2020: Lists and Numbers

Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year! It is still the new year, isn’t it… and so here is the post where I get a bit geeky about the books I read in 2020.

2020 new-to-me authors

I read books by 25 new-to-me authors last year, which is a relatively low number for me (it was 37 in 2019). Of these, the authors I’m glad to have discovered:

SJ Macdonald: I’m not sure if new books can be described as comfort reads, but that’s how I view SJ Macdonald’s Fourth Fleet Irregulars SF books. I raced through the whole series, and am hoping a new one comes out soon (also, I swear she’s an author with zero online presence – my google-fu skills have been defeated).

Annette Marie: I totally glommed all her Kindle Unlimited paranormal romance books over the course of the year. It may be damning with faint praise, but they were addictive and undemanding, which is what I needed in 2020.

Kester Grant: So much hype around her debut Les Miserables retelling, and it wasn’t misplaced. And I say that as someone who isn’t mad keen on retellings. I’m really looking forward to the next book (and will also read whatever she writes next).

Helen McClelland: Have I mentioned I’ve a soft spot for the Chalet School books? Any attempts by other writers to fill in the gaps in the EBD books normally fall flat for me, but Helen McClelland nailed it.

Mongie: I mentioned LET’S PLAY (Season 1) in my very favourite books of 2020 wrap-up post, so no surprise here. I’m a graphic novel novice so this may be the norm, but I truly appreciated how her illustrations added so much depth to the story.

Author most glommed over 2020

Several contenders here – and unsurprisingly all have books in Kindle Unlimited, which definitely helps the book budget:

I finished 15 books by Annette Marie, which was probably her entire backlist on KU…

I also read 12 books by Glynn Stewart – what’s most impressive was all of them were new releases. He’s a prolific writer! Quality can be a bit uneven and his writing definitely has some stylistic quirks, but the stories are good fun.

And then ten books by SJ MacDonald – again, see above

Kindle Unlimited usage

I read 75 KU books in 2020, which shouldn’t be a surprise by now.

At £7.99 a month, that averages out at around £1.30 a book. Around 30% were 4* reads or higher for me, which, while slightly lower than last year, means KU is still pretty good value for me.

The numbers and graphs

I read 168 books over 2020, which is more or less in line with the previous year.

Good to know pandemics don’t impact my reading, well, kind of… Not the totals, but looking at the detail, I think I relied on known quantities, as the number of new-to-me authors was well down on previous years. This number also included quite a few re-reads (16 books in total), which is unusual for me.

And here’s how my reading preferences have shifted over the past decade – basically less romance, more SFF (although usually with strong romantic elements, the stronger the better…):