Blogging highlights for 2023

/ Whispering Gums

As is my tradition, I have separated out my annual Reading highlights from my Blogging highlights, mainly because combining them would result in one very long post. I always do my Blogging Highlights on 1 January, which this year clashes with Monday Musings, unfortunately. All being well, I plan to do my usual first Monday Musings of the year tomorrow.

Top posts for 2023

Until recently the top of the ladder has been dominated by older posts, but in recent years there has been a gradual shift to more recent posts making it to the top. Last year, two posts published during the year made the Top Ten. This happened again this year. One (no. 6) is an obvious candidate, but the other (no. 2) is, as I wrote yesterday, a bit of a surprise.

Here is my 2023 Top Ten, in popularity order:

  1. Jack London, “War” (March 2010)
  2. Ambelin Kwaymullina, “Fifteen days on Mars” (from Unlimited futures)(January 2023) (Australian)
  3. Epiphany in Harrower’s “The fun of the fair” (essay by Emily Maguire) (January 2022) (Australian)
  4. Audrey Magee, The colony (September 2022)
  5. Ernest Hemingway, “Cat in the rain” (September 2022)
  6. Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in chemistry (June 2023)
  7. Barbara Baynton, “A dreamer” (January 2013) (Australian)
  8. Anthony Doerr, All the light we cannot see (September 2016)
  9. George Orwell, “How the poor die” (October 2010)
  10. Mark Twain, “A presidential candidate” (August 2016)

Observations:

  • Four of these posts (London, Maguire’s essay on Harrower, Baynton and Twain) were Top Tens last year, with three being Serial Top Tenners (London, Baynton, and Twain). Do all – including the relative newbie, the essay on Harrower – relate to school/university assignments?
  • Five posts were published in the last two years, which is a record. Some surprise me, but I suspect the popularity of my Garmus and Doerr posts is related to their screen adaptations released in 2023.
  • Five of this year’s Top Tens are Top Ten debuts, including the Garmus and Doerr. The sudden appearance here of my rather old Orwell post might be due to a recent flurry of books about Orwell, including Anna Funder’s Wifedom, but then, why that one of all my Orwell posts? Maybe there’s another reason, maybe it’s been set as a text? I’m pleased to see Magee’s novel here, and guess it’s just because this novel has been popular, but what about my relatively new Ernest Hemingway post? Why that one?
  • In 2021, six of the Top Ten posts were for full-length books, but as I wrote last year that was clearly an aberration, as in 2022 – and again this year – we returned to my more usual motley mix of mainly short stories/essays.

I also like to see how the posts written in the year fare, so here are the Top Ten 2023-published posts (excluding Monday Musings, event and meme posts):

My skewed reading year shows up strongly in these stats. I am intrigued that there was so much interest in my posts on stories by First Nations North Americans, particularly given Australians represent by far the most numerous visitors to my blog.

My most popular Monday Musings posts were essentially the same as last year: Books banned in Australia (June 2019); Some new releases (the 2023 version); The lost child motif (February 2011).

Random blogging stats

The searches

Help Books Clker.com
(Courtesy OCAL, via clker.com)

I love sharing some of the search terms used to reach my blog, Unfortunately, search term visibility is no longer what it used to be, but a few still get through for some reason. Certain browsers?

Some are probably assignment or book group related?

  • “david foster wallace word notes”
  • “key characteristics of australian literature in terra nullius by coleman”
  • “the colony audrey magee book club questions” and “the colony audrey magee what does title mean”
  • “characters in ripper by shelley burr”
  • “but being completely alone was a feeling”: searching this on my blog retrieves posts like Delia Owen’s Where crawdads sing and Tegan Bennett Daylight’s Six bedrooms, with Delia Owens being what they were looking for, as I quote this line, without the opening “but”.

Some are just general research:

  • “famous first sentences from Australian novels”

Then others seem to be looking for something very specific:

Book cover
  • ‘date of birth and “scott tucker”‘ and ‘husband and “scott tucker”’: these are probably looking for this Scott Tucker but they got Michelle Scott Tucker’s Elizabeth Macarthur’s biography instead.
  • “germaine greer care home” AND “germaine greer aged care”: we are still interested in Germaine Greer. Over the year I have had many hits from a site called mumsnet.com which linked to my 2022 Canberra Writers Festival post on her.
  • “very short stories convict fiction free”: this seems to find my Convict Literature tag, so tags do work!

Other stats

Overall, 2023 was another challenging year for me blog-wise and it shows in the stats. I only wrote 135 posts, which is the fewest number of posts per year that I’ve ever written and is well under my long term average of 153. However, my overall hits for the year increased by 17% on last year. Stats! Always a mystery.

The top ten countries visiting my blog vary slightly from last year: Australia (44%), the USA (27%), Britain, India, Canada, the Philippines, China, France, New Zealand, and Germany, in this order. The first four are the same, and then five of the next six are the same countries, in different order. However, Mexico dropped out to be replaced by New Zealand.

