Happy New Year! Even though we were out at neighbours’ until 2:45 a.m. (who are these party animals?!), I’m feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today and looking forward to a special brunch at our favourite Newbury establishment. Despite all evidence to the contrary in the news – politically, environmentally, internationally – I’m choosing to be optimistic about what 2025 will hold. What hope I have comes from community and grassroots efforts.
In other good news, 2024 saw my highest reading total yet! (My usual average, as in 2019–21 and 2023, is 340.) Last year I challenged myself to read 350 books and I managed it easily, even though at one point in the middle of the year I was far behind and it didn’t look possible.
Reading a novella a day in November was certainly a major factor in meeting my goal. I also tend to prioritize poetry collections and novellas for my Shelf Awareness reviewing, and in general I consider it a bonus if a book is closer to 200 pages than 300+.
The statistics
Fiction: 51.4%
Nonfiction: 31.8% (similar to last year’s 31.2%)
Poetry: 16.8% (identical to last year!)
Female author: 67.9% (close to last year’s 69.7%)
Male author: 29.6%
Nonbinary author: 1.1%
Multiple genders (anthologies): 1.4%
BIPOC author: 18.4%
This has dropped a bit compared to previous years’ 22.4% (2023), 20.7% (2022), and 18.5% (2021). My aim will be to make it 25% or more.
LGBTQ: 21.6%
(Based on the author’s identity or a major theme in the work.) This has been increasing from 11.8% (2021), 8.8% (2022), and 18.2% (2023). I’m pleased!
Work in translation: 6%
I read only 21 books in translation last year, alas. This is an unfortunate drop from the previous year’s 10.6%. I do prefer to be closer to 10%, so I will need to make a conscious effort to borrow translated books and incorporate them in my challenges.
French (7)
German (4)
Norwegian (3)
Spanish (3)
Italian (1)
Latvian (1) – a new language for me to have read from
Swedish (1)
+ Misc. in a story anthology
2024 (or pre-release 2025) books: 52.3% (up from 44.7% last year)
Backlist: 47.7%
But a lot of that ‘backlist’ stuff was still from the 2020s; I only read five pre-1950 books, the oldest being Howards End and Kilmeny of the Orchard, both from 1910. I should definitely pick up something from the 19th century or earlier next year!
E-books: 32.1% (up from 27.4% last year)
Print books: 67.9%
I almost exclusively read e-books for BookBrowse, Foreword and Shelf Awareness reviews.
Rereads: 18
I doubled last year’s 9! I’m really happy with this 1.5/month average. Three of my rereads ended up being among my most memorable reading experiences for the year.
And, courtesy of Goodreads:
Average book length: 220 pages (in previous years it has been 217 and 225)
Average rating for 2024: 3.6 (identical to the last two years)
Where my books came from for the whole year, compared to 2023:
- Free print or e-copy from publisher: 44.8% (↑1.3%)
- Public library: 18.4% (↓5.7%)
- Secondhand purchase: 11.5% (↑1.7%)
- Free (giveaways, Little Free Library/free bookshop, from friends or neighbours): 9.8% (↑3.9%)
- Downloaded from NetGalley, Edelweiss, BookSirens or Project Gutenberg: 8.8% (↑2%)
- Gifts: 2.6% (↓1.5%)
- New purchase (often at a bargain price; includes Kindle purchases): 2.1% (↓2.6%)
- University library: 2% (↓1.2%)
So, like last year, nearly a quarter of my reading (24%) was from my own shelves. I’d like to make that more like a third to half, which would be better achieved by a reduction in the number of review copies rather than a drop in my library borrowing. It would also ensure that I read more backlist books.
What trends and changes did you see in your year’s reading?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
I read about half as many books this year, making just over one a week. How do you manage to read one a day? Incredible. 🙂
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I read lots of books at once — I usually have 20-30 on the go at any one time, and bounce between them all. It’s always a mix of genres, and print vs. electronic, so that there’s a book or three for every mood or situation. Some are for work (paid freelance reviewing). I don’t have a television and don’t watch films. I don’t have many hobbies that aren’t book-related. And I have no children, just a demanding cat 😉
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Wow – that’s way outside my capability. I often have two on the go, but any more than that and I’d lose the plot for most of them. I have no children or pets, but I do have a few other pastimes, including some viewing and listening to music. I enjoy reviewing what I read, and I applied for a few paid freelance posts, but sadly it didn’t happen. I take my hat off to your skills in concentration. 🙂
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I was a two-book-at-a-time person until I gave up working in a university library and went freelance. It’s just ramped up over the 11.5 years since then!
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We wish you a wonderful New Year full of happy moments, lots of joy and perfect health, Rebecca!
💙💫🌟✨🌟💫💜
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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How kind of you. Happy new year!
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Happy new year! This post is an interesting analysis of your reading choices and sheer volume of reading material. Does it direct your choices for 2025? I thought you’d add a heading for books or manuscripts for the McKittrick prize this year.
