A few years ago, Olga Godim came up with a fun "reading year in review" version in the form of a self-interview, where the only answers permitted were book titles.  I instantly decided to copy it and add a few more categories of my own.  While I didn't have time to do this again in the more recent past, as my last "2019 in review" posts, I decided to undust it -- with yet more additions of my own --, along with another, similar questionnaire, the Bookish Academy Awards (posted separately).

(Note: For the more seriously-minded, my "real" "best new(-to-me) books of 2019" post -- with links to my reviews / reading status updates, where in existence -- is HERE.)

In 2019, what was / were your ...

Most Memorably Good Encounters?

Hard to beat -- every single year anew.

Most Horrific Encounters?

Nicest Relations Met?

Most Awful Relations Met?

The husband from hell.

Worst Person Met (overall)?

Hard to think of anybody worse than a serial killer (both in real life and in fiction).

Best Vacation Spots?

Seriously, the locations were the best things about all of these books.  Though the mystery in Death in Kashmir was at least decent as well (and I'd advise you to give the audio version the widest berth you're capable of).

Most Exciting Adventures?

Well, duh. :)

Best Guided Tours?

Favorite Place to Visit?

Least Favorite Place?

I know I'm breaking the rules here because the answer isn't in the book names as such, but honestly, can you think of a worse place to be trapped in than a theocratic autocracy?

Most Embarrassing Memory?

Tie between the chance encounter of an alcoholic psychopath and his future victim on the one hand and the discovery of a murder victim inside his own locked deed box at his lawyer's office on the other hand ...

Most Heartbreaking Memory?

This book will slay you -- hide and hair.

Best Weather?

Worst Weather?

Tie between two extremes -- the rain-, snow- and-wind-chased Shetlands and tropical, hot and humid Colombia.

Scariest Event?

Funniest Moment?

Pure slapstick.

Saddest Moment?

Best Food?

Chocolate, Butter in a Lordly Dish, and two versions of Christmas Pudding?  I'll take it ...

Worst Food?

Overstatement of the Year?

Hey, it's the apocalypse ... we'll be having So. Much. Fun!!!

Understatement of the Year?

Best Animal Encounters?

Scariest Animal Encounters?

Most Precious Acquisitions?

Favorite Garments?

Prettiest Flowers?

Favorite Visual Arts?

Favorite Music?

Best Parties?

If I had reread Gaudy Night this year, it of course would have been included as well.  As it is ...

Poshest Homes Visited?

Coziest Homes Visited?

Worst Homes Visited?

Most Puzzling Questions?

The Bookish Academy Awards / Book Oscars is a questionnaire I found a couple of years ago on the Blogger blog of Ashley / Read all the things and decided to steal it for my then-recent and all-time favorites.  Most of my "all-time" answers are still true; however, here's an edition specifically for my 2019 reading (wherein "nonfiction" will not be limited to the specific "Best Documentary" equivalent category -- so expect, for example, my favorite / most respected "real life" people to show up amongst the "best protagonist" listings).

(Note: For the more seriously-minded, my "best new(-to-me) books of 2019" post -- with links to my reviews / reading status updates, where in existence -- is HERE.)

Best Director(s)
(This Year's Favorite Writers):

Three-way tie between Aminatta Forna, Toni Morrison, and Margaret Atwood.

Best Actress
(Best Female Protagonist):

Favorite New Encounters:
The (unnamed) goddess / narrator of Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower
Gertrude Bell (Writings: A Woman in Arabia)
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
Mildred Lathbury (Barbary Pym: Excellent Women)
Loveday Brooke (Catherine Louisa Pirkis: The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective)

Favorite Repeat Encounters:
Granny Weatherwax (and Nanny Ogg & Magrat Garlick) (Terry Pratchett: Wyrd Sisters)
Miss Marple (Agatha Christie)
Miss Silver (Patricia Wentworth)

Honorary Mention:
Harriet Vane (Dorothy L. Sayers: Strong Poison / Have His Caracase / Gaudy Night / Busman's Honeymoon)
Can't officially include her because I didn't reread any of the Wimsey books featuring her in 2019, but hey, there is just no way she cannot be part of this list.

Best Actor
(Best Male Protagonist):

New Encounters with Long-Time Favorites:
Kofi Annan (Interventions: A Life in War and Peace)
Matthew Shardlake (C.J. Sansom: Tombland)

Favorite Repeat Encounters:
Hogfather (aka DEATH) (Terry Pratchett: Hogfather)
Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle)
Lord Peter Wimsey (Dorothy L. Sayers)
Hercule Poirot (Agatha Chistie)
Roderick Alleyn (Ngaio Marsh)
Brother Cadfael (Ellis Peters)

Best Supporting Actress
(Best Female Sidekick or Supporting Character):

Three-way tie between Ariadne Oliver (Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot series), Josephine Leonides (the self-appointed kid sleuth in Agatha Christie's Crooked House) and the wife of Ngaio Marsh's Inspector Alleyn, painter Agatha Troy.  (All repeat encounters.)

