Reader Mailbag: How Many Books Do You Read Each Year?
In the March 2026 newsletter, I asked readers how many books they read each year.
Here are the responses:
Corinne: I just had to write in this month because the question, and the… reasoning behind it astound me. I have no clue how many books I read in a year. I know it’s a lot, because I am continually listening to audio books (and by continually I mean every minute I am in the car, or doing housework, or doing certain things at my job that allow it), and I have 3-4 books (physical, kindle, audio, etc) on the go at any given time. But it has never in my 61 years of life occurred to me to track what books I have read, or to rate them or to otherwise rank them. I have favorites of course, but I have never sat down and made a list of them. It’s just so weird to me that people do that! I remember as a kid my mom would allow me to get a paper grocery bag full of books from the library. They had to last me two weeks until we went back again, so I stuffed that bag FULL. I would often find myself reading a book that had my name on the withdrawal card from months or even years prior. I feel like half the time I had no memory of reading the book either. Maybe I should have kept lists! Emoji
Chjristine: Oh my gosh. I have too many places to actually check for sure the correct amount, but it is safe to say I average at least 4 books per month, so definitely at least 48 books per year.
Keith: During the past year (ending 1 March) I listened to a total of 83 books – most of 10-15 hour duration. However, a few of these (e.g. “11/22/63”) were MUCH longer. It’s difficult to reconstruct prior years due to changes to the library’s software and my use of multiple platforms across 3 independent library systems. Also, I would add 3-5 books read in the Kindle app on my phone each year (used when listening wasn’t an option…)
Ann: So – how many books will I read in a year? I have no idea but will find out for sure this year after checking my “books read” list on Book Notification. I’d like to say about 40 books, maybe? I’m not a fast reader. AND I have to say that since retiring 5 years ago I don’t feel like I’ve actually found more time for books – not sure how that has happened!
Hollis: I have been averaging over 100 books a year for the last five years. My yearly goal has started to drop as I am finding it harder to read consistently as I get older. (Or else I am finding it harder to find books I enjoy.)
Maggie: I belong to three book clubs that meet monthly, so that’s at least 36 books a year. I usually fit in at least one or two other books each month so it’s not hard to reach my goal of 50 books a year.
Steve: 50 so far this year.
2025 – 325
2024 – 296
2023 – 316
2022 – 324
2021 – 290
2020 – 266
2019 – 212
2018 – 205
2017 – 235
2016 – 184
2015 – 180
2014 – 159
2013 – 139
Didn’t really keep track before 2013, but was still probably over 120 each year.
kat: after i retired i read 400-500 yr
last yr was 415 and 2024 was 515
and no, im not getting anything else done and i dont care anymore, i just want to disappear into someone elses life
before i retired was around 200
i didnt know all that, i checked goodreads where i log everything
thanks for asking so now i know too!
Donna J. I usually average 30-35 books a year. I had one year when I got close to 50, but some days I don’t get much reading done, so I lowered my expectations. LOL!
Carol: I actually read only about 12 books a year. But I listen to well over 150! No TV set on my house, and I listen to audio books while I’m working onmyfiber arts projects.
Pete: I am retired, so I’m in a position to tell you. Spending at least 60% of my time reading I finish about 10 books a week. But there are too many authors and they write so fast that there’s no hope to read them all. Doesn’t matter which genres you like, the authors are ahead.
Most of what I read are e-books, many from Kindle, so there is the possibility that some are AI written. That might explain the frequent homonym problems.
Judy: ??50 or 60 – too busy reading to count!!
Phil: I read 40 books in 2025, which is probably my lifetime high for a year. More downtime from work gave me more time to read.
mailman: I average 40-60 per year. Some years ago I challenged a colleague at work to a year long reading contest. He accused me of counting comic books, magazines, pamphlets, advertising. I’m not admitting I did; but I did beat him 127- 24. Just saying! Needless to say, no more contest.
