Back on 1 January, my to do list for the year included “Read at least 26 books and cut down my backlog of unread books (now over 300 thanks to Christmas presents).”

As of last night, according to my Goodreads profile, I’d read 54 books. As I’ve stated before, the actual figure is about 10 or so higher as I don’t list on Goodreads any books that I’ve read for research for risk of spoilers about what may happen in my own books in the future.

Book 53 was Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey. A book that I’d received as a present back in my teens, which had continually been pushed back on my reading list thanks to my tendency to buy more books than I read (hence the backlog of a few hundred unread books). I enjoyed it. I suspect, I’d have enjoyed it more back in my teens though.

Book 54 was The End, the conclusion to A Series of Unfortunate Events. A Series of Unfortunate Events really lends itself to being read aloud, convenient as I had been reading it to my daughter when she was in utero, and have continued since she came into the world. We both seem to have enjoyed the series. With A Series of Unfortunate Events now complete, we’ll be moving on to the complete works of Lewis Carroll.

Although you’d think from the numbers that I was making a dent in that backlog, 42 of the books I read this year were bought in the past two years. Three of the books – the aforementioned Dragonflight, Macbeth and The Survivor by James Herbert – have been on my bookshelves since my teens, so at least I’m finally getting through some of the oldest books.

Of the 54, 14 books were read after the birth of my daughter. It’s more than I predicted I’d read in the second half of the year. It’s probably down to the majority of the books being quite short, although having four (now five) books on the go at once may play a part. I tend to read when I’m doing something else that I don’t need to concentrate on and leaves my hands free. I usually have a book for in the bath (always a paperback), one for when I’m on my exercise bike (usually a hardback), one for reading aloud at bedtime (see A Series of Unfortunate Events above) and one book for all other times (usually a paperback that has graduated from the bath). These have now been joined by an ebook that I can read on my phone late at night and, apparently, while I’m brushing my teeth.

Having read more than double the number of books I’d set out to at the beginning of the year, my new target is 57 books. I should make it, but how many more I’ll read after that is anyone’s guess.