10 Years of Reading || Looking Through My Reading Journey

I've been reading for over 15 years and have tracked my reading for 10.

Although the age of bookstagram/booktok have made reading cool again, prompting a lot of people to pick up reading as a habit again, it's still a significant feat to stick to something for so many years. It might have been easier for people 50 years ago because their lives weren't changing so fast, but it's super hard now.

Maybe I kept reading while others dropped the habit because I was an introvert, maybe I found solace in it, or maybe it was adventurous for me. No matter the reason, I'm still a huge reader 15+ years later.

A while back, I was seeing the trend of how many books I finished per year in my Goodreads history and realised that it's been 10 years since I started tracking them. And I thought, let's do it on the blog!

This is a super chill post. I don't have any outline, structure, or notes for this. I'm just going to take you with me through the last 10 years of my reading journey and share my thoughts. I'm also not editing this post (I'm lazy) which means you're getting all the unfiltered thoughts and grammar mistakes. This will probably be a long post too so grab your favourite drink and enjoy ☕️

what did I track?

A little preface of what we have to work with. I don't remember tracking my reading before using GoodReads. I vaguely remember writing a list of books somewhere but I don't know if it was before or after I started tracking on GoodReads. My childhood is quite a blur.

I started reading challenges on Goodreads in 2015. I was in 9th grade in 2015! I don't remember how I found GoodReads because I'm sure no one in my real life circle introduced it to me, none of them were hardcore readers like me.

I'm not sure if I started right at the beginning of the year or if I started later on and backdated some. I remember backdating some books for previous years like I'd mark Enid Blyton books etc. which I read way back as read. I don't think they count towards the reading challenge, so most likely they won't show up in reading challenges.

Actually, hold on. I wonder when I started tracking on GoodReads. I assumed it was 2015 because I saw my first reading challenge on GoodReads was 2015's. But maybe I started earlier and simply didn't do a reading challenge? Let me try to find out.

I went to "My Books" and sorted by "Date Added". It turns out that I started using GoodReads in 2013. I was in 7th grade. How did I even find the site? While I was looking at books online? Actually, yeah, that makes sense.

It looks like I added 9 books in 2013, not all of them are books that I read in 2013. Some of them are dated for 2011 or 2012. I think I was trying out the website by adding a few books and stopped? Because the next book I added was in Feb 2015. It does look like I backdated the Jan & Feb 2015 reads before/after I started the reading challenge.

It's funny and weird to retrace the steps of my younger self. Some people have really good memories of their childhoods and can tell exactly when they had a specific sandwich with a friend. I am not one of those people. Most of my memories are super blurred that I don't remember most of it and very few memories stand out clearly against the rest. I've not remembered anything new from seeing something similar either (at least, from what I remember 😂). Hence, my younger self is a bit of a stranger to me and I'm always a bit taken aback by her when I see old diaries or notes that I wrote in random notebooks which we still have somehow.

Anyway. Back to what I tracked. I remember backdating books because I did it until 12th grade or so. Whenever I'd remember a random book that I read as a young teen, I'd mark it in GoodReads. Some of them have years marked through guesses and some don't. Of course, memory doesn't cover everything I read pre-2015 so I am not looking at those years for this post.

The reading challenges have pretty much everything since 2015. I was quite consistent with tracking in order to hit my reading challenge every year. After a while, I started reviewing on GoodReads and on my blog. So, I never stopped tracking. It takes me hardly two minutes for every book so it's never been a huge lift to do it. Maybe there are a very few books missing (I've noticed it a few times) but most of it is tracked.

In 2024, I switched to using StoryGraph as my main reading tracking website. I still mark books that I read on GoodReads in bulk every few months but I now use StoryGraph for most of my tracking. StoryGraph has a bunch of different data points that GoodReads doesn't, hence, the data will slightly change when I get to 2024 in this post.

That was a huge ramble. The point of this section was to mention what I tracked for each book 😂

On GoodReads, I tracked the date I finished reading and my star rating for every book. I did not track the date when I started reading the book. Sometimes, I mark it and sometimes I don't. I usually remember to update the site only when I finish books. I did not track which edition or format I read because it seemed like a hassle for no reason.

Around 2020 (I think), I felt like the rating system was not enough to capture my thoughts on books. I don't mean the issue of not being able to give .5 stars in GoodReads, I mean the concept of rating itself. It was fine for some but it increasingly felt too surface-level.

