Statistics 2025

     

My statistics for the last years are here:
2009-12, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 

2023, 2024  

* Statistics 2025 *

 

I did 235 posts in 2025 which was 57 more than last year.

And these are the results of my reading lists for 2025:

My regular posts are either weekly (Book Quotes, Top Ten Tuesday, ThrowBack Thursday, Wordless Wednesday) or monthly (Happy Month, Six Degrees of Separation, Spell the Month in Books), so I posted more or less the amount of weeks or months in a year. I didn't do them all regularly, though. Especially the Top Ten Tuesday, I've participated so long and have done a lot of the topics already, so I just do them from time to time.

Book Quotes of the Week (12 posts)

Happy Month (12)
Top 5 Tuesday (26)
Top Ten Tuesday (18)

ThrowBack Thursday (45)
Wordless Wednesday (2)
Six Degrees of Separation (12)
Spell the Month in Books (12)

I also did a few lists that are more or less statistics about half of the year and a comparison to ten years ago:

Mid Year Freak-Out Tag

I also participated in Non-fiction November.

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And then there are, of course, all the challenges I have done over the years.
I read books that contributed to the following challenges. Some of them count for more than one category:

Challenges (number of books read for the challenges in brackets)

The 10 Greatest Books Ever (1)
The 100 best Non-fiction Books of All Time as Chosen by The Guardian (1)

100 Books by the BBC (2)
100 Greatest Fiction Books as Chosen by the Guardian (1)

13 Ways of Looking at the Novel (1)

2025 TBR Pile Reading Challenge (23)

Anti-Racism Books (3)

I read more on this topic but they were not on this list.

Barack Obama Reading Lists (2)

Thanks to a present by my son and a loan from a book club member, I was able to add two more books to the list.
Best European Literature (2)

Bildungsroman (2)

Children's Books (2)

The Classics Spin (5)

Dutch and French Books (1 Dutch, 3 French)

German Books (30)

My Favourite Books Ever (24)

Every year I find some more books I can add to my list of favourite books. 24 this year. Not too bad, I guess.

Nobel Prize Winners and Their Books (3)

Oscar Winning Books (1)

Paris in July (4)

Some books taking place in France or written in French.

Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (1)

(German: Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels)

Read the Year Club (2)

We read 1925 and 1952 this year. It's a good idea to add some reads from former years that we might not have touched before.

Reading Challenge - Chunky Books 2024 (17)

I read 17 chunky books in 2024 of which 4 are considered a chunkster. Mor-book-ly Obese again.

Suggestions from Friends (lots)

I read suggestions from friends all the time, just haven't kept up with who recommended which book.

Voracious (1)

Book Clubs:

International Online Book Club 2017 etc. (7)
One of the books was not available in English or German and I had read four of the others.

German Book Club (10)

We took a break in the summer and at Christmas, so only read 10 books this year.

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Some of the challenges are older and I only add to them if I happen to read one of the books. No new books on these lists:

100 Greatest Fiction Books as Chosen by the Guardian 

101 Best Selling Books of All Times 

20 Classic and Important Books 

I already said this last year. Only three more books on my list, maybe I'll get to "Slaughterhouse Five" one day.

7 Books That Will Radically Shift Your Perspectives 

Books That Changed the World 

A Century of Books 

Emma's Book Club - Our shared shelf 

Esperanto Books 
Here we mostly read short stories.

Favourite (German) Independent Books

(Das Lieblingsbuch der Unabhängigen = The Favourite Book of the Independents)
When they are German books, it usually takes a couple of years until they appear in paperback. So, this year, I didn't get to read the newest one:
Nelio Biedermann "Lázár"

Le Monde - The 100 Books of the Century 

Modern Library 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century 
Nobel Peace Prize 
Unfortunately, I didn't get to read any of the peace prize winners this year, but I read many by people who would have deserved it (not the one who was so keen on being awarded only to start a war right after that).

Oprah's Book Club

Reading the World 

The non-western books that every student should read 
The only thing I miss from our old place is the library that would get me any book I wanted. Not so easy here where we only have a small church library and they only get the biggest best-sellers. And all of them in German only, of course.

