Reading Year in Review: 2021 Highlights
Today’s topic is New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2021. As the final wrap up type post for 2021, I decided to do a reading year in review.
- CAWPILE rating system – created by Book Roast on Youtube, I used this rating system from January to September. I stopped because keeping up with the spreadsheet was a bit much seeing as I read a lot of books, but I did like the stats it included such as pages read per month, publication year, author nationality etc. I’m not going to use it in 2022 as I’m trying to simplify things this year, but for anyone looking for a tracking system or a good spreadsheet, I highly recommend you check it out.
- I read the most books I’ve ever read, yet coming up with a top ten list at the end of the year was not easy. For a while it felt like I was reading the same thing over and over again and barely anything stood out. Luckily, I read some gems at the end of the year. You can see my top ten books of 2021 here.
- Discovered signed / special editions of books which could be a dangerous-for-my-budget level up in my book collecting. Neil Gaiman’s Pirate Stew and Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land are especially near and dear to my heart.
- The start of my Scribd subscription also needs to be mentioned. For a while I was switching between Audible and Scribd but ultimately Scribd is the cheaper option and it does have a good selection of books I’m interested in. This is also why a lot of my reading in the latter half of the year was largely via audiobooks.
- The year of reading challenges, readathons and reading experiments, some of them more successful than others. Check out my blog post on reading 30 books in 30 days here.
- The year I made an effort with my Bookstagram pictures and in turn didn’t make enough of an effort with my reviews on the blog (insert sigh here). The year of no official hauls, tbrs and wrap ups on the blog (with exceptions) as I mostly do those on Bookstagram and I like it better that way. You can follow me @readwithstefani and help me reach my goal of 3000 followers.
- So much reading and publishing drama which I was trying to keep up courtesy of Jess Owens’s Book CommuniTEA videos on Booktube, but it all got to be a little too much so I also stopped keeping track.
- I read lots of middle grade fantasy and joined many a reading sprint – thanks to Jadeyraereads.
- I discovered one my all time favorite epic fantasy series: The Faithful and the Fallen by John Gwynne.
- The year of 250 books – my personal since I started doing the Goodreads reading challenge in 2012. For my full year in books, check out this Goodreads link.
What are your highlights of 2021?
Leave your TTT in the comments below.
English 
Macedonian
It can be so hard to keep up with everything on all the different platforms.
Here is my post for this week
http://www.theintrepidreader.com/2022/01/top-ten-tuesday-new-to-me-authors-i.html
It sure can, thanks for visiting Marg
It’s cool that you read more books than ever last year!
My post: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-new-to-me-authors-i-discovered-in-2021/
Sure is, thanks for visiting Lydia!
I loved this post a lot. I had a similar year to yours because I did a lot of challenges and readhtons as well.
I’m not surprise, we have the same name after all hhee 😀 Just spell it slightly differently.
Congrats on reading the most books you’ve ever read last year! Last year was a bad reading year for me. I hope to make up for it this year. I hope this year is also a great year for you.
Thank you so much Jenni!
Love this kind of reading year in review. And congrats on reading the most books ever, that’s a great highlight 🙂
Thanks Lindsey 😀
Looks like a great reading year
Thanks Anita!
Wow, sounds like a super productive and busy year!
It sure was, thanks for visiting Leah.
Congrats! 250 is quite the achievement! I think in my best year I only hit 180 or so… O_O
180 is a good number, you should be proud! 😀
You had a very busy and productive year overall from the looks of it. Keeping up with everything is a challenge in and of itself, isn’t it? We can only do so much. I hope you have a wonderful 2022 in reading!
There sure is a lot to keep track of …or try to keep track of shall I say. Thanks for visiting.
It’s great to enjoy so many books, but it does make narrowing down favorites pretty difficult.
Agreed. Thanks for visiting Tanya.
I thought I would try Cawpile but then it was just too much work for me. I read so much that it’s hard enough to write my “simple” reviews! lol. I love Jade!! Middle grade was something I started reading a couple years ago and I love it.
Yeah, I think I love the idea of CAWPILE more than cawpile itself. It’s too many things to track. I tried removing some columns but no go. Maybe next year. Happy to see you follow Jade also, she’s amazing.
I enjoy watching Jess Owens’s videos. She is so much fun to watch!
