Another year, another roundup of how I spent all my free time reading. I don't think I'm going to finish another book in 2024, so this should be relatively accurate. Everyone should account for the fact that this 100% assumes my spreadsheet is correct, so....who knows?! Stephany sent me her spreadsheet template a few years ago and I have been following it ever since, so blame her for the nitty-gritty details below. Feel free to skip this if the numbers bore you!
Number of books read: 149 (12.4/month)
Total number of pages read: 53,570 (4479/month) - If I take out audiobooks, it goes down to 37,784 (3149/month).
Average star rating: 3.67/5 stars
Format: 47.7% physical books, 27.5% ebooks, and 24.8% audiobooks - My audiobook reading dramatically increased this year.
Audiobook stats: I listened to 37 audiobooks this year! That seems like a lot. That was 474 hours and 17 minutes. LOL. Everyone asks how I do it and basically I am always listening to something - working out, walking the dog, cooking, cleaning, etc. My earbuds are as crucial to my life as food.
Book source: As with previous years, the vast majority of books I read are from libraries.
Recommendation sources: I did not track who or where I got book recommendations from for all books because I frequently forget by the time I read the book and put in on the spreadsheet. However, for those that I did track, here are the biggest sources.
Podcasts - I get a lot of recs from Books Unbound, Sarah's Bookshelves, and occasionally from Pop Culture Happy Hour.
Bloggers - Birchie, Jenny, Stephany, Kim, Maya, and Tobia were listed in particular in my spreadsheet. I am 100% certain there are other bloggers I have gotten inspiration from and if I didn't name you, I am SO SORRY. My spreadsheet is unreliable on this data point.
Pop Sugar Reading Challenge prompts - So many books I read just for the PSRC.
Reddit list - I'm trying to get through a list of the 100 Top Fantasy Books by Women Authors.
Other things - Book clubs, award winners, and for The God of the Woods, I just wrote "the world."
Big Five Genres:
Star Rating Breakdowns (out of five stars):
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People say I'm a harsh judge of books, but I don't think I am. It definitely skews towards more data points at 4 and above!
Money spent: I spent $0 on books to read myself this year. I did buy about a dozen books as gifts this year. I know how everyone loves how my library tells me how much money I've saved, so here it is. I think this just calculates physical books I've checked out, though. Imagine if you added in the ebooks and audiobooks!
Books per month:
There's no real discernible pattern here, is there?
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Bits and Bobs:
- 20.1% were debut novels.
- 34.2% were part of a series. I read a lot of romance and fantasy, which tend to be serialized.
- 80.5% had female authors, 18.8%, and just 1 (<1%) was nonbinary.
- Fewest number of pages was Serious Concerns, a poetry collection. The most number of pages was Edge of Eternity (which I listened to as an audiobook). If you don't count audiobooks, the longest I read with my own eyes was All the Colors of the Dark.
- Oldest book was Black Beauty (1877).
- 17 (11.4%) were published in 2024.
- 16 (10.7%) were books I reread. This honestly probably increased my average star rating considerably because I don't reread books I don't love.
- DNF: I have 22 marked on my spreadsheet. Just because these aren't books for me doesn't mean they aren't books for you! For Kyria: I have a separate tab on my spreadsheet for DNFs, so they aren't in my data anywhere else except for this bullet point.
- 18 (12%) had LGBTQ+ characters as main characters and I have an additional 7 with important, but not primary gay characters
I tracked how many authors I read from countries other than the U.S. and it was dismal.
Canada: 5
Ireland: 1
Italy: 1
Japan: 3
New Zealand: 1
Norway: 1
South Korea: 1
Sweden: 1
UK: 27 (bolstered by my J.K. Rowling and Ken Follett)
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Hats:
I tracked number of hats on my spreadsheet this year. I KNOW!!
The average number of hats was 6.9.
37 (24.8%) had zero hats
16 (10.7%) had one hat
22 (14.8%) had two hats
44 (29.5%) had three - nine hats
The highest number of hats was 78 in Fall of Giants.
