Here’s my year in books –

I read 114 books in total (about the same as last year). According to Goodreads, that’s 31,264 pages. The longest was 496 pages (Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst), and the shortest was 72 pages (The Constant Wife by W. Somerset Maugham). My average rating was 3.2, and this year I gave five stars to five books (and one star to four books).

Of those I read, 93 were by female authors, 20 by male authors and one non-binary.

Twenty-three books were by Australian authors (17 female authors, five male authors and one non-binary) and the rest were from New Zealand, America, England, Germany, Ireland, Japan, The Netherlands, France, Denmark, Canada, Iran, Norway, India, Switzerland, China, and Turkey.

I don’t often read lots by one author in a year, but this year I happened to read four books by Helen Garner (one was a re-read) and two by Elizabeth Gilbert.

I read 68 books by authors who were new to me in 2025.

Of the 114 books I read, 33 were published in 2025 and the oldest was Lady Susan by Jane Austen, first published in 1871.

Roughly a third of my reading (41 books) was non-fiction (28 of which were memoirs).

My reading format was a little different this year, with more hardbacks than previous years (50), mainly because I have borrowed more from the library. Of the remainder, I read 54 e-books and listened to 20 audios.

I read mostly contemporary literature and memoirs, plus essay collections, short stories, true crime, historical fiction, biography, pop-psychology, and few suspense and dystopian novels.

Tomorrow I’ll post my favourites for 2025.