So I already ran my total books in 2025, top 10 fiction, and top 10 nonfiction. Time to talk stats.

Total Reads

As noted before, I hit 211 total books this year. That’s my second highest all time.

How is that possible? I wrote a whole book about it, so it gets tiring answering that question. You have to love it and then make time for it. It’s not that hard. Put your phone down, shut off the TV.

Audio: And yes, listening to books is reading. This is a silly thing to fight over. Audiobooks accounted for almost 40% of my reading. That’s more than double since 2023. I now listen to audiobooks while doing chores. It started when I got sucked in to a good book and had to see how it ended, and now I do it all the time.

Not a flex: And I say this every year, but I’ll repeat it—I’m not bragging about reading 211 books. It’s just a number. I know people who read more. The point is just to read. However many books you can read, that’s awesome. Readers are a rare breed, and I want to celebrate any reading achievement, whether you read two books or 200. So don’t fall into the trap of comparison.

My Diversity Stats

• 51% POC books
• 64% women/nonbinary authors

Here’s how it compares to previous years:

Here’s how that compares to total reading:

Why?: In a year when diversity was practically outlawed, it’s more important than ever. I’ve long believed it’s important to be exposed to a diverse range of voices, and that requires an intentional effort.

Difficulty: Finding diverse books continues to be hard. It’s better than in the past, for sure. But I had a hard time this year. I think romance saved me, as I was able to tap into a vein of diverse authors there (that also likely explains the spike on women/nonbinary authors). I hit a slump, maybe around May, where finding diverse reads just wasn’t working. For a while I didn’t worry about it, and it looked like I wouldn’t hit 50% POC books and I wouldn’t hit one of my goals of reading so many Latino authors. Romance for the win.

More Stats

I love nerding out about the numbers:

• Genres: I have a new genre king! Romance has dethroned science fiction. Shocking, I know. My long favorite sci-fi has been on a dip in recent years, falling to 22% last year (but still on top; in 2021 it hit a high of 53%). This year sci-fi fell to 17%, while romance soared from just 5% in 2024 to 29% in 2025. Why? I stumbled into romance last year and really enjoyed it. I think there’s something about a happily ever after that really resonated with me this year (huh, wonder why that would be?). And as much as the tropes should be annoying, I think there’s freedom in embracing the tropes and seeing what an author does with them. Honestly, I think it’s the characters that pull me into romances. When I quit books, I often find there’s no connection to the character and that stops me reading. It kills quite a few science fiction books. Nonfiction (11%) and memoir (10%) came in at #3 and #4 genres, which is a bit of a shock for nonfiction (though maybe that’s just a catchall).
• New is always better: My reading definitely slants to more recently published books, though goals in recent years to broaden that have helped. I read a book from every year going back to 2002, but then it gets spotty, though I did read at least something from every decade back to the 1940s. The three oldest books I read were from 1949, 1952, and 1967.
• Quit: New stat this year—quitting! I quit an astounding 146 books this year. There are too many good books to read to bother slogging through something you don’t enjoy. I get it, it’s hard to quit. But it’s worth it. This year only had 5.2% two-star books this year, down from last year’s 6%, and probably still too many. This year I often quit books that were probably good but I just wasn’t in the mood. I’ve learned there are definitely times to read a book and times not to. Don’t force it. Reading should be enjoyable. We’re not in school anymore.
• Book source: 70% of my reads came from the library, 20% from my ‘new’ shelf (books acquired in the last year or so), and 10% from my ‘old’ shelf. With our local library being remodeled in 2025, I thought that might lead to less library use. Guess not (last year was 62%). I imagine 40% audiobooks had something to do with that, since 100% of those come from the library.
• Monthly: March was my lowest reading month at 10, and December the highest at 24. Cold weather continues to encourage more reading.

Reading Goals

Since 2023 I’ve made some unique reading goals to keep my reading interesting. I did more of that in 2025, reaching most of them. It feels like gamifying reading, which works for me.

• Total books: I’m still not a fan of a total number of books reading goal. That puts too much pressure on quantity.
• Author goals: I had a list of 24 authors I wanted to read, and I tried all of them (quit one, Percival Everett; maybe should have quit the Frederick Buechner as well). This tends to be a mix of old favorites I haven’t read in a while and newer authors I’m trying to read more of. Sometimes it feels a bit like padding my goals, so not sure how well it’s working.
• Diversity: I didn’t have hard diversity goals, though I tried to read more in specific months (Black authors during Black History Month, women authors during Women’s History Month, Asian authors during Asian and Pacific Islander History Month, etc.). A bit of a reading slump killed those first three, but later ones were successful. I did want to read at least 14 Latino authors, since I seem to lack in that area. Searching for books was an important part of the process, and I did ultimately more than double that goal (with a big assist from the romance genre).
• Clear the list: I dropped my to-read list from 163 to 93 (part of quitting so many books). I like seeing that become a more manageable list. This year I specifically worked to remove everything added before 2020 (no more books languishing on the list from a decade ago).
• New vs. old: This year I worked to clear my ‘new’ book shelf, which was pretty successful. I struggled to read ‘old’ books (unread books that I own) and just hit the goal of 20 (at the beginning of October, I was only at nine). It’s especially satisfying to actually read what’s on your self (and get rid of some books if I didn’t like them). I need to do more of that in 2026.
• Local authors: One creative goal I had this year was to read five new-to-me Minnesota authors. I managed it, discovering Mindy Mejia (made my top 10 fiction), Allen Eskens, Tasha Coryell, Antonia Angress, and Mona Susan Power. I tried and quit eight books from six authors, so this one took some effort.
• In-person: In college, I discovered the wonder of author readings and seeing an author in-person. Haven’t done much of that lately, so I made a goal to do that at least once, and ended up going to several, seeing Jilly Gagnon (in my romance top 5), Maris Kreizman (though I haven’t read her collection of essays yet—oops), Mona Susan Powers, and Marcie Rendon (a 2024 honorable mention and I’ve read almost everything she’s written).

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: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015.