Travel the World Through Books 

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Books Read: 88
Pages read: 26.884 which results in 306 pages/book, 73 pages/day, 7 books/month

Last year (2024), I read 73 books with 25,412 pages which resulted in 348 pages/book, 73 pages/day, 7 books/month. So, it looks like I read a little more in 2025.

The average novel contains between 140 and 320 pages, i.e. 230 which would make 117 average books (compared to 116 last year, so not that much better, just shorter books).

Books dating from which year:

Pre 1800s: 3

1800s: 12

1900-1949: 7

1950-1999: 14

2000s: 52 (3 of which from 25)

Male Authors: 48 + 1

Female Authors: 40 +1

Nobel Prize Winners: 3

Fiction: 62
Non-Fiction: 26

I might have to include some of the reference books I read and use.

Chunky Books - more than 450 pages: 17, of which more than 750: 4
Library/Borrowed: 7
Re-Read: 6 (all Jane Austen)
TBR Pile: 23

Oldest Book: 411 BC
Aristophanes "Lysistrata and Other Plays" (GR: Λυσιστράτη, Lysistrátē) - 411 BC
Newest Book: 2025

Harris, Kamala "107 Days" - 2025

Longest book: 1,022 pages

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (Goethe German) - "Faust I + II" (GE: Urfaust. Faust: Erster und zweiter Teil) - 1772-1808

Shortest book: 52 pages
Wilde, Oscar "Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast" - 1946

Longest book title: 57 letters

Kaminer, Wladimir "Little Red Riding Hood smokes on the balcony … and other family stories" (GE: Rotkäppchen raucht auf dem Balkon … und andere Familiengeschichten) - 2020

Shortest Book Title: 2 letters
Schöfer, Maike "Nope: An incitement to say no" (GE: Nö: Eine Anstiftung zum Neinsagen) - 2025

Funniest Book:

Schnoy, Sebastian "Learn from Napoleon how to avoid doing the dishes" (GE: Von Napoleon lernen, wie man sich vorm Abwasch drückt) - 2013

Saddest Book:

Rushdie, Salman "Knife" - 2024

Weirdest Book:

Thoreau, Henry David "Walden; or, Life in the Woods" - 1854

Most disappointing:

Hopmann, Sophie/Heidelore Mais "Cucumber Sandwich in the Glove Compartment" (GE: Gurkensandwich im Handschuhfach) - 2019

New author (for me) that I would like to read more from: 8
Michel Bergmann, William Deresiewicz, Tahsim Durgun, Michael Köhlmeier, Benjamin Monferat, Jasmin Schreiber, Yuta Takahashi, Lucy Worsley

Translated Books:

7 from 7 languages

1 ea from Finnisch, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish

Books read in another language:

Dutch: 1

French: 3

German: 30

Numbers in Book Titles: Sixth, Seven, Ten, 107
Place Names in Book Titles: Brüssel, England, Europe, Mansfield, Mariana Trench, Northanger Abbey, Walden

Names in Book Titles: Artemisia, Austen, Bovary, Britt-Marie, Chekhov, Chibineko, Chuzzlewit, Emma, Faust, Feld, Felix Krull, Gretchen, Hamnet, Jane, Judith,Katherine, Klee, Luzie, Lysistrata, Mann, Mariana, Martin, Mary, Max, Moormann, Napoleon, Parr, Peanuts, Psmith, Rose, Rotkäppchen, Sonneborn, Thomas, Tiffany, Tolstoy, Unrat, Wunder

Colours in Book Titles: Rot (red)

My Favourite Books: 24

Austen, Jane "Emma" - 1816 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen)

- "The History of England: By a Partial, Prejudiced and Ignorant Historian" - 1791
- "Mansfield Park" - 1814 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen)
- "Persuasion" - 1817 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) *
- "Pride & Prejudice" - 1813 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) 

- "Sense & Sensibility" - 1811 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen) 

Brooks, Geraldine "Year of Wonders" - 2001

Deresiewicz, William "A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter" - 2011

Heidenreich, Elke "Dr. Moormann & I" (GE: Frau Dr. Moormann & ich) - 2023

Hyun, Martin; Kaminer, Wladimir "Instructions for neighbours" - (GE: Gebrauchsanweisung für Nachbarn) - 2024  

Hislop, Victoria "The Figurine" - 2023

Kaminer, Wladimir "Little Red Riding Hood smokes on the balcony … and other family stories" (GE: Rotkäppchen raucht auf dem Balkon … und andere Familiengeschichten) - 2020