Challenges, memes, et al

I only do one regular meme, Kate’s (booksaremyfavouriteandbest) #sixdegreesofseparation, and in 2023 I did every month, except December. I occasionally do other memes – found under my “memes” category link – but you’ll find no others in 2023.

I also took part, to various degrees, in Bill’s (The Australian Legend) AWW Gen 5 – SFF, Nonfiction November (multiple bloggers), Novellas in November (Cathy of 746 books and Rebecca of Bookish Beck), the #YEAR Club (Kaggsy’s Bookish Rambling and Simon’s Stuck in a Book), Brona’s Aus Reading Month, Buried in Print’s MARM, and the William Trevor Reading Year (Cathy of 746 Books and Kim of Reading Matters). Most of these can be found via my “Reading weeks/months/years” category.

I do these because they align with my reading practice and goals. I’d love to do more, and I like the structured encouragement they provide for me to explore writers and works I would otherwise find hard to fit into my schedule.

And so, 2024 …

As always, thank you to all of you who commented on my blog this year – the regulars who hang in with me year in year out, and the newbies who have given me a shot. I hope you have enjoyed the community here enough to stay. I love those of you who comment. Thanks so much for being an active part of the community. But, a big thank you too to the lurkers. I really do appreciate your interest and support too.

I also want to thank all the hardworking bloggers out there. I’ve been a poor community member – again – this year, but I do appreciate you and enjoy reading your posts when I can. I look forward to more reading and great book talk in 2024.

Finally, huge thanks to the authors, publishers and booksellers who make it all possible – and who have proved yet again that the book is far from dead.

Roll on 2024 … a big year for my blog which will turn 15 in May. Meanwhile, Happy New Year everyone.

45 thoughts on “Blogging highlights for 2023”

  1. A quick thank you Sue again for your blog, which I’ll enjoy reading shortly. Your blog is an essential part of my literary landscape.

    Moira

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  2. It’s fascinating isn’t it, which books get the hits year after year. I suspect Fifteen Days on Mars will be a school text thing (like the short stories of Guy de Maupassant is on my blog). Year after year five poetry posts are in my top ten, I have to assume for the same reason.
    We all have years/phases where life stuff changes our reading and writing patterns for a while. I am always pleasantly surprised by just how well we all do in keeping in touch with each others blogs, commenting when we can, becoming lurkers for a while, using the WP like button as a stand by…it’s a special community and thank you for your part in keeping us engaged and working together.

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    • I suppose you are right Brona that that could be a set text too. I love that Guy de Maupassant is still read. He was my adult entree to short stories. Now … at the NGV … more later.

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  3. Jesus, ST – 15 years of blogging about literature in all its forms ? – I reckon you must be approaching some kind of record. WELL DONE YOU (for May, in case I forget) !!
    And yeah, I’m pretty sure it’ll be the variety of browsers that’s responsible for odd results: I’m not happy with Edge, but Chrome won’t stop making me log in and Firefox won’t stop updating, and I’m too old to try, say, Opera .. and they all do stuff differently, of course. Such hard yakka, being a web aficionado ! :\

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    • I just use Safari and Firefox, MR. They work pretty fine. I’ve used Safari since the beginning I think so know it well. But actually, I realise now that I meant search engines. I think they are the ones that suppress search terms. Google does but maybe some don’t.

      I’m not the longest blogger … Kim had been going much longer, and Lisa reached 15 around July. You are in my top 5 commenters for which I sincerely thank you. I love hearing from you.

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  4. I find it interesting that your liking for short stories is reflected in your stats for most read. I wonder if Lit course lecturers set short stories just to get the students to read them. I don’t think I was ever set a short story at school, well not after the Grade Six Reader, anyway. Nor during my degree.

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    • I find it interesting too Bill. I’m sure some are set, because some spike at the same time of year every year.

      Maybe you are right about being set because students will read them. The only short stories I recollect being set in late high school were in a collection that we had to read all of, The Dubliners. But maybe creative writing teachers set them these days? That might be part of it.

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        • Haha, Lisa, I could make a cheeky rejoinder and say I read “good writing” … actually, I will be cheeky and say it. Some of the most awe-inspiring writing I read this year were short stories. Susan Glaspell and Claire Keegan come immediately to mind. They were both so powerful and contained such a complex representation of humanity, and of the decisions people make, in their short pages. But, I know I won’t convince you and Bill so will try not to be too cheeky! *Books* are good too!

        • I wasn’t having a go at you. I was simply confirming that our generation were expected to read full length books, and we did. At school and at university.

        • Ah, thanks Lisa … I wasn’t quite sure what you meant! I thought about it for awhile. That makes sense. Certainly I think we were far more inclined to read what we were told to read. Luckily I guess some of us loved it so it wasn’t a chore.