So, I decided to review every book on my blog (at least a few sentences) and not share any rating on the blog. I still add ratings on GoodReads/StoryGraph but they're not set in stone or they don't accurately capture my opinions. The ratings are a way to signify my enjoyment and not necessarily how good a book is. I don't spend more than a few seconds thinking about what to rate any book. I also go back and change my ratings after thinking about it for a while or after rereads.

On StoryGraph, I tracked the date I finished read, loose star rating, and format of the book. I add the date when I started reading sometimes but I don't care about that metric so I'm not consistent with it. I track my reading status with books sometimes but not all the time. So the "time to read a book" metric is probably a bit skewed and I'm not going to look at it.

I have book reviews posted across my blog, GoodReads, and StoryGraph. They were in sync for a while because I diligently cross posted everything from my blog on GoodReads for a while. However, probably sometime in college, I stopped doing that. I sometimes posted one-lines on GR or SG and wrote more on the blog, or I wouldn't write anything on GR/SG. It really depended on my mood and how much I liked the book. Hence, I probably won't be looking at book reviews either. We'll see.

2015

Okay, time to see what 16-year-old me read! It's convenient (for this post) that my birthday is around New Year's Day because I can confidently say that I was a certain age in a year 😂

I was in 11th grade so I expect 2015 to be my last MG & YA reading years. Think Sarah J. Maas, Marie Lu, Colleen Hoover, etc.

I opened my 2015 reading challenge on GR and scrolled to the bottom to get to the beginning of the year.* Oof, I already have so many thoughts and nostalgia.

* Can we also about how GR changed the Reading Challenge page? I liked looking at all of my books in a quick glance rather than scroll through for several pages. It was so convenient and the one thing I still used GR for even after switching to SG. Not anymore. I saw someone online printing book covers and sticking it in their journals. I'd do that but I don't have that much time (or ink) or care enough to do it. Maybe in the future if not having it in one glance annoys me a lot.

My first book of the year was The Duchess by Jude Deveraux. I don't remember why or how but I was obsessed with Jude Deveraux's books. I probably read all of them. I think my favourite was a romance where the main character falls in love with a ghost who comes back to life in a quaint villa in Nantucket? I don't know the name.

The first 6 books of the year are by Jude Deveraux. Right after that, there are 3 books by Judith McNaught. I think I searched for authors similar to Deveraux and found McNaught 😂 I don't remember if there was a clear difference between their books. I can't believe I've been obsessed with romance books for over a decade.

Okay. Let's move on.

I see YA books! The Maze Runner series, Kiera Cass, Marie Lu. John Grisham, Alyson Noel. I quickly scrolled through a bunch and I mainly notice two patterns.

The first is that the year was filled with YA and romance with some exceptions. I read so many the books in 2015. Books that defined everyone's teenage years like Shatter Me series, Throne of Glass series, The Selection series, Colleen Hoover's books, The Lunar Chronicles. To All the Boys I've Loved Before, and The Raven Boys (!!). I also apparently read Fifty Shades of Grey? As an adult, I wish my teen self did not get into adult books so soon.

The list also has ones that were defining books for me, books that I can't forget. Books that are still part of my all-time favourites list. Where Rainbows End by Cecelia Ahern, Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (the movie was good but the book had so much more).

There's Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (I want to reread it someday) and Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (the pain stayed with me for years). How did I read such happy and depressing books together? I remember gravitating towards depressing books when I was sad but remembering these stories as an adult, if I met my 16-year-old self now, I'd be concerned.

The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden by Jessica Sorensen. I wouldn't call this an all-time favourite but I've reread this more than the ones that are on the favs list. The last time I reread this was in 2023. Whenever I'm in emotional pain, I read this because the characters go through so much and slowly—veeery slowly—heal with each other's support and that of their friends' and family. In a way, I gravitate to this book at bad times because it gives hope that things will turn out fine even after a super harsh time.

Oh gosh, Metamorphosis by Erin Noelle! I felt like I saw myself in a book for the first time. Although our lives and subsequent choices are different, Scarlett felt like ME. I remember thinking that I've never related to a character more. I'd probably hate the book if I read it now but I loved it back then. I never reread it, somehow.

The second pattern is the high number of series and books by the same authors.

I wasn't a part of the online book community back then. I'd find new books to read only by wandering in the library, searching "books like ..." or by reading more by authors I liked. My 2015 reads clearly show that trend.