- "Tolstoy's beard and Chekhov's shoes, excursions through Russian literature" (GE: Tolstois Bart und Tschechows Schuhe, Streifzüge durch die russische Literatur - 2019)

Loriot "The Yodeling School and other dramatic works" (GE: Die Jodelschule und andere dramatische Werke) - 1981

Monferat, Benjamin (Stephan Rother) "World in Flames" (GE: Welt in Flammen) - 2014

Schreiber, Jasmin "Mariana Trench" (GE: Marianengraben) - 2020

Stelter, Bernd "Fashion, murder, and the sound of the sea. Camping crime thriller" (GE: Mode, Mord und Meeresrauschen. Camping-Krimi) - 2024

Sullivan, Margaret C. "The Jane Austen Handbook. A Sensible Yet Elegant Guide to Her World" - 2007

Weir, Alison "Six Tudor Queens. Katharine Parr. The Sixth Wife" - 2021

Worsley, Lucy "Jane Austen at Home" - 2017

Added  after an idea by Emma:

Adjectives in Book Titles: brilliant, crazy, dull, last, weird; dramatische, gut, klein

Adverbs in Book Titles: andere. hier

Animals in Book Titles: Penguin, Snail, Whale

Nationality in Book Titles: French

Preposition in Book Titles: about, as, at, for, from, in, of, on, out, to; auf, durch, für, im, mit, nach, oder, vom, von, über, zur
Questions in Book Titles: 

Brandreth, Gyles "Have You Eaten Grandma?" - 2017

With my books, I visited places in the following countries:

Africa (5):Botswana, Cameroon, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe

Arctic (1):

Asia (9):

Armenia, Dubai, India, Israel/Palestine, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Syria, Turkey, Vietnam

Australia/Oceania (2):
Australia, New Zealand
Europe (19):
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, Yugoslavia
North America (4):

Canada, Caribbean, St. Lucia, USA

South America (3):

Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay

Countries "visited" in total: 43

Authors come from:

Africa (2):
South Africa, Zimbabwe
Asia (7):
India, Israel/Palestine, Japan, Korea, Syria, Turkey, Vietnam

Australia/Oceania (2):

Australia, New Zealand
Europe (10):
Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom

North America (2):

Canada, USA
South America (1):

Uruguay
Author countries in total: 24

See also "My Year in Books" (and here on Goodreads).

You may find some even greater statistics by better bloggers than me, e.g. at "Stuck in a Book".

 

If you want more information on any of the lists mentioned, please, let me know.

Mann, Thomas "Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man"

Mann, Thomas "Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man" (German: Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull) - 1954

Thomas Mann, one of my favorite authors, turned 150, and since I didn't want to end the year without reading at least one of his novels new to me, I went on a search. I had this book on my TBR pile, so the decision was easy.

I must confess, I had no idea that this book was unfinished. I now know that Mann worked on it for a long time and certainly made numerous notes about the plot, but only completed the first part and then died before writing the second.

What a shame, the beginning is already good. The second part would certainly have been just as excellent as anything by Thomas Mann.

In any case, the book has a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor. And even though Felix Krull manages to outwit many people, one can only admire his cunning.

The book is a very good read; I really enjoyed it.

I am not very happy with the translation of the word "Hochstapler" into "Confidence Man". Maybe that's my German thinking but the word "confidence" sounds far too nice to call someone who tricks other people. Impostor, cheater, trickster, swindler sound much more accurate to me.

Book Description:

"'The most astonishing work that Mann ever wrote and also one of the most perfect. . . with Felix Krull the world receives from Thomas Mann the gift which German literature has almost proverbially withheld from it: the great comic novel' - Edwin Muir

Waiter by day man about Paris by night, the young and good looking Felix Krull has created for himself a personality to charm and deceive the world of wealth. Then the Marquis de Venosta makes a proposal that he can't refuse."

Thomas Mann received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929 "principally for his great novel, 'Buddenbrooks', which has won steadily increased recognition as one of the classic works of contemporary literature".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

#ThrowbackThursday. January 2016

I've been doing ThrowbackThursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. So, I listed more than one Throwback book every week. Now, I have reached the ones I posted ten years ago and will probalby just post one every month. These are my reviews from December 2016.