Best Supporting Actor
(Best Male Sidekick or Supporting Character):

Favorite New Encounter:
You Bastard, the mathematical genius in camel clothes (Terry Pratchett: Pyramids)

Favorite Repeat Encounters:

Dr. John Watson (Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes series)
Captain Arthur Hastings (Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot series)
(=> The two original / quintessential sidekicks)
Mervyn Bunter (Dorothy L. Sayers: Lord Peter Wimsey series)
Jack Barak and Guy Malton (C.J. Sansom: Matthew Shardlake series)
From the Unseen University of Terry Pratchett's Discworld: Hex and the Librarian

Best Ensemble Cast:

I know this isn't actually an Academy Awards category (only Golden Globes), but I've long felt it should be one -- and there are some books to which the same thought applies as well.

Three-way tie between Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, and Terry Pratchett / Neil Gaiman's Good Omens.

Best Original Screenplay
(Most Unique Plot or World Building):

Two-way tie between Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower -- far and away the most innovative world-building I've come across in a long time -- and, of course ... Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

Best Adapted Screenplay

In the original version of this questionnaire, "Best Adapted Screenplay" translates into "Best Book-to-Movie Adaptation".  However, I think in the book world (especially that of recent years) there is another translation which fits the purpose just as well; namely, "Best Pastiche / Series Continuation."  So I decided to go with both of them:

1 - Best Book-to-Movie Adaptation:

(Note: To correspond with all the other categories, this only takes into account the cases where I read the book AND also revisited the movie in 2019.  Which, as it turns out, boils down to not a whole lot more than my yearly Christmas favorites ...)

Non-Christmas story:
Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None (2015 BBC adaptation)

Christmas stories:
Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1995, ITV David Suchet Poirot series)
Agatha Christie: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (aka The Theft of the Royal Ruby) (1994, ITV David Suchet Poirot series)
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Blue Carbuncle (1987, Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series)
Dorothy L. Sayers: The Nine Tailors (1974, BBC Ian Carmichael Lord Peter Wimsey series)
Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol (1999 TNT adaptation starring Patrick Stewart)
Frances Hodgson Burnett: Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980 adaptation starring Ricky Schroder and Alec Guinness) (note: no specific Christmas connotations in the book)

2 - Best Pastiche:

Ben Schott: Jeeves and the King of Clubs
Perfect pitch -- no contest.

Best Cinematography
(Best Plot Twist):

Dame Agatha still taks the cake when it comes to original plot twists (even upon the umpteenth reread), but I think Joy Ellis has recently given her a fair run for her money -- even if the final twists in none of her books that I read in 2019 caught me quite as "from left field" as did my first ever Ellis book, Their Lost Daughters, which I read in late 2018.

Best Makeup
(Best Book Cover):

Book's Contents Lives up to the Cover's Promise:
Ann Leckie: The Raven Tower
Diarmaid MacCulloch: Thomas Cromwell: A Life

Cover Promises More Than the Contents Delivers:
Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Gods of Jade and Shadow
Elif Shafak: Three Daughters of Eve
Lorna Nicholl Morgan: Another Little Murder

Best Series Covers:

Discworld "black background" hardback and audiobook covers

Brltish Library Crime Classics series

Best Costume Design
(Best Historical or Contemporary Setting):

Contemporary:
Ann Cleeves: Raven Black and White Nights (Shetland series)
Peter May: The Lewis Man
Ian Rankin: In a House of Lies
(What can I say ... I just love Scotland -- and books set there!)

Xinran: The Good Women of China

Historical:
Toni Morrison: Beloved
Delia Owens: Where the Crawdads Sing
Diarmaid MacCulloch: Thomas Cromwell
Tom Reiss: The Black Count
C.j. Sansom: Tombland
Ellis Peters. Brother Cadfael series

Best Animated Feature
(A book that would work well in animated format):

Two-way tie between Ladyhawke (Joan D. Vinge's novelization of the movie starring Rutger Hauer, Matthew Broderick and Michelle Pfeiffer) and, you guessed it ... Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

Best Visual Effects
(Best Action in a Book):

Hyeongseo Lee: The Girl With the Seven Names
Seriously, with a real life story like this, who even needs thrillers anymore?

