Check out my previous goals and reading reflections
At the top of this graphic, you’ll see I exceeded my reading goal for 2024 of 36 books by 31-33% depending on whether you’re talking to Goodreads or Storygraph. Goodreads thinks I read 47 books and Storygraph 48. Not sure where the descrepancy is, but either way, yay!
Last year, after reading 46 books to my goal of 24, I was very tempted to make my goal in the 40s. But, you’ll notice how I went from over 100 books in 2019 to no special graphic in 2020 and 2021. I think for 2020, I set my goal too high based upon that 2019 reading. I probably set it to 52 or something like a book per week, which ended up not being feasible as my commute where I primarily read went away. In 2021-2022, I started an 18-month reading slump, leading me to miss my 2021 goal and make a low 2022 goal. Which is why I erred on the side of caution for 2024.
Goodreads, by the way, does their wrap-up way too early. Especially since I finished 4-5 more books afterward and it doesn’t update.
For 2025, I have upped my goal to 42 books. I feel this should be doable with my last two years of reading 46-48 books. There will be a lot of reasons why my reading may fall off, but I also may choose to ignore the world a little more by reading and immersing myself in various types of fiction and non-fiction. (I’m not sure how minutes after making a goal on day 1 of the year, I’m already 42 books behind schedule.)
What books did I read in 2024? Storygraph has a graphic for that!
I’m not totally honest with Storygraph or Goodreads about whether I’m reading a physical/eBook or audiobook, so those stats are not correct on either site. I primarily read audiobooks. They allow me to read while I commute, run errands, or do chores. I can read eBooks and physical books on the train on my morning commute, but not on my way home. This means that I have at least 2 books going at a time nowadays.
I read audiobooks anywhere between 1x-1.5x speed. Faster and I get that mouse voice that makes it hard to listen. How a narrator reads is part of the enjoyment for me. Too fast and I lose that, stripping away the work of the voice actor. Reading through audiobooks is reading. It honors the long history of oral storytelling. But it is also its own art. (I had my most viral Bluesky post by defending audiobooks.)
Both apps agree I like SFF best! We’re all shocked by that, I’m sure.
Towards the end of the year, listening to potential narrators for my novelette, Arcing, which I’m self-publishing, meant I read more Romance. I used to read Romance a lot in grad school. I forgot how much I enjoy it. It also is “easy” for me to read and I’m making a note to self. If I get behind my goal next year, throw a few Romance on the pile. I zip right through those!
That brings me to the type of books I read. Storygraph has all sorts of angles to discuss these.
The first I’ll note is that I supposedly started out pretty light at the beginning of the year, dipped low and made a come-back at the end of the year. Apparently, narratives of thrilling quests, exploring the shadows of the human psyche, and traversing landscapes of the heart are my style of reads. I do also tend to read darker than my friends.
I started out the year reading a lot of MG/YA, which is possibly why my year started light. I don’t know what I read in September that brought that dip so low. I think the darkest thing I read was in November.
I wish I could compare last year’s moodmap to this year’s. I think that might say something interesting.
I started the year by finishing Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee and finished it with Pumpkin Spice & Poltergeist by Ali K. Mulford and K. Elle Morrison, so I see where my endpoints are at.
Storygraph really wants to tell us what we should read, so it does a lot of analytics. I think I’m a mood reader to an extent. I like dark adventure books that are character-driven with loveable, diverse, and well-developed characters. Generally, I rate dystopians high but maybe I just read a lot of those?
These don’t show it took well, but I read 32 new authors in my 48 books, which is awesome, and 26 of the books I read were parts of series. I had only one reread this year and it’s because the third book in the trilogy came out and I’d read the first one at least 5 years ago and needed the refresher going into the rest of the series.
Goodreads and Storygraph felt the need to tell me the longest book I read was Dune.
It was a popular book this year. I wonder why.
Storygraph shared the book that took the longest for me to read: A potential comp that I DNF’d until I found a physical copy on my Mt. TBR, so I went ahead and finished it. That took 4 months. And the shortest book, which was an audiobok my partner put on as we drove straight-through a 24-hour drive after a funeral trying to beat a Montana spring snowstorm. The books themselves aren’t that important. There will always be outside pressures that affect any specific book’s reading time, which went from 6 days in 2023 to 10 days in 2024.
I also DNF’d 3 books this year, according to Storygraph. I like that feature. It allows us to say we tried a book and it didn’t work for us.
Comparing my peaks of books and pages read this year to last year, I’ve got one additional “hump”. March and November are the same, but instead of a June/July hump like last year, there’s more of a May hump then August hump. It might be a more intersting question then to ask why I have dips in January, April and September.
Goodreads only shows ten of the books I rated at 5-stars, but Storygraph shows all of them.
My absolute favorite read this year was Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. I read it the first week of November, which was poor timing. That’s just when it came in off hold from the library. The audiobook is fantastic and a great way to read the book. I really can’t recommend reading it in your preferred format enough!
Because it shows up in my annual summary, I’m going to address my top read authors. I’m proud to have Ursula K. Le Guin and Tomi Adeyemi top this list. At the beginning of the year, I pulled the Gaiman books that have been sitting on my physical Mt. TBR to read. I got through two and then his abhorrent behavior came to light. I wish I’d read two books from any other author this year. But it is what it is. I’m not good at separating the artist from the art. I won’t be reading more Gaiman.
We’ll wrap up with my annual summary. The summary only shows the first three 5-star ratings of the year.
I read far less than I expected on my trip abroad last year, and I’m traveling abroad again in February, so we’ll see how my reading fares.