The mulled wine is keeping warm and the box of chocolate biscuits is open, so all that’s left to do before bringing in the New Year is to round up my 2013 reading.

This year I continued keeping stats on what I’ve read, as I had begun to in 2012. I have read 75 books, which is the exact number I aimed for in the Goodreads 2013 Reading Challenge (yay!) and just three fewer than last year. Of those, 18 were translated from other languages, which is a fair bit better than last year, though clearly there’s still room for improvement. And only 18 books were written by authors not from the UK or North America (strictly not quite the same 18 books as there was one written in French by a British author and one written in English by an Indian author). My best success is that I read 37 books by women and 38 by men, which is about as even a split as it could be!

As I thought I would find, I’ve only read 5 books that could be classed as science fiction this year, so I’m definitely going to try to read one SF book per month in 2014. And only 9 were non-fiction (not counting the Little House books because they are fictionalised memoir) so my 2014 Popular-Science Reading Challenge will definitely be a bit of a change for me.

My favourite reads this year were The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, Dan Yack by Blaise Cendrars, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Black Vodka by Deborah Levy and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. What were yours?

Overall I’d say it’s been a good reading year. I have greatly enjoyed most of what I’ve read (lots of 4 stars on Goodreads) and only abandoned one book that I can remember. As I mentioned last month, my 2013 challenges have been a bit hit and miss, but I’m happy with what I have lined up for 2014.

Now I’m going to refill my mug of mulled wine and pick out a book to begin 2014 with. So many to choose between!

I hope you have a fantastic New Year, and here’s to a wonderful 2014!