I read authors' entire backlists. I read every available book by Jeffrey Archer, John Grisham, Marie Lu, Jude Deveraux, etc. I don't do that often now but after removing social media from my phone, I've been getting back to it slowly. Recently, I read all books by Abby Jimenez and Ali Hazelwood. I want to do it more.

Out of curiosity, I counted the series where I read either the entire series or whatever books were out until then. I read 32 series in 2015. 32! In comparison, I read 5 series in 2024. 5 isn't bad but it's nothing compared to 32. Younger me was a reading beast.

I read of 232 books in 2015. I'm could talk about more books in the list but I won't because we'll never get to the next 9 years 😂

2016

The first thing I see is the total number of books read. Compared to 232 the previous year, I read 195 books in 2016. That dip makes sense because I had 12th boards in 2016 and had all the entrance exams for college. I started blogging in 2016 too.

There's an ARC review in this list! The Reflections of Queen Snow White by David Meredith. I think it's my first ARC? I don't remember how I got it because I just started blogging. Probably through bookstagram? I know that I had a bookstagram account in high school but I don't remember exactly when.

There's also Girl Against the Universe by Paula Stokes, my first ever paperback ARC that I got through a giveaway. I was so lucky, it's hard to get physical ARCs in India even now. I eventually gave the book to a friend but I still have the fridge magnet of the book cover that I got with it. It's on my bookshelf.

I see way less series in 2016. Again, I'm guessing it's because of my studies. I probably did not have enough time to spend on reading multiple books. I would have read books between studies or something and standalone books makes sense for that.

There are way more romance books too. There are a few YA books peppered in between but most of them seem to be romance books, especially college romances and New Adult books. That makes sense, since I graduated high school and began going to college. I'm glad I scaled back from proper adult romances this year 😂

There are two Jeffrey Archers, the last books in The Clifton Chronicles series. I read the books as they released in this series and followed it for years.

Oh I read Girl Online by Zoe Sugg that year. The timeline makes sense because I knew that I started watching her Zoella YouTube channel around 11th grade which was 2015. I reviewed it as well and there's a link on GR to my first blog which doesn't exist anymore.

I seem to have read the Six of Crows books for the first time in 2016. I see many books by Renee Carlino and Mia Sheridan. There's The 100 by Cass Morgan—I tried reading the books after seeing the TV show.

There are very few diverse books, I see Roshani Chokshi and Reneé Ahdieh's books. I'm not surprised. This was the time when I didn't have a library near me and I didn't have the time to go to libraries away from me because I was busy with college. That time, readers online weren't really conscious about reading diverse books and I picked up whatever caught my eye without thinking] about representation.

The books from this year don't stand out. 2015 had so many iconic books which I still love. I don't see any such books from this year. I remember liking a lot of these books but they did not withstand through time.

2017

2017 was the last time I read over 200 books in a year with the count of 206.

Oh I see Jane Eyre. I went to a bookstore with my mom and saw this super pretty copy with a pink cover. It looked so soft and cute. I had to buy it even though it was expensive. Well, it was around 300 rs which is normal now but was expensive then. It was the first time I read an entire classic voluntarily (i.e. not as part of school). I didn't get all of the layers and subtle meanings but I got enough to find the book to be okay.

I also read Pride and Prejudice for the first time this year but I hated it. It was so boring and I barely got through it. There's milk and honey by Rupi Kaur. I'm pretty sure I hated it. I tried getting into poetry but it was not my thing.

I hated I See London, I See France so much that I wrote a review titled "I see London, I see France || I see the cause of my ire" 😂 I was a sarcastic person in college.

I see a few painful books too, although much lesser than before. Reason to Breathe by Rebecca Donovan was sooo painful, it was lowkey traumatizing.

I read all the Aurora Rose Reynolds books this year. I loved her Until series. My favourite book was Until Lilly. The books had very simple romance stories with a tiny element of danger. I loved the books because of the big family and support circle, I wanted that kind of life. I changed my mind about the books being "good" later, though. I'll talk about it when we get to that year.

2017 has a bunch of series too, although many of them were now romance books series. Jennifer Probst's Searching For was great, Lois Lowry's The Giver series started with an amazing book 1, Brittainy C. Cherry's Elements series, and I read all the 11 books that were out in CM Owen's Sterling Shore series.