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And that's a wrap, folks. Did any of this surprise you? Do you track something that I don't track? What genre did you read most in 2024?
You deserve a NYT article. This is so cool. Of course you have stats on hats! And the author country?
ReplyDeleteI had to chuckle at this: "My earbuds are as crucial to my life as food." I, on the other hand, listened to two 1/2 audiobooks all year. I just...can't get into them!
At some point in 2024 my phone ran out of storage completely and I had to delete my entire podcast app to free up space. When I did that, my audiobook usage skyrocketed. I bought a new phone recently and have put my podcast app back on it, so we'll see if my audiobook love continues on when I have podcast competition. I will say, though, that it was hilarious that I replaced podcast with audiobooks instead of music. LOL. I suspect a lot more people listen to music regularly than I do.
DeleteWhat Elisabeth said - the NYT needs a Books According to Engie feature.
ReplyDeleteI can confirm that if you have a dog you have time to listen to audiobooks.
Here's to reading in 2025 and beyond!
I feel like the NYT already has great cultural criticism and all I could add to it would be a bit about hats. What a thing to be known for.
DeleteYES!! Dogs are the secret to audiobooks and podcasts, aren't they?
I also listen to a lot - but podcasts, not audiobooks. I should probably listen to some but you know, I just love me a chatty podcast! I don't think you're a harsh judge of books - you like what you like, and that's how it should be! Based on this post I am going to a) start a spreadsheet that shows where I get my book recommendations from because who the hell knows, b) track where my authors are from. I have a lot of Canadiana for sure, probably tons of US and UK, and I tend to read a lot of Indian authors as well. But I have no data for that! I am adding a line to my spreadsheet.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year my friend!
Happy New Year!
DeleteI listen to both audiobooks and podcasts, but because of my phone storage issue, podcast listening went way down for me in 2024. We'll see if that changes now that I have a new phone.
Country of the book is sort of fascinating, but I knew it was going to be very US-centric. I think I'd have to make it a formal goal for me to make it too much more diverse, to be honest, and I'm not sure I'm going to be willing to do that!
Wow- according to the library you saved almost $4000! Books really are expensive. I'm not sure what my biggest genre was- mysteries? I'll have to go back and check. Like Nicole, I listen to podcasts, not audiobooks. I really should re-think that though- I could read SO many more books that way.
ReplyDeleteI listen to a lot of podcasts, too. I feel like nonfiction audiobooks are like expanded podcasts without ads and I can get behind that. If audiobooks aren't your cup of tea, don't worry about it! You're doing great without them.
DeleteI’m a podcast listener, too. I’m also someone who only reads one book at a time so I don’t know how my brain would deal with audiobooks - but maybe I’ll try next year? I feel like my reading tracking was messy at best in 2024 and am considering a spreadsheet for 2025…
ReplyDeleteHave you considered reading a physical book while listening to the audiobook at the same time and switching between them? You could still just have one book going at a time, but in different formats!
DeleteI did not listen to a single audiobook in 2024! But I only listened to 1 in 2023, so it's not much of a change. I listen to so many podcasts so I don't have/make time to get through audiobooks. I love that your library shows how much you saved on books. Considering that we often check out 20-25+ children's books on each visit to the library, our number would be VERY HIGH!! I wish the library would tell me what percentile I am in terms of books borrowed. I have to imagine we are very very high. I don't put any limits on the # of books the boys can check out - they just need to fit in our (large) book bag. But I encounter lots of families that limit their kids to 5 books or something like that. Oh the outrage that would occur if I did that!
ReplyDeleteI will be posting my review of books in 2024 next week. I had a really good reading year and managed to read 100 books. My average was 3.8 which matched 2023. I DNF'd more books that I did in 2023, and my goal is to DNF more in 2025. I had too many 2-star books. Most of those should have been DNF'd.