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In 2025, I will try to read nearly as much, probably with about the same breakdown, but aiming to increase the levels of work in translation and by BIPOC and the number of books selected from my own shelves.
I won’t be able to reveal anything about the McKitterick Prize judging process until long after I’ve submitted my own longlist and then shortlist preferences and had the final judging meeting. The public announcement and awards ceremony are in June.
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352! Amazing!
I didn’t look too closely at my Goodreads stats this year, although noted that the average length of the books I chose was 304pp (Novella November balanced out by three 600-800pp books this year) and my average score is just 3.02 (I’m a hard marker!).
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You are a tough grader 😉 If half-stars were allowed, do you think you’d end up with a higher average? I round up to 4 for 3.5, for instance.
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I either round-up or round-down depending on if it’s a 3.7 or a 3.3 😀 (probably more round-downs!)
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Loving all your roundups–so interesting! I read less this year. The more I work, the less time to read, unfortunately. So, my reading is often for my blog, or for comps, or as writing inspiration. One change I noticed in my own stats this year was much more re-reading. I re-read a story collection, front to back (which, as we both know, says something)–for an interview I conducted with the author. I also re-listened/read both Shuggie Bain and The Dutch House through three times each, because I own the audiobooks (and the voice actors for both are wonderful). Thank goodness for local library giveaways and my Subaru that has a cd player. Hope you have the best reading and all-around year in 2025!
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That makes sense that you would read less while actively working on a writing project. I have also heard writers say that they don’t read in their own genre because they don’t want another’s voice to influence them overmuch.
We miss having a car with a CD player as we still buy and listen to CDs. (We shared a neighbor’s car but her daughter crashed it late last year.)
Happy new year!
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352: what an absolutely perfect number! Yay for novellas and poetry (although sometimes collections can take an unexpectedly long time, I find). It sounds like you’ve had a pretty stellar year. It’s funny that a couple stat’s were exactly/nearly the same as the previous year! I’m sure you can make some small adjustments in attention to keep the kind of flow that feels ideal for you just by articulating your plans (as you’ve done). I closed off my year at the very end (I had a long pause of reading in the middle of December but then resumed as normal in the last week) and made a new tab, but haven’t opened the sheet since (or finished anything …just randomly plucking up one thing and then another…in a couple days I’ll get serious). I know I was saying recently that I was disappointed cuz I’d wanted to read more backlist titles in 2024, but if I were to redefine that I think I’d be more satisfied (I use 2000, which does seem a little extreme now that I type it here). However the details play out, I hope you have a great year of reading ahead of you and I’m looking forward to more bookchatter!
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Tis a satisfying number, I agree. People who don’t understand my habits will wonder why it’s not a book a day!
So your spreadsheet has a tab per month? I just do a full chronological year.
Do you mean your cutoff for “backlist” is pre-2000? (That’s what the editor set as the definition of “Classics” in my last communication from BookBrowse!)
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Heheh Well, I’m not sure I think twenty-five years is long enough to designate a book a classic? What do you think? But, I do need to reframe my thinking on “backlist”. Some small publishers include the previous two seasons with partial-page highlights and then all the earlier stuff in single lines at the back, so I was thinking maybe that’s one optin. But I also could take a more funcitonal view? After about five years it’s hard to find that fiction on library shelves up here (they have to weed quickly because of storage limitations). Or I could just take a hint from my own logs? Anything more than ten years is in the distinct minority. (I read 18 books pre-2000 and I’d aimed for 20 and thought that would be easy. But 18’s ok.) I must’ve been sloppy with my wording; the whole year is one tab including Jan-Dec, and I start the 2025 tab/sheet around November when I start to see what’s not going to fit (and then transfer another twenty titles when reality sets in /snortylaugh).
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When we’ve had the “Short Classics” prompt for Novellas in November, we’ve said anything pre-1980. Pre-2000 is definitely a stretch imo.
Ah, I haven’t created my 2025 files yet. It’s been a task on my to-do list for several days now!
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Happy new year! How do you keep track of all these stats? Do you use a spreadsheet or does Goodreads have stats I am not aware of (other than the ones they show in your year in books?)
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I have an Excel spreadsheet that Marcie (above) gave me the template for. With that it was all very easy to work out. Goodreads gives you a few basic stats re: average book length and rating, number of pages read, longest and shortest book, etc.
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Great stats!
Here are mine: https://wordsandpeace.com/2025/01/02/year-of-reading-2024-part-2-statistics/
For the source, you can see I was at 50% from my public library
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Well done for supporting your local library! And you read so much in translation and from other countries.
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I love that the average length is so manageable! And, as ever, that my frighteningly modern novels are backlist here 😀
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Yeah, it’s rare-ish for me to venture further back than the 2020s these days. Your classics clubs are always a good excuse for me to do so!
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A brilliant number and one to wave at those who think my own 180-200 per year is excessive! My stats were about the same as last year, which was pleasing. More older backlist than you but I don’t get so many review copies and new books from the library.
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