I read some great fantasy series too. The Remnant Chronicles series by Mary E. Pearson was so good that I rated all 3 books 5 stars. This was the year of A Darker Shade of Magic by VE Schwab. I had a gift card for Amazon US which covered book 1 and shipping to India.

Warcross by Marie Lu was brilliant and was my favourite for a year or so. When I unhauled the book a few years later, it was hard to part with it, even though I knew that I wouldn't reread it and I wanted space for new favs.

I read Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare in one day. I had read all of Clare's Shadowhunters books in the previous years. I bought and read Lady of Midnight (The Dark Artifices book 1) immediately after release and LOVED IT. I preordered Lord of Shadows and set aside an entire Sunday for it. I read the book from morning to night. It was such a good day.

Those days were amazing. I can't easily read a 700 pages of fantasy in one day now. I barely keep up with releases now. Even when I do, I don't get to the books immediately. I was waiting for the last book of The Plated Prisoner for over a year but now it's been months since it released and I still haven't read it. I miss the old days.

2017's reads includes How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life by Lilly Singh. I'm pretty sure this is the first non-fiction book I've come across so far. I followed Lilly Singh on YouTube so I read the book. I forgot about her for the last few years actually, until last week or so. I saw that she posted a YouTube video after long and it came on my YouTube recommendations. I tried watching it but I wasn't interested enough.

Some books and people stay with us for years through changing times and content while others are forgotten. Zoe Sugg stopped making videos on her original channel and now only makes videos on her second channel, which I love even more, while I forgot about Lilly Singh. I still watch Brooklyn and Bailey, although barely. I'm so close to stopping because I don't like their content anymore.

Similarly, books like Ella Enchanted, Where Rainbows End, The Shadow of the Wind are still dear to me while others like Warcross and The Dark Artifices are not.

2018

I read 160 books in 2018. This is almost 50 books lesser than the previous year. I don't remember anything specific from this year that would affect my reading. It's probably just a mix of college studies and being more social. I had a lot of friends to hang out with and participated in events. Of course, I was blogging and doing bookstagram too. I'm pretty sure this was the year when I started properly staging my bookstagram photos and doing photoshoots.

It looks like 2018 was when I embraced rereading books. There were a couple rereads in the previous year but there are significantly more in 2018.

I finally started reading queer books. When I picked up Style by Chelsea M. Cameron, I thought it was a regular college romance and didn't know it was a lesbian romance. I enjoyed it and it was a bit of an eye-opener because I didn't know queer romance books existed. I see I read Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann (I liked it) and Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman (I hated it).

Scrolling through 2018's book list, it's evident that I read whatever book I could get my hands on and didn't curate my choices. The books are a wild and random mix. There are menage romances, YA books, The Hate U Give, Crash and Burn by Lisa Gardener (this was amazing), Mariana Zapata's backlist, Agatha Christie, Alice Oseman's backlist, Christina Lauren's backlist, Koi Good News? by Zareen Khan, and more.

The books are slightly more diverse but not much. I was in 2nd and 3rd year of college at this point. I had been blogging for a few years. I'm pretty sure the push for diverse books had arrived in the book community by this time but I don't think I had access to enough "good" diverse books. I tried Koi Good News? to read an Indian book but it actually put me off because while it was good, it wasn't right for my age and hence I didn't enjoy it.

2019

Total books read: 152. Not significantly different from the previous year.

The year starts with a bunch of romance books before shifting to other genres. Romance books are still the majority but it's evident from the others book that I started reading more consciously this year.

I read Pride and Prejudice again due to a readalong with my Bangalore book club. I listened to the audiobook this time which made it much more enjoyable, even if I fell asleep once or twice. I also watched the Kiera Knightley movie again and loved it. It became a comfort movie after this watch.

The books become more diverse. It's clear that I was consciously picking them. I'm pretty sure this is when I noticed the push for diverse books and made an effort to change my default book picks. I read from Talia Hibbert, Alexa Martin, Helen Hoang, Casey McQuiston, Elizabeth Acevedo etc.

I read a book by Abby Jimenez for the first time. I picked The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez because I saw it online but I liked it because it was the first time I saw menstruation struggles on page. I have my own menstruation problems and I didn't realize until this book that I never read about characters also going through it. Although the main character in this book was going through something different, I still related to her.

I started reading "intellectual" books this year that were deeper and explored more nuanced themes. Educated by Tara Westover made a huge a mark on me. The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, Eleanor Oliphant is Totally Fine by Gail Honeyman.

