How many books did you read in 2023?

[pixy0stix]

Jan 9, 2024 15:34:32 GMT -5 tacokick said:

Jan 9, 2024 15:01:13 GMT -5 minzy said:

I read 17 last year, my lowest in a really long time, due to being busy AF.

… waits for tacokick to enter the chat… 😛

Since I’m tagged I’ll answer but people tend to get weird about it for some reason.

I read 340 books last year. I DNF around 180-190 books? I am ruthless about that. It was high for me, in recent years I’ve been more in the mid-high 200s.


Re: format:

I don’t count craft books or cookbooks or reference books as books I read which are the main physical books I get out of the library and read/leaf through. I probably get 100 physical books or so out a year?

This year I listened to about 20 audiobooks (also from the library) and that was new for me. I included those into books read.

I do not like reading physical library books in bed at night and that’s when I do 95% of my reading. That really pushed me to being a ebook reader as an adult. Luckily the library systems I belong to offer a ton of ebooks. I don’t really buy books to read at all. I don’t reread books as a whole so there is no reason.

My library branch always jokes that I am single handedly boosting the circulation numbers for the entire system.

IIRC you're one of those people that reads the whole page at once, right?

[mandymay]

I read 201 books on my kindle last year. I’m not sure how many physical books I read; it’s been a hectic year and I haven’t been able to get to the library that often, so it was probably less than 20.

[aspentosh]

I found this article so fascinating!

I read 104. 99% kindle from my library. A couple from a local Little Free Library. A mix of literally everything. This is a fairly typical year for me I'd say.

I don't own many books- maybe 15-20? I don't tend to re-read them so it feels wasteful to buy them when I can get them from the library.

[tacokick]

Jan 9, 2024 15:46:50 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Jan 9, 2024 15:34:32 GMT -5 tacokick said:

Since I’m tagged I’ll answer but people tend to get weird about it for some reason.

I read 340 books last year. I DNF around 180-190 books? I am ruthless about that. It was high for me, in recent years I’ve been more in the mid-high 200s.


Re: format:

I don’t count craft books or cookbooks or reference books as books I read which are the main physical books I get out of the library and read/leaf through. I probably get 100 physical books or so out a year?

This year I listened to about 20 audiobooks (also from the library) and that was new for me. I included those into books read.

I do not like reading physical library books in bed at night and that’s when I do 95% of my reading. That really pushed me to being a ebook reader as an adult. Luckily the library systems I belong to offer a ton of ebooks. I don’t really buy books to read at all. I don’t reread books as a whole so there is no reason.

My library branch always jokes that I am single handedly boosting the circulation numbers for the entire system.

IIRC you're one of those people that reads the whole page at once, right?

No, I can but it’s not how I prefer to read for fun. I normally read each word (and hear it in my head!) but at a fast clip.

I do the chunk/page thing for craft/cookbooks/reference books because I’m reading for info. It’s like my version of skimming.

[redheadbaker]

30 books total

5 physical books, 14 ebooks, 11 audiobooks

9 of the books I own (the physical books, and some of the audiobooks), the rest were borrowed from the library

[heygrey]

tacokick, one of my coworkers puts up similar numbers every year. She’s a full time teacher and also an author. I am a fast reader, but she has superhuman abilities.

[notreal]

I can only remember the titles of 9 books that I read last year. I'm sure I read more, but I can't recall anything about them. Still, puts me in the 79% of the country. Sad.

[Jalapeñomel]

I marked 47 in Goodreads and sometimes it gets my Libby books and sometimes not.

I don’t count the books I read with my son. So the +90th percentile.

I love to read and I wish I read more.

[tacokick]

Jan 9, 2024 16:18:18 GMT -5 heygrey said:

tacokick, one of my coworkers puts up similar numbers every year. She’s a full time teacher and also an author. I am a fast reader, but she has superhuman abilities.

That’s fun! Reading fast was such a help when I was a teacher and in grad school, I could really knock out grading.

I don’t know why some people can read super fast and some can’t. The actual time I spend reading is not as much as I think people would guess. I bet she’s the same way!

[mrspez07]

I’m in the plus 50 range most years. Have always been a big reader. I get that high though because of audio books. I can have more than 1 going at once.

DH would not have marked himself as a reader and his numbers have been creeping up. He also often does audio with the visual book, or has both depending on where he’s at (audio on walks).

[ellipses84]

You might find this interesting too.

Millennials and GenZ are visiting libraries more often than older generations.

www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2023/11/new-ala-report-gen-z-millennials-are-visiting-library-prefer-print-books

[pixy0stix]

I do feel vaguely bad about quantifying how many books people read. It's not like we're getting free pizzas anymore. If you read all the books that you could last year... Yay! You did it! Let's read some more!