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
https://readbakecreate.com/10-authors-i-discovered-in-2021/
i don’t know how she manages to keep track of it all TBH. But I love her videos 😀
I’ve gotten more out of my Scridb subscription this year too I think. I prefer it for audio and sticking with my kindle for ebooks, but it’s a good way to pad out my audible credits.
same, I prefer Kindle for my ebooks but any audiobooking is done via Scribd.
Congratulations! I need to try Gwynne! 🙂
Yaay, hope you’ll like his books.
Congrats on having your best reading year! I also feel it can be hard sometimes to keep up with everything and sometimes you just have to let all of that go and just enjoy reading.
Very true. Thanks for visiting Bree.
Glad you’ve had such a successful year!
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2022/01/25/top-ten-tuesday-352/
Thanks Jo!
These are some amazing reading highlights! I’m glad you had such a great year. I wanted to read more that was new-to-me rather than rereads, and I definitely did that!
Sounds like you had a good year too!
Congrats on reading so many books last year. I’ve been using Scribd a lot lately too. They really do have a great selection of ebooks and audiobooks.
I only ever use it for audiobooks but I listen to so many that it’s totally worth it. At least compared to a cost of an Audible credit. Thanks for visiting Suzanne
I also discovered Scribd! So much better than Audio.
Yaay, so much love for Scribd in this comments.
Nice twist on the topic. I’ll have a look at your favourite reads of 2021. But – 30 books in 30 days, OMG, that can’t be “real” books, LOL. For me, a book starts after page 500, so no way I could do them in 30 days. But a nice idea.
Thanks for visiting my TTT this week.
Looks like I can’t comment on them, no idea why. Anyway, I have read two of your favourites (9 and 8) and two are on my wishlist (7 and 1) though I wouldn’t mind some of the others.
And thanks for visiting the other post, not sure why it wouldn’t let you comment, I’ll look into that.
My average is I think around the 300 page mark. I wouldn’t do that to myself again tho.
so interesting that you use Scribd! I get all of my audiobooks from the library / Libby and that works pretty well as long as you make sure to reserve like 10 at a time so that one is always available haha
Unfortunately Libby is not a thing where I am. I don’t even have a library card as the selection is pretty poor :/ So, in a way Scribd is my library.
I noticed the same thing about my 2021 reading year. I read a lot of books (203), but most of them were just average reads. Some of them did stand out for sure. The majority of them, though, were just kind of meh. I think that’s what happens when you read so many.
Happy TTT (on a Wednesday)!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
Okay, it’s not just me then. The more I read the stricter I become with my ratings 😀 I agree it’s to be expected to some extent. Thanks for visiting Susan!
Impressive year, thanks for sharing!
I didn’t know the CAWPILE rating system. It’s close to Book Riot, though it actually seems much easier to edit a category, so I’ll switch to that next year.
I’m trying Book Riot this year, though I have also been using my own for several years
I did check out Book Riot’s last year but found Cawpile a better fit for me. Happy to hear you checked it out.
I know I would love to have a signed copy of any Neil Gaiman book myself!! Cloud Cuckoo Land is on my must-read list (as you have noticed already!)
And I am following you on Insta now (ladyinreadwrites)
Hope you’ll get your hands on a signed Neil Gaiman! Thanks for the follow 😀
oh wow, it deleted the spaces between my paragraphs when I copy-pasted from Notepad. Sorry about the wall of text! Let’s try this again:
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I love how you put this — “discovered signed / special editions of books which could be a dangerous-for-my-budget level up in my book collecting.”
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I can resist signed books pretty well, but omg, special editions are KILLER. It’s a toss-up between whether bonus content or beautiful covers is my greater kryptonite. I tend not to buy books new, so this is extra-tempting because if there’s one thing I have FOMO about, it’s limited editions of books whose scarcity may make them impossible to find secondhand a couple decades down the road, even if I’m willing to pay higher prices.
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I was curious about your 250 reads — congratulations, btw! More than I’ve ever read in a year, for sure — but your link is the one that will redirect every Goodreads user to their own year in books. Try going to your profile page and clicking the “see your year in books” link from there — it should add your unique user number onto the end of the URL. Use that one in your post link.
It’s the cover for me 😀 I try to get only the ones I really really want but they seem to keep making them prettier and prettier. And wow, I’m ashamed I didn’t spot that in the link (I work in tech support :/), I’ve fixed the link now, thanks for mentioning it and for your lovely comment 😀
Congrats on your best reading year!