Matt's Books and Music

My 2025 reading year has come to a close. If you’re interested, please check back later this week for my Bookish Superlatives and Top Reads of the year.

Today I’d like to look at the year as a whole and look at some statistics about some of the things I was looking out for this year.

In terms of raw numbers, I read almost the exact same number of books as in 2024, at 340. I mention the number not because I care about the volume of books, but because the sheer amount I read can skew some of the percentages. For example, if only 5% of my reading came from a particular community or demographic, that still means I read 17-18 books from that community, which is far from nothing!

My average-rated book scored a whopping 4.4⭐ in 2025, tied for 2024 for my best ever. This was remarkably consistent across all demographics and genres, so I won’t comment below on scores.

New Releases, Backlist and Classics

• Classics (pre-1976): 5.0% (n = 20 ⬇︎)
  • pre-1900: 2
  • 1900s: 0
  • 1910s: 0
  • 1920s: 3
  • 1930s: 3
  • 1940s: 3
  • 1950s: 3
  • 1960s: 5
  • 1970-1976: 1
• Backlist (1977-2021: 33.8% (n = 115 ~)
  • 1977-1989: 4
  • 1990s: 5
  • 2000s: 15
  • 2010s: 63
  • 2020-21: 28
• Recent Releases (2022-2024): 33.8% (n = 115 ⬆)
  • 2022: 25
  • 2023: 28
  • 2024: 62
• New Releases (2025): 26.1% (n = 89 ~)

Classics and older backlist titles really dropped off for me in 2025, mostly because I’ve now read most of the low hanging fruit that I’m interested in reading. That just means I’ll have to look harder next year, since I do find this to be a valuable part of my reading life.

Formats, Length, Media, and Other Considerations

• Text (Print or Digital, incl. Graphic Novels): 29.1 % (n = 100 ⬇︎)
• Audiobooks: 70.3% (n = 239⬆)
• Graphic Novels: 4.5% (n = 15 ⬆)
• Plays: 1.5% (n = 5 ⬆)
• Story Collections: 6.5% (n = 22 ⬆)
• Long Books (> 500 pages): 3.5% (n = 12⬇︎)
• Short books (< 200 pages): 19.2% (n = 65 ~)
• Debuts: 15.9% (n = 54 ~)
• Books in Translation: 11.4% (n = 39 ⬇︎)

Audiobooks continued to take up an ever-increasing number of my reads in 2025, due to a combination of lifestyle and health factors. I was a late adopter of this format, but it continus to open up my reading life in exciting ways. I was a bit surprised to see a relatively constant number of shorter books, since I tried to be intentional about reading more this year, since I tend to enjoy short fiction more than longer works. Books in translation was slightly lower year-over-year, but still significantly higher than my historical average.

Genres & Audiences

(Note: Since books can fit into many different genres, percentages below will not add up to 100%)

• LGBTQ2S+ authors: 22.1% (n = 75 ⬇︎)
• Historical: 16.8% (n = 57 ~)
• Nonfiction: 15.3% (n = 52 ⬆)
  • Spirituality: 17 ⬆
  • Memoir: 15 ⬆
  • History: 13
  • Science/ Nature: 7 ⬇︎
• Literary Fiction: 12.9% (n = 47⬇︎)
• Romance: 12.1% (n = 41⬇︎)
• Science Fiction or Speculative Fiction: 6.7% (n = 23 ⬇︎)
• Mystery: 9.7% (n = 33 ~)
• Fantasy: 9.4% (n = 32 ⬆)
• Middle Grade & Juvenile: 6.5% (n = 22 ~)
• Paranormal / Horror: 4.7% (n = 16⬇︎)
• Young Adult: 4.8% (n = 16 ~)

I continued to read a variety of genres in 2025, but most specific genre labels decreased, suggesting that I’m reading more ‘general’ fiction, which I think is fair. Nonfiction also recovered from a very low 2024 to take up a more representative place in my reading, led by big jumps in spirituality and memoir.

Authors and Author Demographics

Most Read Authors:

• Beth Brower: 8
• André Alexis (🇨🇦): 6
• Katherine Addison: 3
• Pat Barker: 3
• Rachel Reid (🇨🇦): 3
• Ronan Hession: 3
• Tessa Dare: 3

Author Demographics

I often say that one of the things I love most about reading is that it opens so many windows into the experiences of people with sometimes wildly different lives form mine. But, because of structural issues within the publishing industry, one has to be intentional about seeking these out.

Gender

• Female: 55.2% (n = 187)
• Male: 40.1% (n = 136)
• Other: 2.1% (n =8)*

* This was a catch-all for various individuals who do not identify within traditional Western gender norms

Culture and Ethnicity

• White: 72.9% (n = 248)
• Asian (writers from Asia or of Asian Heritage) and Pacific Islanders: 14.1% (n = 48) ⬆
  • Japanese: 12
  • SW Asia & N. Africa (SWANA): 7 ⬇︎
  • Chinese: 13 ⬆
  • Korean: 4
  • South Asian: 6 ⬆
  • SE Asian: 6 ⬆
• Black: 5.3% (n = 21 ⬇︎)
• Indigenous (Turtle Island): 4.1% (n = 14)
• Latin American: 2.6% (n = 9)

I value and actively seek out diverse reading, so that even my reading this year was 73% White authors goes to show the ongoing issues with representation in the publishing industry. There was a continued increase in representation from Asian authors, especially those of Chinese heritage. One aspect of my reading that fell off almost completely in 2025 was African literature, and that showed here for sure.

Nation of Origin

I read books by authors from 38 different countries in 2025, which is great! While the heaviest hitters were the obvious anglo options (minus Ghana and Nigeria), it was great to see so many countries and parts of the world represented once again this year:

• USA: 108
• United Kingdom: 55
• Canada: 47
• Japan: 11
• Italy: 9
• France: 8
• Greece: 6
• Ireland: 5
• Sweden: 4