[beetea]

Jan 9, 2024 15:34:32 GMT -5 tacokick said:

Jan 9, 2024 15:01:13 GMT -5 minzy said:

I read 17 last year, my lowest in a really long time, due to being busy AF.

… waits for tacokick to enter the chat… 😛

Since I’m tagged I’ll answer but people tend to get weird about it for some reason.

I read 340 books last year. I DNF around 180-190 books? I am ruthless about that. It was high for me, in recent years I’ve been more in the mid-high 200s.


Re: format:

I don’t count craft books or cookbooks or reference books as books I read which are the main physical books I get out of the library and read/leaf through. I probably get 100 physical books or so out a year?

This year I listened to about 20 audiobooks (also from the library) and that was new for me. I included those into books read.

I do not like reading physical library books in bed at night and that’s when I do 95% of my reading. That really pushed me to being a ebook reader as an adult. Luckily the library systems I belong to offer a ton of ebooks. I don’t really buy books to read at all. I don’t reread books as a whole so there is no reason.

My library branch always jokes that I am single handedly boosting the circulation numbers for the entire system.

You are my people! I read 411 and DNF 82 (I too am ruthless). I exclusively read ebooks since my vision is shit. I don't often buy books, but I do have a Kindle Unlimited subscription that I use. I'm greatful that our library has a great ebook selection through Libby! 

Reading is my #1 way of relaxing and I read super fast. I rarely watch TV (like, less than an hour a week) or movies, so this is pretty much it for me from an entertainment perspective. I read about 50 more books than usual which I attribute to recovering from surgery for 6ish weeks.

[dancingirl21]

I read 93 books in 2023 - probably 50% physical books and 50% kindle books. I subscribe to Book of the Month, but mostly borrow from the library otherwise.

Reading is one of my favorite hobbies. I don’t sleep well unless I read at night.

[fryjack2]

Jan 9, 2024 16:55:56 GMT -5 tacokick said:

Jan 9, 2024 16:18:18 GMT -5 heygrey said:

tacokick , one of my coworkers puts up similar numbers every year. She’s a full time teacher and also an author. I am a fast reader, but she has superhuman abilities.

That’s fun! Reading fast was such a help when I was a teacher and in grad school, I could really knock out grading.

I don’t know why some people can read super fast and some can’t. The actual time I spend reading is not as much as I think people would guess. I bet she’s the same way!

I read fast as well, and H reads so slow.  Or he reads normally, and I read fast.  I can't read the same page or article as him at the same time because I'm done and ready to move on and he's a third of the way through it.  I do skim a bit, and he has a photographic memory but we can both answer questions about what we read correctly. Its fascinating to me. 

@pixy, in middle school, I spent a ton of time at the library over the summer because it was the only place I was allowed to go. The librarian thought I lied about the number of books I read.  But it was pretty much all I did all day so I earned those pizza tickets!

[fryjack2]

I used to read a lot and then grad school reading the last two years made me want to spend my potential additional free time scrolling social media or browsing here.

I'm hoping to read a list of books I created from threads on here and IG posts this year. I don't have a goal, but I'm on book 3 since Jan.1st.

[agnes]

I think zero lol
I’m not much of a reader

[aurora]

About 50, half of which were audiobooks. Of the other 25, maybe 10 were "dead tree" and 15 Kindle? That's actually not one of the things I track, and I'm too lazy to go back and try to count.

What was unusual for me in 2023 was that I only read one non-fiction book. They're not my preference but usually I read 5-10.

ETA I am a nerd and have been tracking page counts using am Excel spreadsheet for a few years. I'm usually in the 22,000-25,000 page range.

[tacokick]

Jan 9, 2024 19:11:14 GMT -5 ellipses84 said:

You might find this interesting too.

Millennials and GenZ are visiting libraries more often than older generations.

www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2023/11/new-ala-report-gen-z-millennials-are-visiting-library-prefer-print-books

They lured us in with Book it and summer reading programs!

I also think it makes sense that a population that is probably more likely to have small children would go to the library more frequently.

[mcsangel2]

Jan 9, 2024 21:21:16 GMT -5 aurora said:

About 50, half of which were audiobooks. Of the other 25, maybe 10 were "dead tree" and 15 Kindle? That's actually not one of the things I track, and I'm too lazy to go back and try to count.

What was unusual for me in 2023 was that I only read one non-fiction book. They're not my preference but usually I read 5-10.

ETA I am a nerd and have been tracking page counts using am Excel spreadsheet for a few years. I'm usually in the 22,000-25,000 page range.

Goodreads tracks page count too.