Best Original Score

Originally, "Best Original Score" translated only into "Best Book-to-Movie Adaptation".  But I think this is another case where an Oscar category is capable of two equally valid different interpretations in the book world, and again I decided to go with both of them:

1 - Best Book / Series Incorporating Music as an Important Element:

Peter Grainger: An Accidental Death

2 - Best Audio Version:

Aminatta Forna: The Memory of Love
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith's narration: Major goosebumps material.

Best Short Film
(Best Novella or Short Story):

Arthur Conan Doyle: Danger!

Best Documentary
(Best Non-Fiction):

Four-way tie between Diarmaid MacCulloch's Thomas Cromwell, Xinran's The Good Women of China, Tom Reiss's The Black Count, and Michelle Obama's Becoming.  Four outstanding books that are as engaging as they are informative.

Honorary / Lifetime Achievement Award
(Overall Favorite Body of Work):

New Encounters with Long-Time Favorites:
Elizabeth Gaskell: My Lady Ludlow
J.K. Rowling: The Casual Vacancy
Ian Rankin: In a House of Lies
C.J. Sansom: Tombland

Favorite Repeat Encounters:
Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility
Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time
Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes series, stand-alone story Danger!
Dorothy L. Sayers: Whose Body?, Five Red Herrings, The Nine Tailors
Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy & Tuppence, and Quin & Satterthwaite series, And Then There Were None, Crooked House, Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, and various short stories
Ngaio Marsh: Roderick Alleyn series
Patricia Wentworth: Miss Silver series
Ellis Peters: Brother Cadfael series
Terry Pratchett: Discworld series and Good Omens (co-written with Neil Gaiman)

Three years ago I took a look at my reading stats for the then-just-finished year (2017) and decided they were off in several respects:

* Too many rereads

* Too many mysteries

-- i.e., too much comfort reading --

* AND way too few books by female authors.

Also, the ratio of books read vs. new, unread additions to my "owned books" TBR was abysmal -- in 2017, I added almost as many books to my shelves without ending up reading them than I actually did read.

So, the first thing I did was join a challenge created by Awogfli and put together a Women Writers challenge in response, with the aim of enhancing the percentage of female authors I'm reading.  That project went rather well, all told, so last year I added another challenge level (to be continued in 2020): Use your reading to travel around the world, to as many countries as possible (while still giving preference to female authors).  That project, too, went better than I had expected in 2019.  And, hooray, I even got my "owned TBR" additions under control.  Well, sort of -- at least I reduced them by one half ...

With three years of reading statistics under my belt -- the initial ones from 2017 and those from the two succeeding years -- I think it's time to take a first comprehensive look at the last three years' developments.

So here we go:

The one set of statistics that doesn't look like it has greatly changed is the book format -- ever since I really "discovered" audiobooks in 2016, my audiobook consumption has been vastly greater than my print book readings.  However, this is actually in large part the reason why my owned and unread TBR has gone down, because very often I'll have both the audiobook and the print edition and I'll switch back and forth between them.  This may mean I'll eventually find a different way of charting these books, but so far I've counted them as "audio", and for consistency's sake I may just continue doing that after all.

Aaaand finally the genre breakdown: Still plenty of mysteries (even more if you take into account that the majority of my historical fiction reading consists of mysteries and thrillers / crime fiction, too), but another effect of my Around the World challenge -- as well as Moonlight's 2019 "crowdsourced" project / reading list! -- has been to diversify my genre chart (somewhat).  Mysteries (not even including historical mysteries) still account for a solid 50%, and that's fine -- since I'm also planning to continue my foray into the world of Detection Club /Golden Age crime fiction, it's unlikely that this percentage is going to drop significantly. But by and large I'm pretty happy with the way things have turned out so far!

UPDATED: Added Star Rating Stats

I can't believe I posted this yesterday without them!

2020 Reading Goals

Pretty much the same as this year: Read more books by women writers than by male authors, diversify my reading, and keep on exploring the world of Golden Age mystery fiction.

The Around the World reading challenge -- which is also to be continued in 2020 -- this year has taken me to places of the world that aren't exactly part of my normal reading fare, and I think visits to 46 countries (8 in Africa, 10 in the Americas (11 if Puerto Rico were counted separately), 13 in Asia and the Middle East, 2 in Oceania, and 13 again in Europe) is a pretty decent tally for the first year. I hope things are going to continue in a similar vein next year.

My Golden Age mystery reading plans are probably going to cross the "diversifying" aims to a certain extent -- they already did this year -- for the simple reason that the vast majority of Golden Age mystery writers were Caucasian.  But that just can't be helped, I suppose.