I read The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang for the first time. I read it as an ebook and later got a paperback copy. I still have the book. Considering that I'm used to letting books go as soon as they're not as dear to me, the fact that this stayed says a lot. I'm pretty sure this is currently the oldest book (from my reading journey) on my shelf at the moment. Hold on, let me check.

Okay The Poppy War is the second oldest. My Six of Crows special edition is the oldest as my friends gifted it to me in early 2020 and I bought The Poppy War later in 2020.

2020

Total books read: 169. Not far off from the last 2 years. Considering that the lockdown happened in this year, I'm surprised that I didn't read more. Well... my role at work was the worst this year too. I was working a lot of overtime. The time went in work instead of reading.

The conscious reading pattern from 2019 continued and increased in 2020. My third book of the year was Becoming by Michelle Obama. It was followed by The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

Other such books that stand out are Seeing Like a Feminist by Nivedita Menon, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

I'd say that this was the year I got tired of reading similar books set in the same country and featuring the same people. I read widely to read about different experiences and made an effort to read books by Indian authors. I was looking for books that had relatable main characters too.

Non-fiction made a proper appearance this year. I tried non-fiction and memoirs when I was younger but I didn't like many. The last few years that we spoke about have around 1 non-fiction max in a year. But 2020 had 7!

There are so many good books in 2020's list. I genuinely enjoyed several and they're fresher in my memory because it's only 5 years ago. The books that stand out the most now are In Search of Heer by Manjul Bajaj, The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty, The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz, and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.

Remember when I spoke about liking and later disliking Aurora Rose Reynolds' Until series? When I reread Until Lilly in 2020, I suddenly realized that it was a bit problematic. The characters leaned into traditional man and woman roles too much. The men especially followed all the "masculinity" rules to a T.

I skimmed the rest of the Until books and found that the first 4 books were the same. The men blustered around as if their word was the law and they frequently saved the damsels-in-distress. The ironic part is that the female lead in book 1 is quite self-sufficient and has a family of men to "protect" her but the male lead still acted as if she was vulnerable and alone.

The later books were better. Until Jax leaned into the traditional roles too but it was because of the characters' situations, and not too much. Until Sage was similar to the first 4.

Until Talon is probably the best of all, I reread the entire book to come to the conclusion. It is more than a simple romance. It features characters who were betrayed by a husband/father and were reeling with how it changed everything. This is the only book in which it felt like the author had something to say rather than simply writing a romance. I didn't read any more books after Until Talon, though.

The above was my growth moment. Rereading old favs and not liking them or finding them cringe is one thing, finding that they weren't "good books" is another. It made me realize that I had higher standards for stories and for people too, all because I read widely and was more conscious about what was on the page.

Maybe because of that, I think it's more important to read than focus on what to read. Whenever a book gets shamed or shunned in the online book community (like A Court of Thorns and Roses, Colleen Hoover's books), woke readers are quick to pile blame on people who like those books. "Do you not know it's problematic? How can you recommend these books? If new readers are reading these, it's better to not read at all." I don't agree.

One can't read "problematic books" forever. There are many of them, but if people follow what's being read and viewed as "good" or "intellectual" books, they'll check it out. To get there, people have to like reading in the first place. It's better for a person to start reading with bad books and find their way to good ones which broaden their perspective rather than not read at all.

ACOTAR, despite whatever issues it has, has made reading popular and cool. It's reach went beyond avid readers and turned people into avid readers. Isn't that good? After all, the "good" books often aren't easily readable to make a reader.

2021

Total books read: 124. The world opened up after the pandemic lockdowns and I started having a social life again. People didn't take being in person with each other for granted and we made time to see each other often. I also started going back to the office. So yeah, my reading reduced. I'm grateful for it.

2021's reading was a variety and still had a majority of romance books. Romance books are much easier and quicker to read so it's not surprising that even if I spend the same amount of time on another genre, it will still look like I read more romance novels.

I went self-hosted and started this blog in 2021 so I can actually link my posts from then here. My best books of 2021 consisted 10 books but not all of them still stand out. The books that are still on my mind 3 years later are A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb. I still have these two on my shelf.