Linda: About 120 Some hardcover, paperbacks for travel, audio books in car ,books on phone for gym
I read every day while eating breakfast, carry a book all day in case I have an extra minute and an hour or so before bed
Sue: Unfortunately, I am down to about 3 per month. I say unfortunately because when I was working, I read at least twice that many. I used to listen to CDs of books in the car, I had about a 40 min one way ride, as well as reading a real book at home. So, I was always in the middle of two books at a time. This is the one drawback to having retired. I always feel behind in my reading.
Melinda: As a child I thought I could read every book ever written even if it was written in a foreign language. Now I am retired and lucky if I read 80 books a year. I read 3 or 4 books at a time, audio, book, and e-book. And I want to be buried with the books I haven’t read that are surrounding me.
Nancy: I read about 3 books a week or approximately 150 a year. Quite a few of these are audiobooks which I listen to while I do my next favorite thing – jigsaw puzzles. I am retired and although I have a part time “job” taking care of my grandkids, I have plenty of time for reading at night and while they are in school. I am happy to say that I have rubbed off on them and they are avid readers. Both of them are reading way above their grade level and have done so since they started school. Books are the best!!!
sharon: I read at least 125 books a year – one every 2 to 3 days. My problem is I keep most of them and have run out of room. I carry a book everywhere I go in case I have to wait, and I read at every meal. At night I have to read awhile before I go to sleep. My excuse is I’m retired and can read whenever and wherever I want!
Karen: In 2025, I read 264 books, 79 were on my Kindle, and 185 were audio books. The total pages were 23,944, and the total listening time was 1,936 hours. (I listen to audio books when I am walking alone, and in 2025, I walked 1,108 miles; so that gave me a good bit of listening time).
Douglas: This is an interesting question and thought that I would answer.
Prior to my retirement, i would read approximately 20 books a year.
Post-retirement, I am now reading approximately 50 books a year.
That’s good news for new and used bookstores!
Bob: My New Year’s Resolution of 2020 was to read 1 book a month. I read 17 books that year. Last year I read 105. I log each book in Goodreads and write a short review, which I post on Facebook.
Sandra: I average 200 books per year – audio, digital and hard copy – since I’ve been retired and on my own. I am grateful to have the time to read and especially appreciate audiobooks while I’m doing something else I enjoy which is a double bonus. And a big thank you goes to you for introducing me to new authors via bookseriesinorder.com, orderofbooks.com and the book notification newsletter.
Sue: Im lucky to be in a book club that helps me finish 11 books a year. On top of that, I facetime with my 6 year old granddaughter weekly to read together. For the last 3 months we have been reading the “I Can Read… Biscuit series. Finished 6 books and started reading them backwords, not only from the back to the front but the last word to the first- after she had them memorized!- Woof Woof. We’ve moved on to Princess stories in the Step Into Reading Series. Now that I’ve retired, moved to another state away from family and am still settling, my audio book listening is slowing going back up to 2 a month.
But I religiously read the email and share it with anyone with a book in their hand!!
Carol: I deliberately do not tally this. I enter books I’ve read on some websites but I never look at the numbers. There is a reason for this.
I was brought up in a competitive family and had such an education. Law School was the ultimate of that kind of compete behavior. I began to get resentful of everything in my life coming down to a competition. And it was everything: children, housing, cars, vacations, leisure activities and on and on. I finally hit a point where I did not want to compete unless I had to do so. In reading, this meant that if I wanted to read Pride and Prejudice every day of the year, that was now fine. So I would have read one book. If I loved it, that was all that was required. I then did the same thing with films. I was no longer concerned with seeing everything and going to film festivals and the like. If I instead watched Last Tango in Paris every day of the year, that was also fine. Now I have never actually done this. Read the same book every day or seen the same film. But it was a change of life kind of thinking.
Later in life I also took up art and briefly was in curated, juried shows. I quickly discovered this was a nightmare of competition again. I left that aspect and thereafter just did srt for myself and people I knew.
I began making these changes in my early 30s and I am now 77. I have never had any regrets putting competition into as little of my life as I could get away with. I even made big changes to the way I was using law in my life. My income never became what it should have been. But I was married, childless and had no big needs for stuff.