Hammond, Richard "On the Edge: My Story" - 2007

Funny, I just read another book by this author:

"As You Do: Adventures With Evil, Oliver And The Vice President Of Botswana" - 2008
As you can see, he wrote this a year after the his other book. This memoir tells the story of his accident and his return to life. And not only that, we get to learn a lot about both of them, Richard's childhood, marriage, children, and family.

Murakami, Haruki "Norwegian Wood" (J: Noruwei no mori, ノルウェイの森) - 1987   

There is so much in this story, it's hard to get it all together, the problems of a teenager growing up, the problems of dealing with a sudden death, first love, second love, illness, especially depression. I am not a fan of poetry but this novel reads like beautiful poetry. I love the style, the flow of the words.

Pagnol, Marcel "Jean de Florette" (F: Jean de Florette) - 1963

A book about village life and how much villagers keep together against any newcomer, how they are almost treated like enemies, or maybe even worse. I've seen this happening and have experienced it myself, so I could very well relate to the story where Jean Cadoret inherits a farm but the other villagers don't want him there and do everything to prevent him from being successful.

Tyler, Anne "A Spool of Blue Thread" - 2015 

This is a story about four generations of a family. A family that consists of all the usual members, the ordinary ones and the not so ordinary ones. Anne Tyler tells about them as if you are there, as if you are part of the clan. It all sounds so familiar. 

Top Twelve Tuesday ~ Best Books in 2025

"Top Ten Tuesday" is an original feature/weekly meme created on the blog "The Broke and the Bookish". It was created because they are particularly fond of lists. It is now hosted by Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl.

Since I am just as fond of them as they are, I jump at the chance to share my lists with them! Have a look at their page, there are lots of other bloggers who share their lists here.

This week's topic is Best Books in 2025

2025 was Jane Austen's birthday year and I participated in the #Reading Austen project. I found lots of books about Jane Austen and re-read all of her books. I could have included all of them but I thought I also need to show some of the other great books I found during the year. So, here is my Top Twelve of 2025. Just add anything by or about Jane Austen in your mind.

Adkins, Roy & Lesley "Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England: How our ancestors lived two centuries ago" (aka "Jane Austen's England) - 2013
Austen, Jane "The History of England: By a Partial, Prejudiced and Ignorant Historian" - 1791

Brooks, Geraldine "Year of Wonders" - 2001
Deresiewicz, William "A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter" - 2011
Haig, Matt "The Midnight Library" - 2020
Harris, Kamala "107 Days" - 2025

Hislop, Victoria "The Figurine" - 2023
Mak, Geert "The Dream of Europe. Travels in a Troubled Continent" (NL: Grote verwachtingen. In Europa 1999-2019) - 2019

Mann, Heinrich "Professor Unrat" - The Blue Angel - 1904
Rushdie, Salman "Knife" - 2024
Takahashi, Yuta "The Chibineko Kitchen" (J: ちびねこ亭の思い出ごはん 黒猫と初恋サンドイッチ/Chibinekoteino omoidegohan kuronekoto hatsukoisandoitchi) - 2020
Worsley, Lucy "Jane Austen at Home" - 2017

📚 Happy Reading 📚

My Year in Books 2025

26,884 pages read (my count, Goodreads didn't give one this year, though it would have been worthless as they indicate a wrong one from time to time. My copy of "On the Yankee Station" had 226 pages as opposed to the 0 given by GR)

88 books read

Average book length: 314 pages

Average rating: 3.6

I am still doing my usual statistics (which you will find here) but this is what Goodreads tells me. You can find links to all my books on Goodreads here or on my page under My Reading List. 

Six Degrees of Separation ~ Wide Sargasso Sea

 Rhys, Jean
"Wide Sargasso Sea" - 2025

#6Degrees of Separation:
from Wide Sargasso Sea to The Thirteenth Tale 

#6Degrees is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. I love the idea. Thank you, Kate. See more about this challenge, its history, further books and how I found this here. 

The starter book this month is a wildcard. We have to start with the book we finished our December chain with. That was "Wide Sargasso Sea" for me.

