Mid Year Reading Recap + Favourite Books!

Posted On July 16, 2022

Hi Readers! More than six months of 2022 done and dusted! As you know, I did not set a particular number of books for the Reading Challenge for this year. Instead, I had five goals. Of those, I was only able to somewhat achieve four. Aside from re-reading my favourite books, I have done a little bit of all the remaining four. Here’s the image! And here’s the link to all the other reading challenges I prepared for you readers!

I read 52 books across 17283 pages! I achieved 70% of my target in the first 6 months! The top five genres I read this year are Contemporary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Graphic Novel, Mystery & Literary Fiction. My most read authors for the year are Alice Oseman (5 books), Seishi Yokomizo (3 books) and Blake Crouch (3 books.)

~~NEW THINGS I EXPLORED IN BOOKS~~

The new genres I fell in love with this year are Science Fiction, Graphic Novels and Science Nonfiction.

I used to hate reading science fiction. But, my biased opinion was because of one Stephen King book which I tried to read many years ago. Luckily, Blake Crouch welcomed me to this world again and this time I was wonderfully fascinated by it. I read all of Blake Crouch’s books, one of Andy Weir’s. And naturally, I have all of Andy Weir’s books on my TBR now.

From the 52 books, 10 books were graphic novels. I am going to write a post soon on why everyone needs to read graphic novels. There are just so many reasons & I love that I am loving reading them. Be it in the form of memoirs like Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi or LGBTQ+ like Heartstopper by Alice Oseman or even middle grade fantasy like The Tea Dragon Society by K O’Neill. It doesn’t matter because it is all just pure art. It gives you double the pleasure because words + illustrations!

Lastly, similar to science fiction, I also hated nonfiction. But then when I explored the various genres within nonfiction, I knew I opened a world of potentially amazing reads with a lot of knowledge. I now typically enjoy reading nonfiction books if they revolve around science or nature or the like. I still loathe self-help nonfiction but that’s common across several readers for the very same reasons. I read one nonfiction book every month, so 6 so far and 6 (or more) to go!

Lastly, I also finally started listening to audio books this year. I have listened only to 1 (Book Lovers by Emily Henry) and another is ongoing. It is still very new to me and it’s so different than reading books. I need much more concentration while listening. After listening to a few chapters, I cannot make up my mind if I am liking the plot or not. I am hoping these are newbie challenges and it will be a more happier listening experience for me as I listen to more audiobooks.

Now, check out the fun stats if how and what I read so far!

~~HOW I READ~~

From the 52 books I read, 73% were written by female authors & 27% by male authors. I also read 27% translated books, mainly from Japanese. I read the most books in June and February, least in March and May. My favourite reading month was April because I read five books which I rated at 4 or 5 stars. Check out the stats below!

~~SIX MONTHS. SIX FAVOURITES~~

Apart from all these fabulous statistics, I also did a ‘Six Months. Six Favourites’ post on Instagram. So, I am also adding it here. These were really tough choices and I might even change them at the end of the year. These six books are only among the ones I own. I have not included digital & audio books because Instagram needs everything aesthetic after all. Here’s the link to the post on Instagram and also if you want to follow me there!

Historical Fiction – A Fine Balance

Historical Fiction – The Huntress

Contemporary/Historical Fiction – Great Circle

Historical Fiction – The Mountains Sing

Mystery – The Inugami Curse

Nonfiction – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

~~TEN FAVOURITES OF THE FIRST HALF OF 2022~~

These are in no particular order, because even choosing these from the 52 books I read was hard enough! These are my book recommendations for you, across genres and geographies. I really hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Recursion by Blake Crouch

The Huntress by Kate Quinn

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

So, that is all folks. I am certain that the rest of the year will not be as amazing as the first half reading wise. Because firstly, how will I ever beat this? And secondly, there is hell of a lot of work at the orifice. So, I cannot read at all during week days. It’s mid July and I have only read one big book. I can see myself maybe reading two more or less, but that’s it.

But, here’s hoping I will find the time and energy to keep you posted and maybe sneak in some reading time before and after work! That’s all for now. Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed making all the excel files, pivot tables, graphs & actually writing post! 🙂

Until next time,