[starlily]

54 books. Three were audiobooks, two were re-reads, and nearly all of the rest were borrowed from the library.

My goal for this year is 65.

[Pibs]

Jan 9, 2024 14:05:27 GMT -5 wawa said:

do people have a lot of ebooks? I try to borrow most of mine through Libby, but at this point with the ones I decided I needed regular access to for comfort re-reads and the ones not available at my library - my elibrary is probably rivaling my physical library and it makes it really hard to contemplate divesting from Amazon. Which I'd love to do - but like...they have all my books. I need my books.

there's not a way for that library to follow me off platform, is there?

eta: I really wish I'd thought about this 10 years ago when I got my first kindle, but....I do still really love that thing for ease of use and the fact that I can never again run out of things to read while traveling.

There's a program called Calibre that I don't fully understand, but that will let you convert ebooks into different formats. So, you might be able to convert books from Amazon into another format for another e-reader? I'm not sure how it works, or if it will work, with digital rights stuff but it's been a good way for me to backup and organize my ebooks. 

And to answer the original question, I read 46 books this year. No audio books, but some mix of Kindle & physical. I prefer reading on my Kindle, but I love having actual books.

[fernweh]

Counting all formats - 46. I got into listening to audiobooks on my commute last year so it really inflated my number. If we are talking about paper books (and okay 1 or 2 kindle books) I think the number was 13.

[basilosaurus]

I'm 100% on Kindle app. It's due to being overseas and having an e library for all borrowing, plus not wanting to acquire anything heavy. Before I was probably 50:50 but leaning towards e because I always have my phone.

I didn't track, but looking through my Amazon list in reverse chronology it looks like around 35.

I'm tracking this year now that I know it can sync. I'm curious less in # than pages because I specifically seek out long books.

[basilosaurus]

Jan 10, 2024 2:13:50 GMT -5 Pibs said:

Jan 9, 2024 14:05:27 GMT -5 wawa said:

do people have a lot of ebooks? I try to borrow most of mine through Libby, but at this point with the ones I decided I needed regular access to for comfort re-reads and the ones not available at my library - my elibrary is probably rivaling my physical library and it makes it really hard to contemplate divesting from Amazon. Which I'd love to do - but like...they have all my books. I need my books.

there's not a way for that library to follow me off platform, is there?

eta: I really wish I'd thought about this 10 years ago when I got my first kindle, but....I do still really love that thing for ease of use and the fact that I can never again run out of things to read while traveling.

There's a program called Calibre that I don't fully understand, but that will let you convert ebooks into different formats. So, you might be able to convert books from Amazon into another format for another e-reader? I'm not sure how it works, or if it will work, with digital rights stuff but it's been a good way for me to backup and organize my ebooks. 

And to answer the original question, I read 46 books this year. No audio books, but some mix of Kindle & physical. I prefer reading on my Kindle, but I love having actual books.

yes calibre concerts multiple formats. I've gotten a few pdf and epub online and then convert and manually move to my Kindle folder. Those won't update in Goodreads

I did not count dnf. I had a number that the loan ran out before I finished (like when a bunch would come available at the same time). So I could get again quickly, some took nearly a year between multiple long waits.

[mrsukyankee]

No idea. I don't keep track of what or how much I read. I tend to reach on the way into and back from work and on weekends, so it's slow going at times.

[sakoro]

Jan 9, 2024 13:12:20 GMT -5 neverfstop said:

About 42 percent of us read physical books in the past year, compared with 22 percent who read digital books or 19 percent who read audiobooks.

www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/01/05/how-many-books-did-you-read-2023-see-how-you-stack-up/ 

I read about 12 books last year— I belong to a book club with multiple tracks (sci-fi, non-fiction, biography, classics, short reads) and choose one book club meeting per month that I want to attend. I generally buy a used paper copy because my schedule varies so much and I can’t always finish within Libby time limits.

[chedifuen]

I read 26, a mix of audio and physical. That was slightly low for me but not unusual. I guess I'm a slower reader because I read every day!

For the first year that I've known him, my husband read several books. He got really into listening on Audible and has discovered he does actually love reading. It's been amazing.

[glw]

About 30, a mix of ebooks, hard copies, and audiobooks. I'm in two book clubs so I read at least two a month.

[StrawberryBlondie]

I just realized I didn't answer about format. Of my 30, 29 were Kindle books, 1 was a paper book. I can't do audiobooks (though I really wish I could). I tend to read in bed so Kindle works best for me.

I took a long time to come around to ebooks, but one vacation where I packed the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series (it was a trilogy then) and the books took up almost more room than my clothes and I ended up ordering a kindle the day we got home.