That was a lovely book to start with as it is a prequel to Jane Eyre who is a governess. The book was written by Charlotte Brontë whose sister Anne was also an author and who wrote a book about another governess, Agnes Grey. In the novel Emma by Jane Austen, there is the question of Jane Fairfax becoming a governess. The main character in Little Dorrit works as a seamstress to support her family but there is the governess, Mrs. General who is hired by her father after he becomes wealthy. The protagonist in Vanity Fair, Becky Sharp, however, is a governess. In the Thirteenth Tale, the main characters Adeline and Emmeline have a governess again.

Brontë, Charlotte "Jane Eyre" - 1847 

Brontë, Anne "Agnes Grey" - 1847
Austen, Jane "Emma" - 1816 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen)

Dickens, Charles "Little Dorrit" - 1857
Thackeray, William Makepeace "Vanity Fair, or, A Novel Without a Hero" - 1848

Setterfield, Diane "The Thirteenth Tale" - 2006

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Easy to get the connection this time, right? They are all about governesses.

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Spell the Month in Books ~ January 2026

Reviews from the Stacks

I found this on one of the blogs I follow, Books are the New Black who found it at One Book More. It was originally created by Reviews from the Stacks, and the idea is to spell the month using the first letter of book titles.

January:  New - interpret as you will (new releases, new to you, etc)

New. That's not normally a hard challenge but I couldn't find enough books for the letters. Still, I managed. I added some books that were new to me last year.

JANUARY

J
Worsley, Lucy "Jane Austen at Home" - 2017

Same as last year, my January book starts with Jane. No wonder, 2025 was the Jane Austen year.

This was a fabulous biography. Lucy Worsley really "visited" Jane Austen at home and accompanied her on all her visits to friends and family. It was so nice to read what she and her family, especially her sister Cassandra had been up to. 

Find more about Jane Austen here in the #Reading Jane Austen project.

A
Hammond, Richard "As You Do: Adventures With Evil, Oliver And The Vice President Of Botswana" - 2008

I have always loved Top Gear and especially Richard Hammond. The adventures the guys had in their show, they were always hilarious albeit very scary.

Here, Richard Hammond has written about his race to the North Pole with a dog-driven sled against his friends in a car - with a lot of preparation beforehand (Polar Special, also known as the Polar Challenge). And about his trip through Africa in a car that he bought right there and kept later on because he had named it (Ollie) and you cannot sell a car with a name. LOL.

N
Mason, Daniel - "North Woods" - 2023

Stories about a house that go over centuries and we get to know the inhabitants of the house. Here, we see all kinds of different people (or, in one case, even an animal) live in the house in the woods. For a long time, they grow the best apples that ever exist. How would I have loved to taste one of those Wonder apples. 

U
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Urfaust. Faust Fragment. Faust I. Faust II" (Faust) - 1772-1808 

The story is said to be the greatest work of German literature and I can well believe that. 250 years have passed in the meantime but I don't believe that there has been a single book that is as well-known around the world than this.

A
Köhlmeier, Michael "Occident" (GE: Abendland) - 2007

This book is simply amazing. A man born in 1900. He was almost as old as my maternal grandfather (born in 1899, my grandmother in 1901), so I found it fascinating for that reason alone. 

The book covers so many topics, from music at the beginning of the last century to the two world wars that raged in Europe, to the history of Portugal and Brazil. It's about the lives of just a few people, and not all of them lived through the entire century. But that's precisely what makes it so interesting. You can imagine what a person born at the beginning of the last century, like my eldest children, experienced. (Goodreads)

R
Andrew, Sally "Recipes for Love & Murder. A Tannie Maria Mystery" - 2015

The story about a newspaper columnist in South Africa who loves to cook and shares all her recipes in order to help people. Her recipes sound so great and there is even a cookbook. Unfortunately, it's only availabe in South Africa and they don't ship abroad. If one of my readers lives there or has connections, please, let me know. I'd love that book.

Anyway, Tannie Maria is a very active woman who can stand up for herself. And she has to prove that as her town is chased by an evil killer. Together with her two (female) colleagues, she hunts the hunter.

Y
Brooks, Geraldine "Year of Wonders" - 2001

This was a book about a village that struggled during the plague, that had the idea to shut themselves off from the rest of the world in order not to bring this horrible disease to others. The village existed, the people in the book were based on real people from that time. But it was still a novel.
I think the Covid-19 pandemic brought the story even closer to us.

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Happy Reading!

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