Recently I was researching for a grand nephew his college options. He wanted to go to a college that was strong but not cut throat on academics, that provided choices on how to make ice hockey part of one’s college life and, finally, somehow add a growing interest in golf into the other two. I enmeshed myself in the search and made some big discoveries. There are two ways of doing college: competitive or collaborative. Vanderbilt U has the happiest students because it is heavily over on the collaborative side. All the schools that I liked in the search were fitting that model. I do not know what he will pick. I gave him the list and left him to it. But I was glad to see there was now a second choice.
When I receive a letter asking me to join a book tally or goals for the year, it goes into the trash. I noticed a couple of friends over on Goodreads had picked 400 books as their aspiration for 2026. I gave this a big shudder. I am not interested in being in a horse race of reading. I want to continue to love it and this means reading what I feel like reading all of the time.
Penny: Last year I read 101 books. I usually average 100 or more. The addiction is real people!!! I LOVE to read!
Vince: Conservatively, I used to read between 75 and 100 books a year. I’ve since cut back to approximately 50 books per year. With the exception of three authors whose books I save, I donate all the books I finish reading to the local Goodwill store so that others can enjoy them.
Maureen: I read about 200-225 books a year and have over the last few years. I love reading obviously but I have such a huge tbr pile and I can’t resist buying books which increases my pile. I am 73 so I’m on the downhill run and want to get through as many books as I can as they all sound so good. An example of this is the Nick Petrie books. I have been collecting them since you have been talking about them, which is a while, and I have bought the latest but I haven’t had a chance to read any of the series yet. I think I need help😂. But there’s no issues as I am loving the books I’m reading.
Nancy: I’ve averaged over 200 for the past few years since I retired. These are mostly audio books so that I can do other things while getting a good story in. I suspect that this year will see a steep decline since my husband just retired on the 27th of February.
Chris: As for how many books I read in a year, it varies from two dozen to three dozen a year. That total is okay, I suppose, but you, Graeme, are a real book lover, with your 100 books a year achievement. I wish I could listen to audio books like you do, only they absolutely put me to sleep. It can be the world’s most fascinating book, but if I’m listening to it, I’m soon sleeping to it.
Bonnie: Read 98 books last year; 108 in 2024; and hit my peak in 2021 with 130 (covid year) and down slightly to 118 in 2022 ( still mostly covid).
Linda: On average I read around 100 books a year. Since I retired that is my main hobby. I live in a senior center . There is a library here stacked with books. I have easy access to a lot of older books. I feel that no matter how old the book, if it is good it is still a treasure. I don’t just read the current bestsellers. I have three bookcases full of books that are on my list to read someday. I like to read series that I have collected all the books from. That way I don’t have to wait for the next book to come out before finishing the series. That is why I sometimes read older books. Thank you for the recommendations again. Have a wonderful spring.
Mark: I read about 170 books a year (actual average for the five years since I’ve been retired is 173). Before that it had been about 90, until I discovered audiobooks, which I listen to while walking; that got me up to about 120. Retirement did the rest! Who knows–I might have hit 200 one year, except for Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive; I read it to my wife while she is cooking or driving. We’re 1/3 of the way through the final book. Absolutely superb, but really, really, *really* long.
Bob L. Averaging just over 200/year the last several years.
John B:
I get in somewhere between 40 and 50 books a year. The number is a bit low because I only physically read books. I’ve never enjoyed listening to books, so I’m limited to when I can actually sit down and read. Never enough time! Grateful for long flights, and slow beach days!
I can tell you how many books I’ve read in any given year, because I’ve kept o log of every book I’ve read in the last forty years, with a distinction of which books I’ve not been able to finish, so the count is accurate! It’s been fun! Take care, everybody, and pass your books on to tiny libraries.
Stephen T: 80-100
Daniel Z: I mostly use my Kindle to read, so my goal every year is to read at least one book a month. Since I am reading Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series, that goal is achievable. However, I do manage to read at least 2-4 paperback books and two hardcovers. So that brings my total to 18. My record is 34. I set that record in 2020 which of course was the Covid year. Someday, I want to grow up to be like you, Graeme.
