I have been keeping a detailed reading spreadsheet since 2017. This year, I thought about using the reading tracker that Sarah’s Bookshelves Live offers to her Patreon members, but I found it a bit cumbersome to use. Still, there were certain parts of the spreadsheet I really liked (tracking debuts, having a separate DNF tab, etc.), so I combined my old reading tracker with the parts of Sarah’s tracker that I liked and wanted to use. I’m always happy to send my reading tracker to anyone who wants it! Yes, it’s a lot of info, but you get to choose what you want to track.
So, let’s get into my reading stats for 2025!
Nitty-Gritty Details
- Number of books read: 105 (-5 from 2024)
- Number of pages read: 37,463 (-85 from 2024)
- Number of books abandoned: 13 (-3 from 2024)
- Overall rating: 3.9
- Audiobook hours: 398 hours, 58 minutes (equivalent to over 16 days!)
Format Breakdown
It’s wild to see that my print and audiobook reading were almost neck and neck! (In terms of actual books, I read 46 print books and listened to 40 audiobooks.) From 2024, my print reading is down 4%, my audiobook reading is up 8%, and my e-book reading is down 4%. I would like to do more reading on my Kindle this year, especially because I just got a new one, but I usually only read romance on Kindle, since it’s easy to borrow romance e-books from Libby. I need to be better about checking Libby for non-romance reads!
Genre Breakdown
| Genre | Percentage | Average Rating |
| Romance | 28% | 3.7 |
| Fiction | 22% | 3.6 |
| Mystery/Thriller | 22% | 3.8 |
| Nonfiction | 17% | 4.1 |
| YA | 5% | 4.3 |
| Sci-fi/Fantasy | 3% | 4.8 |
| Historical Fiction | 3% | 3.8 |
Lots of changes here! My romance reading went down by 9% and the average rating fell from 4.0 to 3.7. It’s still a successful rating, but also shows I slogged through more 3-star romances than 2024. My fiction reading was also down significantly (8%) but the average rating stayed the same. Mystery/thrillers stayed steady and the average rating improved slightly. The biggest difference, though, was my nonfiction reading, as it was up 11% from 2024! I mentioned in last year’s post that I wanted to read more nonfiction, and yay!
Source Breakdown
Once again, the library reigns supreme in my most-sourced location. If I combine my library percentage with Hoopla (which is essentially the library), then I’m at the exact same percentage as 2024! This is the year I discovered Hoopla for audiobooks and I am so glad I did! I listened to 18 audiobooks using that app. Amazon kept its place in the top three, but my percentage is down 3% from 2024. I try not to rely too heavily on Amazon for books, but sometimes I use them for e-books if I can’t get a copy at my library.
Month Breakdown
My reading was pretty stable throughout the year, averaging around 8-9 books per month just like last year. My highest reading month was April with 11 books and my lowest reading month was September with 6 books.
New Release vs. Backlist
This chart is identical to 2024, which is crazy. I am definitely not someone who reaches for all of the buzzy new releases quickly. I like to take my time! I drilled down into what genres I read the most backlist, and it was an even split between thriller and romance, comprising a combined 50% of my backlist reading. Following close behind was nonfiction.
Recommendation Sources
| Recommendation Source | # of Books Read | Overall Rating |
| Sarah’s Bookshelves Live podcast | 12 | 3.8 |
| Currently Reading podcast | 9 | 3.6 |
| Lisa | 6 | 4.0 |
| The Popcast | 3 | 4.25 |
| Katie | 3 | 3.3 |
I love tracking my recommendation sources! This has become such a delightful part of my book tracking process. Once again, the same three podcasts topped the list. Sarah’s Bookshelves Live continues to reign supreme, and I read double from 2024. The overall rating dropped from 4.3 to 3.8, but this is still a very successful rating! Currently Reading’s overall rating improved from 3.0 in 2024 to 3.6 in 2025. It’s still not a successful rating, but it’s improving. Maybe I’m getting better at knowing which books will work for me from their recommendations?! And The Popcast continues to be an excellent recommendation source, even though I’m not reading a ton of books they recommend. But their overall rating improved from 4.0 to 4.25 this year!
I’m excited to see that Lisa continues to be my top non-podcast recommendation source! And with an overall rating of 4.0, I will continue to trust Lisa’s reviews and recommendations! And it was fun to see an IRL friend sneak into this list. While the overall rating wasn’t successful, this friend is always so enthusiastic about the books she reads and loves, so I always want to give them a try!
Author Breakdown
For the first time, I tracked the type of author I read—debut authors, repeat authors, and new-to-me (non-debut) authors. Almost half of my reading was repeat authors, which was kinda surprising. I had no idea I read so many repeat authors, so this will be fun to track in other years to see what the trends are. I’m also surprised that only 20% of my reading were debuts, but then again, I read more backlist than new releases, so I guess it makes sense. (Although not all debuts are new releases, and not all new releases are debuts!) My star average between all three categories was nearly the same – between 3.7 and 3.9 – so there wasn’t a markedly different category. Interesting!
Alignment With Goodreads Ratings
This year, I tracked how differently I rate books vs the average Goodreads rating. Turns out, I’m very aligned with Goodreads reviewers! Just over 50% of the books I read were within a half-star differential. I rated more books lower than the Goodreads average (27%) than higher (18%), which is probably because Goodreads ratings tend to skew on the higher side. My average alignment was .13.
Odds and Ends
- Oldest book (by pub date): The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery (1926)
- Newest book (by pub date): Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid and Battle of the Bookstores by Ali Brady (June 3, 2025)
- Author I read the most: Lucy Parker (3)
- Longest book: 11/2/63 by Stephen King (1,104 pages)
- Shortest book: The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery (218 pages)
- Longest audiobook: The It Girl by Ruth Ware (17 hours, 9 minutes)
- Shortest audiobook: No Cure for Being Human by Kate Bowler (4 hours, 44 minutes)
- Book that took me the longest to read: Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (32 days)
- Average number of days to read a book: 8.5 days (nearly a whole day longer than 2024!)
