Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash
Welcome to my annual blog post, chronicling “how many books I read last year” along with “which of those were books I read for fun.”
Updating last year’s chart:
| Year | Total Read | Work | Leisure |
| 2015 | 63 | 38 | 25 |
| 2016 | 107 | 80 | 27 |
| 2017 | 115 | 92 | 23 |
| 2018 | 148 | 84 | 64 |
| 2019 | 112 | 86 | 26 |
| 2020 | 86 | 61 | 25 |
| 2021 | 141 | 82 | 59 |
| 2022 | 98 | 70 | 28 |
| 2023 | 90 | 53 | 37 |
| 2024 | 116 | 58 | 58 |
| 2025 | 98 | 53 | 45 |
Hmm, all the numbers went down a bit, though I was certainly no less busy. Just off the top of my head, I’d say some possible reasons were: 1) I have a new gig writing copy, which counts as “work” while not adding to the “books read for work” numbers; 2) a number of the leisure books were on the looooong side; and 3) I also wrote and published three books!
You can find all three on Amazon, and–if you’re local–at Darvill’s and Watermark bookstores. There will be three more books in this series, all publishing in 2026 if all goes according to plan…which it always does, right? Haha, of course it does, silly me.
Ah but wait, we were talking about books READ, not books WRITTEN. Sorry!
As I’ve mentioned in past years, I don’t report the authors/titles of books I read for work, because there’s often a long lag time between when I proof something and when it’s announced, much less published, and I don’t want to spoil any surprises. But here, in the order in which I read them, are the books I read for fun in 2025:
| Bowen, Rhys | Crowned and Dangerous |
| Regan, Lisa | Her Dying Secret |
| Bowen, Rhys | On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service |
| Bowen, Rhys | Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding |
| Bowen, Rhys | Love and Death Among the Cheetahs |
| Regan, Lisa | Remember Her Name |
| Bowen, Rhys | The Last Mrs. Summers |
| Bowen, Rhys | God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen |
| Bowen, Rhys | Peril in Paris |
| Maas, Sarah J. | A Court of Thorns and Roses |
| Bowen, Rhys | The Proof of the Pudding |
| Bowen, Rhys | The Paris Assignment |
| Henry, Madeleine | Name Not Taken |
| Morris, Susan J. | Strange Beasts |
| Henry, Madeleine | The Love Proof |
| Malliet, G. M. | Death of a Cozy Writer |
| Meissner, Susan | Only the Beautiful |
| Regan, Lisa | Husband Missing |
| Valente, Catherynne | Deathless |
| Brenchley, Chaz | Mary Ellen, Craterean! |
| Potzsch, Oliver | The Hangman’s Daughter |
| Strout, Elizabeth | Olive Kitteridge |
| Helprin, Mark | Freddy and Fredericka |
| Priest, Cherie | The Drowning House |
| Brennan, Sarah Rees | Long Live Evil |
| Towles, Amor | Rules of Civility |
| Priest, Cherie | The Family Plot |
| Simmons, Dan | The Guiding Nose of Ulfant Banderoz |
| Keats, Jonathon | The Book of the Unknown |
| Priest, Cherie | Grave Reservations |
| Doocy, Maiga | Sorcery and Small Magics |
| Penny, Louise | The Grey Wolf |
| Priest, Cherie | Flight Risk |
| Swank, Denise Grover | Luck of the Devil |
| Priest, Cherie | It Was Her House First |
| Regan, Lisa | The Couple’s Secret |
| Bardugo, Leigh | The Familiar |
| Herron, Mick | Slow Horses |
| Herron, Mick | Dead Lions |
| Bowen, Rhys | We Three Queens |
| Priest, Cherie | Cinderwich |
| Priest, Cherie | The Toll |
| Sullivan, Matthew | Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore |
| Leong, Julie | The Teller of Small Fortunes |
| Tan, Amy | The Opposite of Fate |
I do tend to latch onto an author, and/or a series, and just gallop along with it until I’ve read everything I can. (Though I don’t really like reading hardcovers–too heavy, and adding a hardcover to a shelf of paperbacks just bugs my sense of, you know, everything–which is why, though I’m dying to read Louise Penny’s latest Gamache book, I’m going to wait till it’s out in paperback.) (Probably.)
Many of the books in that list were magnificent–I highly recommend the Rhys Bowen series (starting with Her Royal Spyness), but the book that most blew me away was Leigh Bardugo’s The Familiar. Wow, I mean, just wow, start to finish.
What did you read last year? Tell me all about it!
And Happy New Year!