Sven: 120 in a year. It’s great to have a library that has the books I want to read and authors to write them.
LeAnn: My promise to myself upon retirement in 2003 was to read 100 books a year. Some years I barely make my goal but other year I exceed it.
Nancy: Last year I read 68 books.
Jennifer L.: With the convenience of being able to read books on my phone and listen in my car, I’m averaging about 90 books a year over the past 5 years…with two of those years having over 110. I loved to read when I was younger, then got away from it some when I had a young child. Now that she and I are both a little older, making time to get back to one of my favorite things to do and enjoying it as much as possible.
Connie: I’m not sure how many I read each year, so I looked up my stats on Kobo and it only shows the previous two months. Gonna have to ask them to keep running totals or something.
Looking at the past four months of email stats, it’s been anywhere from 5-7 per month, so 60-84 books a year.
Not bad seeing as I only read an hour-sih before bed and an hour-ish when I get up. Helps my gear up for the day and wind down for the night.
Debbi C: It varies on my workload, but the last few years I have read:
22 -102
23 – 188
24 – 179
25 – 143
this year my goal is 125 due to a position change at work, but I will be retiring the end of the year so hoping to increase that goal. Currently this year I’ve read 24.
As you can see, I love to read, will even read about 2 books at a time, one at lunch and one in the evening and different genre’s so I don’t get confused.
Tom M: Hello Graeme…I never really counted how many books I finish reading every year. I usually have 3-4 going at one time. I would guess around 40-50/year. I very seldom listen to books in audio form. Somehow I cannot concentrate on them for long. But I might start 50-60 and not finish some. I hope to never stop reading even as I age.
Star Marie: I average 120 books a year and last year completed 15 quilts, several pieces of cross stitch and 100 cross stitch and needlepoint ornaments for my granddaughters.
Retirement agrees with me!!
Panda Y: I read two books a day on the average.
It is mostly because I listen to audio books,
My eye sight is not improving with time to audio books are fantastic.
Catherine A: 55 books read for 2025. Yay! You can never have too many books lined up for reading.
Wessel: I read every day, mostly in the evenings before we switch off the light. I read at least a book a week, so roughly about seventy annually. I never feel that I am waiting long at the dentist, doctor or whomever I have an appointment with since my precious e-reader is always with me. Because I am easily distracted I don’t listen to audio books, but I don’t miss that at all.
Benson: I read about 100 – 125 books a year.
Sandy: Wow, do people actually count how many books they read in a year?!?!? If I have to make a guess I would say at least 25 hardback or paperback books (I think that is probably low but 🙂 ) and at least 75 ebooks (I have over 10,000 books in my Kindle library). So, low-balling it, I would say at least 100 books a year (could be as high as double that amount, I really do not keep a count of how many I read – I just love reading!)
Gladys Sue: How many books do I read? I had to laugh at that!
The answer is, a lot. As many as I can.
But, I’m retired. And I’m a fast reader. And it depends on how many pages the books have, doesn’t it? I’m trying to read more long books, since I have the time. Last week I read the Century trilogy by Ken Follett, which is about 3,000 pages, so, only 3 books for that week.
But I also read middle school books, and humor books, and now and then a children’s book. And those can be read in less than a day.
So, I pulled my stats off of Goodreads for the last 6 years, and it came out to an average of 174 books a year. (The shortest book for 2025 was 48 pages; the longest book was A Little Life, by Yanagihara, at 720 pages.)
When I’m not reading, I’m at the library bookstore buying used books!
AJ: Last year I read roughly 230 books, which was down a little from 2024, but otherwise on the high side. Generally I would say about 200 yearly. Depends on vacation time, work load, etc. We now (starting mid 2024) use an AI program for our charting, which has given me more free time which I of course spend reading.
Love the newsletter as always and loved the librarian meme, read that out loud to my co-workers and we all laughed.
Mary Jo: I read 137 books last year, probably a personal best.
