After last year’s book project, anything I do this year will pale in comparison. But I am keeping track of my reading on Goodreads, and have a spreadsheet with some information about the authors I’m reading.

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(Picture of books I’ve read so far this year.)

Things I’m tracking this year:

  • Author gender (male/female/other) - I still find this useful, although I felt that just using M/F was less inclusive than I wanted to be.
  • Whether author is a person of color - Super non-granular, but still helpful.
  • Whether the author is queer - If a brief google search can find out for me, at least. I didn’t track this last year and wished I had.
  • Whether the book is a translation - Usually a proxy for non-Western literature, but not always.
  • Whether the book is fiction - Turns out I read mostly non-fiction and still think it’s pretty even notice.
  • Why I read it (recommendation from a friend/bookclub/school/other) - Attempting to figure out where books I read come from.
  • Book format (Kindle/Physical/Other) - Didn’t track it last year, wished I had.

Interesting takeaways so far: most of the reading I’ve done has been from bookclubs - setting deadlines helped me get through books in school. And most of the reading has been on a Kindle - mostly because I read a lot while commuting and a Kindle is way easier to pull out on the train.

More to come, certainly. But that’s the plan for this year - fewer books, more info.