All righty, I already covered total books in 2024, my top 10 fiction, and top 10 nonfiction. Let’s talk stats.

Record Number of Reads

So the headline is obviously the total number: 224 books.

Holy cow.

I thought last year’s 184 was a ridiculous number, but now I’m soaring to new heights of ridiculous. My previous record was 203 books in 2014, and back then I read a lot more middle grade fiction, which are shorter and lead to inflated numbers. This year YA, middle grade, and graphic novels combined for less than 11% of my reading.

I’ve talked endlessly about how to read more, and even wrote a book about it. So let’s not go into that.

I’ll also reiterate that while 224 is wonderful for bragging rights and clickbait, it doesn’t matter. Any amount of reading is worth celebrating. If you read more than 20 books per year, you’re in the top 10% of American adults. If you read more than 50, you’re in the top 1%. Hell, if you read just five books you’re in the top one-third.

Readers are nerds. And if you read a lot, you’re in a very elite group of nerds. Welcome to the club. I love it.

My Diversity Stats

• 50% POC books
• 54% women/nonbinary authors

Here’s how it compares to previous years:

Here’s how that compares to total reading:

Why?: I track diversity because I believe it’s important to be exposed to a diverse range of voices, and if I don’t intentionally track it and seek it out, I tend toward a very monotonous voice. The data proves this to be true.

Progress: These are relatively low diversity numbers compared to recent years, though still exceptional compared to before I tracked and intentionally saught diversity (I had years when I didn’t read a single book by an author of color or featuring a character of color).

Difficulty: While the publishing industry has diversified to an incredible degree in the past decade, it’s still hard to find POC books. I’m intentional about seeking them out and I try a lot of books I end up quitting in order to find good reads. Books by Latino authors are especially hard to find and I continue to be intentional about seeking those out (with some success, see Fabian Nicieza’s Suburban Dicks series). I’m curious if part of the challenge is cultural: I don’t care for magical realism, and that genre tends to be popular among Latino writers.

More Stats

OK, let’s dive into more numbers:

• Genres: Science Fiction has always been my favorite—around half of my reading—but it took a hit last year and dipped further this year at only 22%. Now I did refine my genre definitions a bit this year and separated science fiction and fantasy. But at only 8% for fantasy, that’s still a dip. Memoir was next at 17% and general fiction at 15%. I did add a couple new genres, including mystery at 6% and romance at 5%.
• New is less better: I’ve had a trend of reading newer books in previous years, with books published in the previous three years accounting for 77% in 2021, 58% in 2022, and then down to 38% in 2023. 2024 was about the same, though in 2023 I read only 12 books published before 2009. So for 2024 I set a goal to read at least one book from every year of my life. I successfully completed that goal, ultimately reading books from 50 different years. An interesting challenge, though not sure I’d do it again. The three oldest books I read were from 1897, 1945, and 1965.
• Format: A big shift to audiobooks this year with 61% print, 32% audio, and 7% digital (2023 had 18% audio books). I intentionally listened to more audiobooks, going so far as putting in earbuds around the house (great for chores!). I also had to start putting library audiobooks on hold and wait in line (I resisted doing this due to anxiety over a book becoming available when I didn’t have time to listen—but that proved to be overblown as I had plenty of time to get to it and if not you can pass on a book and take it the next time it’s available.)
• Quit bad books: Two-star books only accounted for 6% of my reading, so I did pretty decdent at quitting bad books. But that amounts to 14 books I clearly didn’t like and probably should have quit. I had no one-star books. I don’t have a count of how many books I quit, but I’m going to start that for next year.
• Book source: 62% of my reads came from the library, 24% from my ‘new’ shelf (books acquired in the last year or so), and 14% from my ‘old’ shelf. This is a newer stat I’m tracking, but already it’s encouraging me to read some of those older books I bought but didn’t get around to reading (or get rid of them). Our local library is being remodeled and will close this spring, likely for a year. I’m curious what impact that will have.
• Monthly: I tracked my reading by month and it’s interesting (if obvious) to see the trends. Reading definitely slows down in the summer months and picks up in the winter months. May has proven to be my low reading month.

Reading Goals

I made more intentional reading goals in 2023 and enjoyed how that gamified my reading a bit. So I did even more in 2024 and achieved all of them.

• Total books: I still don’t set a goal for total books read. I probably have an unconscious goal to read a lot, but I don’t quantify it. It works for me, so that will continue.
• Author goals: A big part of my goals continues to be reading specific authors. This would probably happen naturally, but this is a good way to ensure I hit some authors I might otherwise overlook. That led to reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, my number one fiction read of the year.
• Classics: Another goal was to read (or attempt) three classics. I read Black Boy by Richard Wright, Sula by Toni Morrison, and Dracula. I liked Black Boy and enjoyed the experience of Dracula (only because it was paired with modern Internet commentary—as a standalone? Ug!), so that was a worthwile goal (even if it reinforces that I generally don’t like classics).
• Re-read: I added a new goal to re-read three of my favorites. I usually have so many new books to read that I don’t have time to re-read, but I figured if I’m reading this many books I can do a few re-reads. Glad I did. The Storied Life of AJ Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, Zone One by Colson Whitehead, and Lion’s Blood by Steven Barnes were all as good as I remember. (As a bonus, I switched formats for AJ Fikry and Zone One, which gave a new experience; I read the sequel for Lion’s Blood, so re-reading helped set the stage.)
• Clear the list: I’ve worked to clear my to-read list as well as my shelves in recent years, and I’m making good progress. My to-read list had been cut by close to 75% in the last few years (maybe less, considering all the books I’ve added in the last two weeks with end-of-the-year lists). I also have much fewer unread books staring back at me on shelves, which is a good feeling.
• Creative goals: I’m continuing to come up with creative goals. That led to some interesting reads in 2024, including some journalist stories and a finding a fascinating bike-themed short story series. For 2025 I’m thinking of exploring some local authors, both with a goal to read a set number of local authors and go to an author reading. I’m still mulling over new goals. And yes, it feels very much like gamifying my reading. But it works for me. So I’ll continue to lean into it.

More Reading

If you want to read more, check out my booklet 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading Again.

For more on diversity and stats, check out previous years: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015.