Photo by Toa Heftiba, on Unsplash
Gosh, I’ve been keeping track of work-versus-leisure reading for ten years now.
I’ve been tallying how many books I read, and which books they were, for rather longer than that–the first incomplete notes in my spreadsheet date back to 2003. But when my “I read books for a living” career started seriously becoming a thing, I was interested to see how that affected my numbers.
Here, I made a fun 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 |
Before I got paid to read books, I averaged around ~40 books a year. So, just looking at the chart, it appears that becoming a freelance copy editor/proofreader caused my leisure reading to take a bit of a hit. (Except for in 2018, the year my mother died, when I wallowed in comfort reading–I devoured the entire Sue Grafton A-to-Y series, and a lot more besides that.)
My leisure reading numbers are ticking up–except for in 2022, though those numbers are a bit deceiving, because I was devouring The Expanse series that year, and those are looooong books. I bet my page count was closer to a “normal” year.
I’m amused to note that I read exactly the same number of books for work as for leisure in 2024. That’s new, and is probably attributable to becoming more comfortable with reading on my Kindle, and also that week in May when I was in bed with Covid and basically read all day long every day. That, incidentally, was when I discovered the writer Lisa Regan. I’d been looking for mindless trashy thrillers, but accidentally stumbled across these excellent, well-written ones instead. Darn it.
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. So you’ll just have to take my word for the fact that I read 58 of those last year. But here, in the order in which I read them, are the 58 books I read for fun. (In another chart!)
| Harrow, Alix E. | The Once and Future Witches |
| Morgenstern, Erin | The Starless Sea |
| Turner, Megan Whalen | The Thief |
| Goodman, Carol | The Disinvited Guest |
| Bakis, Kirsten | Lives of the Monster Dogs |
| Barker, Elspeth | O Caledonia |
| Schwab, V.E. | The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue |
| Bakis, Kirsten | King Nyx |
| Erlick, Nikki | The Measure |
| Quinn, Kate | The Diamond Eye |
| Penny, Louise | All the Devils Are Here |
| Meissner, Susan | The Nature of Fragile Things |
| Hoang, Van | The Monstrous Misses Mai |
| King, Stephen | Fairy Tale |
| Henry, Madeleine | My Favorite Terrible Thing |
| Harman, Dianne | Murder on Bainbridge Island |
| Penny, Louise | The Madness of Crowds |
| Arden, Katherine | The Warm Hands of Ghosts |
| Selene, Lyra | A Feather So Black |
| Mason, Meg | Sorrow and Bliss |
| Mitchell, Dreda Say and Ryan Carter | Girl, Missing |
| Regan, Lisa | Vanishing Girls |
| Regan, Lisa | The Girl with No Name |
| Regan, Lisa | Her Mother’s Grave |
| Regan, Lisa | Her Final Confession |
| Regan, Lisa | The Bones She Buried |
| Penny, Louise | A World of Curiosities |
| Regan, Lisa | Her Silent Cry |
| Regan, Lisa | Cold Heart Creek |
| Regan, Lisa | Find Her Alive |
| Turner, Megan Whalen | The Queen of Attolia |
| Gibson, S.T. | Evocation |
| Regan, Lisa | Save Her Soul |
| Regan, Lisa | Breathe Your Last |
| Bowen, Rhys | Her Royal Spyness |
| Swank, Denise Grover | Trouble Comes in Threes |
| Bowen, Rhys | A Royal Pain |
| Regan, Lisa | Hush Little Girl |
| Bowen, Rhys | Royal Flush |
| Goolrick, Robert | A Reliable Wife |
| Bowen, Rhys | Royal Blood |
| Bowen, Rhys | Naughty in Nice |
| Regan, Lisa | Her Deadly Touch |
| Regan, Lisa | The Drowning Girls |
| Regan, Lisa | Watch Her Disappear |
| Regan, Lisa | Local Girl Missing |
| Shields, Sydney J. | The Honey Witch |
| Kim, Sophie | The God and the Gumiho |
| Bowen, Rhys | The Twelve Clues of Christmas |
| Bowen, Rhys | Heirs and Graces |
| Bowen, Rhys | Queen of Hearts |
| Regan, Lisa | The Innocent Wife |
| Stephenson, Neal | Polostan |
| Regan, Lisa | Close Her Eyes |
| Stewart, Andrea | The Gods Below |
| Bowen, Rhys | Malice at the Palace |
| Regan, Lisa | My Child Is Missing |
| Regan, Lisa | Face Her Fear |
What did you read last year? Tell me anything you loved! Or hated, or are still pondering how you feel about it.
Happy new year!