In 2025, did you read more or fewer books than 2024?
I love me a spreadsheet, and I love the SBL podcast, but when I looked at their spreadsheet it was a definite “nope”. Yes to pulling out the things that were useful to you and adding them to your spreadsheet. I often use our blogging community to vet the SBL recommendations, since they tend to be either very excellent or very not for my personal taste.
I read just a little less in 2025. I was surprised to see that my audio book listened dropped last year. I predict that it will be much higher this year.
Her spreadsheet was overwhelming for me and I love a very detailed reading spreadsheet! She does have a pared-down version that might be better for you to try. (If you want to try something like this. You definitely don’t have to!)
I love the pie charts! I’d say I read a lot less in 2025 than in 2024. What was I doing? I honestly don’t know. I’m going to try to keep better track this year.
I feel the same way, “What was I doing?” I don’t know why I read so much less in 2025 but I’m trying to right the train in 2026.
I love the stats and you track such fascinating ones! Would you be able to share your spreadsheet with me? I would LOVE to track this stuff… although I don’t know how consistent I will end up being. Data is so fun, though! And those pie charts are lovely.
Yes, yes! I will send you the spreadsheet now. 🙂
Your breakdowns are so interesting to me to read about. I don’t track in nearly as much detail as you do, which works for me, but you are making me think about what else I could track.
I read a TON more in 2025 than in 2024 (which I thought was a lot then). I should blog about that.
I find the tracking part of the reading process to be really fun, and it’s so interesting to me to see trends over the year! But it’s definitely not for everyone. 🙂
I can vouch for your spreadsheet. I’ve been using it for years!!
STEPHANY, MY LIBRARY DISCONTINUED HOOPLA. We only got two holds a month, but I used it for almost all my audiobooks. It’s apparently very expensive and my library decided it wasn’t worth it for the few customers who used it. SAD NEWS.
NOOOOO. I *just* discovered Hoopla and I get 10 borrows per month! I would absolutely buy a library card at a different library branch that offers it, HA. I use it so much now!
This was so fun to read and I love that I made your top list of recommendations and that my recommendations were successful! We do have quite common reading tastes and I can usually say if I don’t think a book would be a good fit for you!
I use the SBL tracker, too, but I hide a lot of the columns. In fact, each year I hide more! Like this year I will hide character driven v plot because I don’t need a tracker to tell me I mostly read character driven (which, an aside, I tried to explain to Phil… after trying to explain what literary fiction is…).
I read quite a bit more books in 2025 than in 2024, but both years were 100+ book years. That used to be abnormally high for me. I think 90 is a good reliable expectation and then some years I exceed that expectation.
You are my best non-podcast recommendation source, and I love that you continue to make the list AND we align so well on our reading tastes.
Any 100+ book year is a successful year for me!
Hahaha I love that “Lisa” made your top recommendations! I get a lot of recommendations from bloggers as well but also from Instagram. However I have learned a lot about other people’s taste and so sometimes what floats someone else’s boat is not going to float mine, you know? But I have some friends who really know my taste. One of my girlfriends loves dystopia, and if there is a book I’m curious about, I’ll ask her. She usually says “Not for you!” Lol. I love that.
I read more books in 2025 than 2024 but not much more. I have already got one DNF under my belt – just had one this week! – and that is a goal of mine. I do not want to waste time on books that are not doing it for me.
I think it’s so important to know who your good recommendation sources are! It makes such a difference. It’s always nice to have someone who can be a reliable reader for you!
Yes to DNF-ing! I already had my first DNF this year, too. We got this!
This is some interesting information! I get a LOT of my recs from Meredith (Currently Reading) but I’m also learning to discern which of her books will work for me, and which won’t. I read more in 2025 than 2024, but still only topped out at 63 books. I KNOW I could read more if I did audiobooks- I don’t know why I’m still resisting them (??)
Anyway, I have money and I’m planning to spend it on our bookstore spree tomorrow!!!
Yes, the reason I read so much is definitely thanks to audiobooks! It takes some time to get used to listening to audiobooks because it’s such a different way of consuming books. And audiobooks may not be for you anyway! A lot of readers aren’t into audiobooks.
I always love looking at graphs and pie charts (as you know) and your reading stats are truly impressive. I hardly read anything in 2025, so the charts wouldn’t be very exciting though.
Aww – hopefully 2026 is a better reading year for you!
These round up posts are just so much fun.
My oldest book was also The Blue Castle.
I have read fewer books in 2024.
For 2026 I will track the authors (new to me, repeat) as well. That should be fun to see.
I’m excited to see if there are any trends between 2025 and 2026 when it comes to authors! I’m glad you’ll be tracking it, too.
Question-for audio books do you take the number of pages and include it for your pages read? The thought has crossed my mind recently if I were to track that! (Not planning on it, but seeing 15 pages listed for an audio book is like huh?!)
Good job reading more non-fiction in 2025! Yay!
That is interesting about repeat authors! Do you think you will pay attention to that in 2026 (like try to read more debuts or new)?
I wish we could do half stars on Goodreads. Sigh.
I read more books in 2025 than 2024!
Oh, for sure. I read those pages! Not with my eyes, but they were still consumed. Those pages count!
I don’t think I’ll pay too much attention to repeat authors vs debuts. But it will be interesting to see how 2026 stacks up to 2025 when I review my book stats at the end of the year.
It is 2026 and we still do not have half stars on Goodreads. GAH!