My Year in Reading - 2013

We're back from a bit of a holiday-season hiatus with Madeleine, who's taking a look at what exactly she read in 2013.

Madeleine's Top Five Favorite Books of 2013

In alphabetical order by author's last name, because having to rank them further would be torture!

• Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
• Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
• Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
• Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dinah Nayeri
• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (no review, sorry)

The Best Reread 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (which won by a narrow margin after a rather fierce battle with Jane Eyre and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn).

Breaking Down the Numbers

• I read 70 books in 2013, just shy of my goal of 75 books. This number was a lot lower than last year, when I read a personal record of 107 books.

• I read a lot more fiction than non-fiction (83% fiction). Most books were new to me, but I did reread 7 books.
• My 56 distinct authors came from 12 countries around the world. 26 were from the US, 19 were from the UK, 2 were from Australia, and 1 came from each of the countries marked on the map below.
  
  
  
  
• As you can see, my reading was highly Eurocentric (something to work on!), with only 2 authors from the Middle East, 1 from South America and none from Africa or Asia.
• The oldest book(s) I read were originally published in 1847 (Agnes Grey and Jane Eyre) and the newest hasn't been published yet (The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches).
• Most of my books come from the library! This year, 71% of books I read were library books.
  
• My biggest genres were fantasy, mystery/thriller, and (unexpectedly) historical fiction this year.

My reading goal for 2014 is a more modest 50 books (slightly less than one a week). What about you? What were your favorite books of 2013? What are you looking forward to in 2014?