A Year of New Authors

I finished Janet Evanovich's Twelve Sharp yesterday and entered it into my Excel sheet that tracks the books I read each year. Twelve Sharp was number seventeen on my reading list this year, but it was only the fifth book I've read of an author I've read before. More clearly, that means that twelve of the books I've read this year have been by new-to-me authors.

Which means that seventy percent of the authors on my list are new, which is double last year's average of new authors. I was surprised when I noticed and I've been thinking about it since.

I've been incredibly restless this year, at least when it comes to reading. Not listed in those seventeen books are the half dozen I've started but haven't had the desire to finish. That means that I've purchased at least six books that at one time looked really good to me, but have now become castoffs in my used-book donation pile. That in itself is odd.

Furthermore, of all those new authors, I'd only read about three again: Gail Carriger, C.J. Barry, and Sara Bongiorni. Not good odds.

But what does it all mean? The best answer I have is that my tastes are changing. That genres that before were sure things now only partially hold my interest, and only if written exceptionally well. It'll be interesting (to me, at least) to see what my totals look like at the end of June and to see if the trend of new authors continues.