The 2019 Stats

Books begun: 250

Books finished: 247

Average Rating: 3,8

 Genre Breakdown by Subgenres

The key, obviously, is in the intersection of genres and ethnicity: 25 of the 27 books by non-Caucasian authors I read were something other than mysteries; or put differently, virtually all of the 124 mysteries were by Caucasian authors (including all of the 92 Golden and Silver Age mysteries, which in themselves account for 2/3 of all my mystery intake).  I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do much about those statistics -- nor do I very much want to, as long as I manage to make decent progress with my Around the World challenge and manage to get in a fair amount of non-Caucasian books in all the other genres.

Favorite books of 2019: HERE

Least favorite books of 2019: HERE

Bibliomancy

 My question: Is 2020 going to be a good reading year for me?

Miss Austen's Collected Novels are one of the larger volumes on my shelves, so I decided to seek my answer there.

The answer: "[impor]tance in assisting the improvement of her mind, and extending its pleasures."

That sounds rather promising, doesn't it?

(And I'm taking it as an additional good sign that the answer is from Mansfield Park, wich was the first novel by Austen that I read -- and the book that made me fall in love with her writing in the first place ...)

Dreidel Spin for First Book of the Year

This is a pick from some of the books that my BFF, Gaby, gave me for Christmas and my birthday this year:

נ (Nun) - Craig Adams: The Six Secrets of Intelligence

ג (Gimel) - Isabel Colegate: The Shooting Party

ה (Hei) - Preet Bharara: Doing Justice

ש (Shin) - Sarah-Jane Stratford: Radio Girls

... and the dreidel picked:

 So, Sarah-Jane Stratford's Radio Girls it is!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Door 22

Task 1: Tell us: What are your reading goals for the coming year?

Task 2: The reading year in review: How did you fare – what was good, what wasn’t?

Task 3: Bibliomancy: Ask a question related to your reading plans or experience in the coming year, open one of your weightiest tomes on page 485, and find the answer to your question in line 7.

Door 18, Task 1: Spin the dreidel to determine which book is going to be the first one you’ll be reading in the new year.

Find a virtual dreidel here:

https://www.activityvillage.co.uk/make-a-dreidel

http://www.jewfaq.org/dreidel/play.htm

http://www.torahtots.com/holidays/chanuka/dreidel.htm

Overall, 2019 was a phantastic reading year for me with decidedly more highs than lows.  Of the latter, my worst reading experiences were, in no particular order:

Laura Restrepo, Hot Sur: OK, forget the "in no particular order" bit for a moment.  A main character expecting me to empathize with her for siding with the psychopathic rapist of the woman she calls her best friend ... and actually trying to talk her best friend into agreeing her horrific experience was all just a "misunderstanding"?  Sorrynotsorry -- just, nope.  A hard DNF, and that main character deserved everything she had coming to her as a consequence.

Renée Ahdieh, The Wrath and the Dawn: Shallow, infantile in tone, and, most importantly, abominably bady researched.  I didn't DNF quite as quickly as Hot Sur, but I barely made it past the 1/3 mark.  I might have been marginally more understanding if it had come across as YA fantasy (which was frankly what I'd expected), but it's written as historical fiction -- and getting core historical details wrong in a book of historical fiction is just about the worst sin you can commit in my book.

Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: Well, let's just say Mr. Kean is decidedly not Helen Czerski (which is NOT a good thing), and he also isn't half as funny as he apparently thinks he is.  What he seems to think is humor, to me comes across as arrogance and unwarranted judgmentalism -- and his research / fact checking on everything "non-physics" is plainly abominable.  Almost as importantly, his fractured narrative style and lack of clarity completely failed to translate to me his own professed enthusiasm for his subject.  Another book where I never got past the initial chapters.

Georgette Heyer, A Blunt Instrument: Heyer at her worst -- clichéd, biased, snub-nosed, with one-dimensional characters and a mystery whose solution is staring you in the face virtually from page 1.  I only finished it for confirmation that my guess was correct (which, dare I say "of course", it was), but it was a struggle of the sort I never experienced with Heyer before or since (and I've finished all of her mysteries in the interim).

Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star: I know Lispector is highly regarded, but she's obviously not for me -- I detest speech that is so deconstructed to barely make sense (even to mother tongue speakers, as it turns out); combine that with the drab narrative (if that word is even justified) of a drab character living a drab life, and you've lost me for good.  It was a blessing that this is a very short book; if it hadn't been, this would have been another DNF.

(Task: The airing of grievances: Which are the five books you liked least this year – and why?)