And here we are – the final post in my “Best of 2024” series and arguably, my favorite post to research and write. Reviewing my reading stats and making these charts is so much fun! I use a very detailed spreadsheet and spend a lot of time in that spreadsheet throughout the year. I love filling it out when I start and finish a book; it fills me with the greatest delight. And what’s also delightful is this post! So let’s get into my reading stats for 2024 reading.
Nitty-Gritty Details
- Number of books read: 110 (-7 from 2023)
- Number of pages read: 37,463 (-2,972 from 2023)
- Percentage of books by and about BIPOC and the LGBTQIA+ community: 30, or 27% (+1% from 2023)
- Number of books abandoned: 16 (+2 from 2023)
- Overall rating: 3.8
Format Breakdown
Print books continue to reign supreme in my reading life, and this year the percentage increased by almost 5%! What can I say? I love print books. My audiobook reading was nearly identical from 2023 (+.1%) and my e-book reading continued to trend downward. It’s down 4.7% from 2023 and down nearly 15% from 2022! I mostly read romance on my Kindle, but it’s rare for me to read other types of books on it.
Genre Breakdown
| Genre | Percentage | Average Rating |
| Romance | 37% | 4.0 |
| Fiction | 30% | 3.6 |
| Mystery/Thriller | 21% | 3.6 |
| Nonfiction | 6% | 4.5 |
| Historical Fiction | 4% | 4.0 |
| YA/Middle Grade | 2% | 5.0 |
This year, I read more romance and improved my average rating for romance novels. Last year, it was at 3.6 and this year it was an even 4.0, which I’m super happy about. This means I’m picking good romances that I know I’ll love! I read more general fiction and more mysteries/thrillers, but my average rating for both those genres went way down (from 4.0 to 3.6, eeks). It’s only a slightly successful rating, but I’d like that to be higher in 2025. My nonfiction reading went way down this year – I was so surprised to see I only read 7 nonfiction books in 2024. WHAT! I need to do better in 2025 because, as it shows, I usually like the nonfiction books I read.
Source Breakdown
Once again, my top three sources for books were the library (-12% from 2023, though!), Amazon (+5% from 2023), and Book of the Month (+1.5% from 2023). I doubled the amount of books I got from indie bookstores and also definitely enjoyed those 15 audiobook hours that Spotify started offering Premium members at the end of 2023.
Month Breakdown
Typically, I read around 8-9 books per month, but I read 11 books in October (I tend to read a lot when I’m stressed, so that’s probably why) and 14 in December (I only worked two weeks out of the entire month, so I devoted a lot more time to reading!). Ideally, I’d like to read 10-12 books per month, but I’m happy with how stable my reading was throughout the year.
New Release vs Backlist
This was interesting! In the last few years, my new release reading has been trending upward but in 2024, it dropped 15%! I read a lot more backlist in 2024, but I’m cool with that. I don’t need to read the buzzy books right away. Sometimes it’s nice to let them simmer for a bit.
Recommendation Sources
| Recommendation Source | # of Books Read | Overall Rating |
| Kim | 2 | 4.75 |
| Sarah’s Book Shelves Live podcast | 6 | 4.3 |
| Lisa | 3 | 4.2 |
| The Popcast | 2 | 4.0 |
| Currently Reading podcast | 6 | 3.0 |
I’ve started tracking recommendation sources this year so I can figure out whose tastes align the best with mine. Most of these recommendation sources are podcasts, but two bloggers snuck into this list – Kim and Lisa – and as you can see, their recs usually work out really well for me! I’m not surprised to see such a low rating from the Currently Reading podcast. I’ve noticed that my tastes diverge from them a lot (especially Kaytee’s), which is just good info to have!
(If you use Goodreads, a good way to track recommendation sources is to create a new shelf that’s labeled with the source name. For example, I have a shelf called “sbsl-rec” for Sarah’s Book Shelves Live. If someone talks about a book and it sounds like something I’d like to read, I immediately add it to Goodreads as a “want-to-read” book and then label it with the recommendation source.)
Odds and Ends
- Oldest book (by pub date): The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (1926)
- Newest book (by pub date): The Last One at the Wedding by Jason Rekulak (October 8, 2024)
- Author I read the most: Agatha Christie (6)
- Time spent listening to audiobooks: 348 hours, 30 minutes
- Longest book: The Rose Code by Kate Quinn (624 pages)
- Shortest book: The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (120 pages)
- Book that took me the longest to read: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (20 days)
- Average number of days to read a book: 7.8 days
How many books did you read in 2024?
OMG! I am so honored to be on your rec list with such a high score! If I tracked that it would be the same with you! Wait, I do track that LOL – in each book post I say where I heard about it. Hmm…
LOL @ me trying to figure out how many books I read last year on GR then also remembering I track that on my blog – 85! I thought it was in the 70s!
85 books is amazing, Kim! Way to go!!
You are a GREAT recommendation source for me. I’ve yet to read a book from you that I didn’t love. Book twins!
My non-fiction rating is also pretty high, but that’s because I vet those books. If I’m going to do the work of reading a non-fiction book, I want to be really interested in it. I do not vet romance novels very well. LOL. My genre ratings are MY FAULT!
I try to vet romances, or quickly DNF one that isn’t working for me. I want my romances to be fun and enjoyable, so it’s easy to abandon them if they aren’t giving me that.
These are so fun and fascinating to read! I am most curious about HOW you cranked up your overall score in the romance category? Are you quicker about abandoning a book if it’s not for you? Are you reading a lot of authors you already know? The worst part about being an avid reader is getting through the books that are misses to the books that are hits!
Like you, I read so many backlist books in 2024! Rereads are so comforting.
I think I am more apt to give a romance a higher rating because I’m evaluating it from a different lens than, say, a contemporary fiction novel. If I really liked the story, I’ll give it 5 stars more easily than I would other types of books. I think that might be why? I’ve also learned which types of romances I like and I’m quick to abandon if I’m not feeling it.
I read 130 books last year and 99 were fiction, 12 memoir, 18 other non-fiction, and one poetry. Poor little poetry book, all alone!
130 books! That’s amazing, especially considering you don’t do audio. Way to go!
I’m honored to make your recommendation list and love that my rating is above four. I read 100books in 2024. it was a really good reading year and my average rating matched yours at 3.8. I’ve been working on tracking my recommendation source but on the front end meaning in Libby I created Tags for my TBR tags so I can also tag the person who recommended the book to me. I should also go into Goodreads and create tags there as well.
You are definitely one of my top recommendation sources! And I should count up how many books were recommended FIRST by Sarah’s Book Shelves Live, but then I waited for you to vet it for me before reading it, haha.
This is so cool. I love reading such fun stats.
What a great reading year you had.
I ended up reading 92 books. My goal was 75 and 20,000 pages. I didn’t hit the page goal though.
So bigger books need to be picked up again.
I love that you track the recommendations. I kinda sometimes mark where a recommendation comes from but not consistently.
Way to go on CRUSHING your reading goal! That’s no small thing. I’m trying to read bigger books this year – long books can be so intimidating!
I’ve gotten a lot better about tracking recommendation sources and I love that it now shows me who I can trust the most with book recommendations!