Monday, 17 January 2022
Just as I did in 2019 and 2020, I will be sharing some insights and fun statistics from my reading year. I will not be sharing the full list of books I read in 2021 in this post. You can find the lists and reviews here, here, here and here. So let's see how my reading fared in 2021.
My year in books 2021
- Number of books read: 39 (1 less than the 40 I read in 2020 - but I did read some very long books last year)
- Total number of pages read: 15 316 (up from 13 977 in 2020)
- Average book length: 392 pages
- Shortest book: Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel at 222 pages
- Longest book: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon at 850 pages
- Most popular (i.e. most read): The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins (which was shelved 3 936 518 times)
- Least popular: Violette Szabo: The Life That I Have by Susan Ottaway (shelved 493 times)
- Highest rated by Goodreads readers: The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell with an incredible 4.49 average
- My average rating for 2021: 3.4 stars which was rather low but I read quite a few books that didn't quite live up to my expectations and Goodreads doesn't do half stars so it does skew the ratings somewhat
- The first book I read: Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
- The last book I read: My Name Is Eva by by Suzanne Goldring
- The book I read that has been published longest: The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim in 1922
- The most recently published book I read: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman in September 2020
- My 5 star reads: sadly, no book I read in 2021 made the five start mark but these came the closest: Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres (4.5 stars), The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell (4.5 stars) and The Pianist by Wladislaw Szpilman (4.5 stars)
- My favourite fiction book: Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres - it is so very different and so much more moving than the movie
- My favourite non-fiction book: this was a tie between The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell and The Pianist by Wladislaw Szpilman
- The book I enjoyed least: Lord Robert by Jean Plaidy (1.8 stars) - this was quite unusual as I generally love her books
- Most disappointing book: Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens - there was a lot of hype around this book and it got many rave reviews but I felt it just didn't live up to its promise.
- Best suited for a book club: Lea by Pascal Mercier, The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain and The Collector by John Fowles all explore themes that can generate numerous interesting discussions
- Number of non-fiction reads: 5
- Month in which I read most: June (5 books)
- Month in which I read least: July and October (2 books) but the total number of pages I read in October is much lower than in July. Strangely enough, October was also the month in which I read the least amount of books is 2020. I was starting to wonder whether something strange happens to me in October but that I remembered that last October we were in Tuscany for a week and I didn't have much time to do a lot of reading while we were there. We'll see how October 2022 fares.
Tuesday, 11 January 2022
By now we've all said our goodbyes to 2021 and, for better or worse, have started a new year. Looking back at 2021 I would say it was another wild ride. Perhaps not quite as bad as its predecessor but it still blew us and buffeted us every which way. Like every other year, it had its highs and its lows but the pandemic was still very much with us and our lives had to revolve around its whims. So here's my roundup of the year we've just left.
2021: my year in pictures
In January we were forced into another mini-lockdown here in Malta as the numbers started to rise after the Christmas festivities. It was also the month that I turned fifty and I had taken you on a small tour of my life in Fifty years of me. Since all the restaurants were closed we celebrated my half-century very quietly and the dream I had made long ago to spend my fiftieth in Venice had to be given up.
February and March were equally slow and quiet months. We spent most of our weekends out in the open, hiking and discovering new-to-us places like Blata tal-Melh and Irdum tal-Vigarju. These off-the-beaten track locations helped us appreciate nature and gave us a sense of freedom. In February I attended the last day of the Darkness At Noon Exhibition at The Splendid.
Our lockdown was lifted in April as the number of vaccinated individuals started to rise and the amount of positive cases started to dwindle. The first tourists made their way back to our shores and we were able to go out to restaurants again. The weather really started to warm up and we took our last hike as, from here on, it would get too hot to be enjoyable.
In late April and May I discovered a love of gardening that rather surprised me as I never had felt a keen interest in plants. But just being outside in our little garden, digging up the soil, removing weeds and planting seeds made me very happy. I didn't really know what I was doing, so some things thrived while others didn't. I've a lot to learn.
In June my husband and I celebrated out 18th anniversary and we took the day off and went out for lunch in the quaint fishing village of Marsaxlokk. We found it much changed from the last time we were there a few years ago, Like many other places, modern apartment blocks have risen in place of the small houses that characterised this village which has spoiled the aesthetic somewhat. But lunch at La Capanna restaurant was very good and it felt good to be out in the sunshine. On the summer solstice we were hit by a heatwave that would last for 6 weeks. It was certainly one long, hot summer.
Due to the intense heat, we didn't do much of anything in July and August. Beach days were definitely the best days. Strangely, the weather started to turn by mid-August and, although it was still hot, the temperatures were normal for this time of year (in the low 30s rather than the high 30s to low 40s we had been experiencing).
In October, with the number of infections still very low, my husband and I decided to plan a quick trip to Tuscany. We were there during the last week of October and had a really wonderful time. Tuscany is just beautiful in autumn. I've already written about our week in Tuscany and about visits to Pienza and Monteriggioni. I have more posts planned and will share them soon if you're still interested in reading more about this region of Italy.
November went the way most Novembers do and was pretty unmemorable. We were planning on having Thanksgiving dinner, as we do every year, but developed a leak in our water system and had to shelve our plans. But I still managed to find a number of things to be grateful for. After the plumber fixed our leak I decided it was time decorate the house for Christmas.
December is my favourite month but, last year, something just didn't seem to be right. After getting all our decorations up by the first few days of December I fell into a slump. Work was super busy and I just didn't seem to have the energy to shop or bake, two tasks that I usually enjoy very much. Instead I kept postponing from one day to the next. The number of infections kept rising and I couldn't shake off the feeling that things were going to precipitate.
To cut a long story short, our teenager had an aching back and runny nose on Christmas eve. I didn't think too much of it but took him to do a rapid test (to be on the safe side) and it came out positive. So we had to spend the holidays locked inside and in isolation. It wasn't fun but we were together and still tried to make the most of the festive season (and Santa was very kind and left 22 books under the Christmas tree). The year seemed to end with a whimper and we were not able to drive to a beach to say goodbye to the last sunset of 2021, as has become our tradition.
And, as of today, we are 11 days into 2022 and I tested positive last week so we had to stay in quarantine and will be 'locked up' until next week. It's hard not to feel a bit down sometimes but I know that so many people have had it so much worse. So I am doing my best not to complain. But I will admit that I really need to get out of the house now and hope we can make that happen in one more week. I hope you are all doing well and have slipped into some sort of routine now that a new year has started.
