2024 marks the twenty fifth year in which I have recorded my reading in a series of notebooks, all of which I keep in a pink storage box in my study – this year’s notebook will soon join the others after three years of use because I haven’t room for another twelve months’ reading in the few pages that remain blank. I have treated myself to a lovely new notebook for 2025, with peacocks on the cover, which I think might accommodate two years’ of records.
I had an enjoyable year’s reading in 2024. You can see my favourite books of the year here, here and here. In total I finished 345 books in physical form, on Kindle or via audiobook. A final figure of between 320 and 360 books in a year is becoming the norm for me – nine of the past twenty five years have been within that band with a few more being close to it. In the past I have read considerably more books in a year but my series of blogs about my past reading have shown to me just how much rubbish I read in my early days of Kindle ownership. I was under a lot of pressure at home and at work at that time and I was captivated by free books and short stories/novellas which were freely available, and I have to say that my escapist reading was what I needed at the time.
This year 71% of my reading was of paper books. I really want to clear the to-be-read piles away as I have too many unread books so I concentrated on reading physical books. Sadly, in 2024 I actually purchased more paper books than I read so the problem hasn’t been addressed at all despite my Summer Reading Challenge (see here). I shall have another go in 2025 but I think that keeping me away from charity shops and the Internet may be the only solution !
Yet again my main reading material was crime novels – 49% of all books read. This heading includes romantic suspense, cosy crime, classic crime, police procedurals, psychological thrillers, spy novels and adventure stories so it’s a wide ranging category. I am delighted that my total of non-fiction books read reached 23% in the year which is very near to the 25% which has long been my aim. Most of these were history or biography/memoir. 64% of books read were written by a woman which is slightly lower than usual but still reflective of my tastes. There were eighteen books which I didn’t finish and which aren’t included in these figures.
The first book I read in the year was A Roomful of Bones by Elly Griffiths which is a reread of one of her Ruth Galloway series (see here and here for my reviews of a couple of titles in this series). I enjoy her writing and often reread titles.
The last book which I read in the year was Death of Anton by Alan Melville which is a classic crime story set in a circus. It was great fun to read and very amusing in places because of the author’s sly wit. A review will be posted on here in due course (I have a backlog of those too).
It was a good year’s reading, especially for non-fiction. I sincerely hope that 2025 wll contain as many interesting, informative, thought-provoking and entertaining books to read as this year has – I certainly have plenty available for me to choose from !
Keep reading !! I will…
Anne Is Reading 