I can see that my current reading style started forming in 2021. I like to read books in multiple formats and switch genres every book. If I read a romance, I try not to read another romance immediately afterwards. Although not as wild in the switch, the trend is visible in 2021's list. For example, I read these 4 books in a sequence: Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko, We Are Totally Normal by Rahul Kanakia, Prelude to a Riot by Annie Zaidi, and Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert.

I was also trying to read more books by Indian or Indian-origin authors. 12/124 books were such. 10% is fairly good considering that the internet mostly spoke about books set in other countries.

2022

Total books read: 171. This is a big jump compared to the last few years. I don't know how I had so much time suddenly but I'm not complaining.

2022 was a great reading year. I quickly scrolled through the list and I can't help but wonder at the amazing books that caught my eye. Almost all of the books on my best books of 2022 list are still on my mind. 4 of them are still on my shelf.

I made an effort to read more non-fiction in 2022 and it paid off. I loved many of the non-fiction books I read.

I read Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte for the first time and since then its concepts have been the base of how I work. Wow, I can't been 2+ years since I started actively using some of the systems mentioned in the book. It's genuinely served me well. I even wrote posts on my digital organisation system and my knowledge management system at work.

Ace by Angela Chen was a defining read for me. Show Your Work by Austin Kleon was another defining book that is still a treasure on my shelf. I read Atomic Habits for the first time too but it somehow has not stayed with me for long.

I read the Mindf*ck series by S.T. Abby and Dark Verse series by RuNyx for the first time in 2022. I've reread the books several times since then and have actively been recommending them to a lot of people. I love them.

2023

Total books read: 132. This is the new normal.

I often picked my next read based on social media posts and what appealed to me at the moment, instead of looking at my TBR list. As I was following people who read a lot of romance, it meant that I was reading a lot of romance books, most of which I didn't end up enjoying. I was a bit frustrated with my reading. Even though I was enjoying some of the books, it felt like I could choose better and I was actively trying to do that.

Halfway through 2023, I uninstalled all social media apps from my phone which changed my reading a bit. Influence from social media reduced, leading to more stable reading and less romance. I finally got to backlist books on my TBR and following my likes rather than what's being liked online.

I read more long and "hard" books like I wanted to. I tried to read one non-fiction book every month and managed to mostly follow through. I got back to reading entire series too.

My best books of 2023 list contains some truly amazing books. I'm not going to mention books that still stand out because it's most of the books in the linked post.

I still kept switching between genres and used multiple formats because it was a fun way to read. It meant that I could read while commuting to the office or while travelling without lugging paperbacks everywhere. It meant that I could switch if I was in a different mood.

It's funny how the sections get shorter as we go forward in the years. It's simply because I don't have as many "different" observations on them and they're fairly similar to how my reading still is. I've also spoken about them at length in year-specific posts.

2024

We reached the 10th year! Total books read: 122. This is the least out of all the years. But the quality of reading was great.

I still hadn't returned to social media and was following my mood and gut with reading. I got to more backlist books and read more series. I borrowed more books from my friends and took their recommendations. I gave them a lot of my recommendations as well.

2024 was my first year of tracking reading formats in StoryGraph so I have an accurate number to tell you. Out of 122, 72 were digital, 43 were print, and 7 were audiobooks. I have always read more digital books. It's accessibility helps a lot because I can carry books with me wherever I go without lugging around a lot of weight. The fact that my reading progress isn't always visible helps too. The low cost is a huge advantage too.

My reading peaked and valleyed throughout the year. What I picked was highly based on my mood. I reread a lot of books too. Here are my best books of 2024.

I tried going out of my comfort zone this year. I didn't push myself too much but I tried to do it when I was choosing books to buy or read. A few books were ones that I wouldn't have picked up a few years ago like Poonachi by Perumal Murugan, 1984 by George Orwell, and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is my pride and joy in 2024 reading.

Was 2024 my "best reading year"? It would make for a good end to this post but it wasn't. My best reading year was either 2022 or 2023. I wasn't trying to make 2024 a great reading year. Instead of going for books that I was sure I'd love, I picked books to broaden my perspective. I'm happy with what I read, even if I didn't enjoy them all.

endnotes

The last 10 years consisted a variety of reading. It's easy to see how my reading changed as I grew. It's also easy to see how I grew based on my reading. I couldn't have asked for a better 10 years of reading.

I hope that I can write another such post in 2035.

chat with me!

How long have you been reading? What are your "defining" books? Are there any differences in how or what you read over the years? Have you noticed any patterns with in your reading journey? Do we have anything in common?