here's a reread that ranked higher than it would've originally.
13. The Hard Crowd by Rachel Kushner
This essay collection is soooooooo good.
As iconic as promised.
Janeeeeeeee... I need to read more Austen this year. Also, impressive it's ended up so high considering this was the first book thrown in the bracket.
10. Joyride by Susan Orlean
First audiobook that blew my mind this year. I want to listen to this again.
My beloved. But I can't rank it 1 every time cause that would be boring. This was my sixth re-read.
I've never been so into a poetry collection.
6. The Observable Universe by Heather McCaldenThis changed the way I conceived of what you could do with nonfiction.
This book is still very much in my brain.
3. Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti I need to get back to my paperback reread after listening to it on audio.
Stole my whole heart.
Obviously, I haven't shut up about this one since I read it.
Midyear Stats (as of July 15 cutoff)
Books Read: 50
GenreLiterary Fiction: 24Nonfiction: 22Poetry: 1Classics: 3
This is unsurprising. I primarily read literary fiction, and the audiobooks I listen to are all nonfiction. I can listen to books faster than I can read them, but I am inconsistent about my audiobook reading, so it makes sense that they're nearly even. I've also tried to read more nonfiction in print this summer to get through my unread collection of print nonfiction books, which helped make up for the fact I've consumed less audiobooks this year.I'm happy with 3 classics so far. I'd like to read 3 more classics before the end of the year, but I wouldn't put money on that happening. I've hit an amazing flow with being super excited about literary fiction new releases and feeling like I hardly have time to read them all, so that's where my priorities are at the moment. More seriously, I'd like to read a few more poetry collections before the end of the year. That needs to happen. I definitely should because one of the two five star reads from this year was a poetry collection.
FormatPhysical Book: 27- Paperback: 23- Hardcover: 4E-Book: 5Audiobook: 18
This isn't super surprising, but there are a few interesting shifts that make a lot of sense to me. For one, I'm reading more physical books, and far more paperbacks. This is a two-fold consequence because of where I live. Pertinent most to format, I'm reading far more paperbacks than ever because Ireland is big on paperbacks. You can get almost all new releases in paperback, and most of the library books are paperbacks. I wouldn't have been so keen on this a few years ago, but now, if a book comes back from the library holds abyss as a hardcover, I question how badly I want to read it because the paperbacks are so much nicer for my wrist and for carrying everywhere in my bag. So my hardcover reads have tanked because what the library and bookshops generally supply has completely switched formats. I've also read slightly fewer audiobooks overall so far this year. That's purely because I've been stuck in very long hold lines for the audiobooks I'm interested in, and I'm happy to listen to a podcast or music instead of searching for any available audiobook like I used to. Also, I'm just trying to use my phone less overall, and that's had an impact on my audiobook usage. There's been a lot more silence where I used to require noise. E-books are down as well because Libby is no longer my easiest form of library access. I no longer have to drive fifteen minutes and find parking to get physical library books, and I'm trying to make more of an effort on bookstagram (check out @lanieetc if you haven't yet) again and physical books are much more helpful for that. So much of my reading is dictated by my environment, I'm realizing.
Where I Got The BookIndie Bookstore: 8Library: 35ARC: 7
Again, the library is so easy to access that I've been leaning even more heavily than before on the library. I have such a huge stack of library books that I've been less invested in getting ARCs. Most of the ARCs from this year actually came from the reviews I did for the Irish Times. And then I've read 8 books I previously bought. This is both higher and a smaller number than I thought it would be. Not all of these were bought this year. But I'm only able to read as much as I do because I do not pay for the vast majority of the books I read.
Average Rating: 3.92Number of 5 Star Books: 4 (2 from rereads)
This is pretty standard for me. I'm stingy with my 5 stars. There are books I loved this year that I gave a 4.5 in the end. It's all just a vibes thing, and it doesn't really make sense. But I try to keep the 5 stars sacred so that when I give one, you all really believe me. So far this year, I'm tracking a higher average (marginally) than I landed on last year. It would be cool if I could average 4 stars by the end of the year, but I'm not counting on it. This is helped by less audiobooks (I'm less likely to DNF audiobooks I'm not enjoying) and having less time for reading this year so becoming absolutely ruthless about putting books down that I'm not loving. I see no point in finishing a book I hate (unless, of course, I want to participate in the literary discourse about it, but that is a rare occasion.)
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