I run an annual reading challenge aimed at travelers who like to read and readers who like to travel, and that always gives me lots to add to my TBR list. Here’s the list of what I read last year (https://www.travelingwithmj.com/2025-travel-reading-challenge-8th-annual/).
I’m already off to a good start this year! The challenge list, and what I’ve read is updated here: https://www.travelingwithmj.com/2026-travel-reading-challenge-9th-annual/
Irene: This year I tracked all of my books, physical and ebooks for a change on Goodreads. I read 110 books by the end of the year which may be a personal best. They sent me a graphic roundup of stats and fun facts. I’m sharing them because they’re just fun to see.
Martina: How many books do I read in a year?? My husband says too many, lol! I’m reading on the train on the way to work, I’m reading during commercials, I even read while flossing and brushing my teeth!
In 2024, I read about 80 books on my Kindle, in 2025, I read 126 books on my Kindle and so far I’ve read 23 books! I also take physical books out of the library regularly that I didn’t add in to that total, so it’s even higher!
I love to read a wide variety of genres, but my favorites have dragons in them, like the Fourth Wing series. There are so many new books to be read, I’m super excited to continue reading and add to my total!!
Susie: I don’t set out each year to read a certain number of books. Instead, I put books on hold at the library or read them on my tablet. I have found that I don’t like audiobooks at all. I have kept track of how many books I read each year by listing the title and author, so I have a list in case I think I may have read a particular book. Now that I have Book Notification, I can check easily to see if and when I read a book.
Due to computer problems I am missing a couple of years; however, here are my more recent numbers:
2013 63
2015 78
2017 156
2018 129
2019 110
2021 140
2022 134
2023 180
2024 166
2025 179
2026 31 January and February
Debbie S: I listened to over 100 books last year. This year I hope to surpass that…so far I’m doing pretty good! 😁
Liz: This is an easy one for me. Since 1988 I have two notebooks. One is every book I’ve read since 1988. The other notebook is authors and their books. I don’t like to read a book twice since there are so many good books to read. When I started the notebook in 1988, I had two kids in high school. I only averaged about 15 books a year. When the first one went to college I read 27 books that year. When they were both in college, the number jumped to 48. When I retired in 1997, it jumped to 90 books that year. Now I average about 80 books a year.
I am always reading a fiction or nonfiction everyday online. I also always read parts of a biography everyday. Biographies take awhile to read. I just finished Teddy Roosevelt and Mark Twain. Now I’m reading Liz Taylor.
They are all so interesting.
A fun question for me.
Karen M.:, On average I read 80-90 books per year. My highest year ever was 2020 – hmm, wonder why?, when I read 118.
My go to are detective series, but I like anything with really good characters that you start to feel like you know. When I’m getting to the end of a series I start kind of rationing because I don’t want it to end. And then I get impatient with the author for not writing another one quickly enough 🙂 Crazy!
Greer L: On average, one a week! It used to be really expensive as I would buy the books….then I decided the LIBRARY was a better way as it was free…and my mom used to take us kids there every week to got a new book to read. THEN I DISCOVERED E BOOKS can be obtained from the Library and I never needed to leave home! And I could put a hold on up to a dozen books! And they have Skip the Line E section so I can get best sellers sooner than I expected! And if I were someone who liked to listen to books, I could do that too!
Mainly mysteries but lately reading about the chaos in our Fascist government!
Pat: You asked how many books I read in a year. Last year was the first time I kept track and came up with 101. This year I am at only 14 so far. I’ll have to get a move on!
I enjoy receiving the newsletter each month, there’s a nice interaction between you and the readers. I always read the mailbag, lots of tips for new reads.
Donna, Ballpark figure is 100-120. There’s months when I hardly read, others when I go through 20 books. My boyfriend likes to tease me and tell me the library sees me more than him. Also there’s no room on his side of the bed because of my books. 😂😂
Anthony: I like that question. I’m anxious to read the answers. Graeme when I read your newsletters and see how many you read I get envious that I can’t read that much lol.
So I just figured I would do what I can. I read about 20 to 25 books a year. On average I read a book a month and an audible book a month.
