A year of reading

So in 2013, I ended up reading a total of 114 books. Some interesting statistics along the way: 

27.2% were written by women. Asians and Latinos each made up 2.6%. Blacks were 1.8%. I find these numbers to be rather disgraceful.

40.4% were for my MFA. 

Two were in Spanish.

Eleven were translated (from French, Hungarian, German, Ukrainian, Russian and Japanese if you must know).

Fiction made up 57.9% of the year’s reading. Poetry made up 2.6%.

And my top reads of the year, alphabetically by title:

• Collected Stories by Raymond Carver
• Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
• Figures of Literary Discourse by Gérard Genette
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
• The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
• Kiku’s Prayer by Shusakū Endō
• Lit by Mary Karr
• Little Black Book of Stories by A. S. Byatt
• What We Talk About When We Talk About Ann Frank by Nathan Englander
• White Man’s Grave by Richard Dooling
• Your House is on Fire, Your Children All Gone by Stefan Kiesbye

It’s interesting to note that whenever I’ve done these end of year lists, I never have a set number that I’m aiming for. Interestingly, though, I consistently end up picking about 10% of the books that I’ve read.