Books in 2023

[luzula]

I see I forgot to do the book meme last year? Ah well. I read 74 books in 2023. Some statistics:

• 48 books written by women, and 27 by men (judging by name). I don't have a particular goal around this, it just usually happens that I read more books by women. More than 50% of the non-fiction is by men, though (I noticed someone else reflecting on this.)
• 11 books read in Swedish, the rest in English.
• 41 books by British authors, 16 by Americans, 11 by Swedes, the rest single other countries. Err, I guess this is what happens if you're in a British fandom.
• 19 non-fiction, 3 children's/YA, 3 SF, 13 fantasy, 22 romance (in some sense), 47 historical (both fiction and non-fiction). Books can belong to more than one category. Huh, I see that I currently read very little SF.
• 41 Bechdel test passes, 33 new-to-me authors, 9 rereads, 14 books from my own bookshelves, 13 audiobooks.
• 4 books written in the 1700's, 9 in the 1800's, 10 written 1900-1950, 8 written 1950-2000, 43 written in the 2000's (all books from book club are in the last category).

A few stand-outs:
Kirsteen and Hester and Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant (19th century novels focused on women)
C S Forester's Hornblower series (slashy Age-of-Sail)
Aster Glenn Gray's various historical romances, with Honeytrap as the highlight so far.
My Austen rereads, narrated by Karen Savage from Librivox.
A Dalliance With the Duke by AMarguerite (Elizabeth Bennett/Duke of Wellington)
Something Human A J Demas (pseudo-Ancient Greek m/m romance)
Henchmen of Zenda by K J Charles (swashbuckling m/m Zenda fanfic)
Deeplight by Frances Hardinge (deep-sea YA fantasy adventure)
The Heiress, by Molly Greely (published Austen f/f fic about Anne de Bourgh)

As a whole, this seems to have been a year of historical fiction for me! I haven't had any reading goals, just read what appealed to me.