  5. Oh dear, am l the reason Mexico dropped out? We moved to France in June 2022.
    I mainly read the posts (135 is still a lot of posts!) when the email arrives but always go to your blog later for the comments. You have a fine group of commenters.
    All the best for 2024 and another great year of reading.

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  6. WG: Happy New Year – Keep up your blogging – it’s always of interest even though I do not always respond! Jim

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  7. I have a few ‘serial’ posts as well and I know some of them are school texts.
    I used to look at my stats but haven’t bothered the last two years (mostly because I ultimately only blog for myself and my small blogging community).

    That said, your post prompted me to have a look at what was happening in 2023:
    My top two posts were old ones (I think my ‘grief-lit’ tag gets found in search-engines). My third top was posted this year – Antarctica by Claire Keegan.

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    • Thanks Kate … I blog for myself too but I love statistics, just the fact of them intrigues me. What do they mean? How much can we understand from them? Of course, I never wanted to be a statistician – I just love them from my little lay angle.

      Which of course are school texts?

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  8. I get hits for books that have been adapted for TV/cinema so Chris Hammer’s Scrublands and JP Pomere’s The Clearing got a lot of traffic this year. But my most popular post every year is one I wrote in 2019 about novels written in the second person.

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    • Some, like your Scrublands and my Lessons in chemistry are pretty obvious, aren’t they, kimbofo, but then there are those more mysterious ones. I wrote one on Tone very early in my blog which is still very high in the list but not the top ten any more. (I must check that post of yours. Did I see it at the time or was it while I was in Japan, I wonder.)

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      • I’m pretty sure the big hitters are set texts. I know of several instances where my reviews have been linked to from secondary school websites so teachers must be flagging them as “resources”. You can usually find this out by doing Google searches of your entire URL

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        • Yes, I have found such links coming from school sites – Sometimes through referrer stats – though I can’t aways see the actual page because it’s password controlled for the school community.

  9. Wow, that’s quite a change in the top post line up!

    So did the person doing the Germaine Greer search actually use a boolean connector or is that your “AND” ? If it’s the searcher, I’m super impressed!

    Happy New Year Sue! I hope 2024 brings you lots of great reading!

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  10. How interesting, Sue. As I’m mainly a lurker, I do appreciate your kind words. I’d love to get stats like that for my blog. but can’t see how to do it. The Help function hasn’t helped. Is there a simple way that you know of? Don’t answer this if it’s an annoying question.

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  11. How curious, this shift from older posts’ (older books’) prominence to newer posts (newer books’ and stories and events, etc.). Now I’ll have to check and see if that’s true for me too. Could certainly be the material/content itself and changes but it also be some weird technicality that has changed how search engines are capturing and prioritising things (there has been, I believe, a fairly major shift with G in particular…which I only barely understand. Heheh Regardless, very interesting to read about the trends and patterns you’ve observed. I remember some funny search terms featuring in the past for you too.

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    • Good questions Marcie … you could be at least partly right about there being some search engine tweaks or technicalities. I don’t think we should beat ourselves up about only barely understanding them as I think they prefer it that way!

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  12. It always surprises me greatly when a person comments on my blog, making it obvious they are a lurker! Typically, it’s someone I know from the blogging community or my old creative writing days.

    Based on the title of one old blog post — comparing the movie and book Hidden Figures — I used to get tons of hits from what are obviously students. The numbers would jump right around what I assume is the end of term. However, I changed the title of that post to discourage people from finding my post and plagiarizing, and it hasn’t been popular sense. Think for yourself, kiddies!

    This year I published 99 posts. I stick to two per week: a review on Wednesday and the Sunday Lowdown. I think you write quite a bit, so don’t feel funny that you published fewer posts.

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    • That’s fascinating about changing the title Melanie.

      As for posting less this year, I’m not bothering over much but I had always aimed, and about achieved, 3 per week. I do like your very organised 2 per eeek though. Your regulars know exactly where they are and it’s a good thing.

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  13. Thank you for all your hard work and excellent posts – I often read if I don’t always comment, and am often Very Behind, as I am indeed now!

    My Bonnie Garmus post is my top one after my home page for the last year, by miles. I reviewed it the month it came out but got the top month of hits when the p/b or possibly the TV adaptation came out. In searches I had quite a lot for Chetan Bhagat’s Two States, which must be on a reading list as I get hits on it every month as well, and Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen, interestingly.

    Happy New Year and here’s to another good year of reading and writing!

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    • So sorry Liz, I didn’t reply to this. It seems that a handful of my comments from 10 January ended up in my spam folder. Thanks so much for responding to my highlight post. Yes my Bonnie Garmus hits picked up after the TV adaptation was released, just as right now the hits on my Trent Dalton novel Boy swallows universe are picking up now that one has gone to air.

      It’s always interesting to see the books that seem to be set texts. I often find that quite encouraging because sometimes there are books there that I hadn’t realised were being studied and yet they seem worthwhile study texts.

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