I'd love to know how many books you've checked out! I'd love to have a list of all books I've ever checked out from the library from the time I was a child. It would be FASCINATING to see.
DeleteI can see why someone might limit the number of books checked out if their kids are rough with books or they lose them a lot or something. It could get expensive if you have to keep paying the replacement cost to the library!
I cannot express how much I love that you continue to count hat references. It is delightful. (And every time I encounter a hat in a book, I think of you!)
ReplyDeleteThe earbuds as essential tool is exactly right. HOW did I do laundry/clean bathrooms/go for walks before audiobooks?!?
Sometimes when I'm going about my regular day I'll hear the word hat and my ears will perk. I'm now conditioned to react to the word hat in any context!
DeleteI have no idea how I ever did chores without podcasts or audiobooks in my ears.
Love this. Let me know if you'd like to read more Canadian books; I may be able to recommend a few authors.
ReplyDeleteI listen to a podcast called Books Unbound, which is two Canadian women in their late 20s/early 30s and that's where I get most of my Canadian recs. I'm always up for more, though.
DeleteThank you for the DNF fact! I don't really "count" them but I kind of do like to have the info, as I did sometimes read a lot of the book before giving it up. So I don't want it to get lost in the abyss, although it is not a fully read book.
ReplyDeleteI am also pretty much lost without my earbuds! I used them every day while riding and even had backups to my backups in case of failure. Unfortunately my wireless ones did fail a couple of months ago, but I got a good four years out of them and they were used nearly every day in 2024 (and most days in the other three years due to my commuting and using them when running or doing housework, as you do) so I call that a win!
Did you read them when you were cycling? I feel like that would be hard for me because I rely so heavily on traffic noise to hear what's going on on the road around me. I guess you weren't on busy roads too often, though, were you?
DeleteEgads. I've never had earbuds last more than about 18 months. Four years is a real win!
This is just so impressive. If I ever start listening to audiobooks, I'd probably triple my yearly count. Maybe I should give them a try; I do love podcasts after all, and commute to Madison and back twice a week.
ReplyDeleteI found the perfect jump from podcast to audiobooks went podcasts --> short nonfiction books on a topic I found interesting (mostly based on podcast episodes) --> longer nonfiction books --> fiction. It took me a LONG time before I could do a fiction audiobook because I was used the narrative form of podcasts. Your mileage might vary on that, but that's the path I had to take.
DeleteI love the hat count stats in the end. Gold stars for being so consistant here.
ReplyDeleteYou read so so many books. I feel very honored that I was able to recommend a book or two to you.
I am planing on reading more historic fiction this year so I have to pay closer attention to your reviews it seems since they are a favorite.
I feel like we read a lot of historical fiction for my IRL book club, so that sort of inflates the numbers. And because I don't always LOVE historical fiction, I am super picky about them. On the other hand, I know I'll love even a bad romance novel, so why not just read whatever comes my way?
DeleteYessss - I love this post and I love that you're still using my spreadsheet! I switched over to using the one Sarah's Book Shelves offers for Patreon this year, which will actually put the graphs together for me at the end of the year, which I am HERE FOR. But I'm also wondering if I may just combine some of the stuff on her spreadsheet with MY spreadsheet instead. She has some cool columns, but we'll see how I feel about it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, you had an amazing reading year! I'm always surprised at how low your average rating for romance is - 3.14. We need to get you reading more romance that's more in your wheelhouse!
I think you and I know that I'm never going to spend the money to get that tracker from Sarah's Bookshelves. Also, it sounds terrifying and like it has a million features I'll never use. LOL. The fun part for me is going through the data myself at the end.
DeleteThe thing is, Stephany, I no longer know what sort of romance I like. I used to know and now I find myself getting pissy with every little thing in romance novels. I think the general state of political affairs is making it hard for me to just lose myself in a heterosexual romance novel. It's either too much "man saving damsel" or "everyone's equal in a super made up and obvious way" and either way I'm unhappy. Maybe I just need a romance break?