I’ve been tracking by reading on Goodreads for a few years now, and I spent a bit of time organizing all of my books so I can learn a little about my reading habits. This analysis looks at time series data starting in 2019, showing counts of books and pages read as well as cuts by book ratings, shelves, and other metrics.

Books and Pages Read Over Time

I started commuting over an hour each way to work in 2019, which was when I started reading a lot more. I read a bunch more books during COVID in 2020 and even more in 2021. I’m fairly consistent throughout the yera, but the Goodreads Reading Challenge definitely motivates me to read a bit more in Dcember.
The chart on the left largely mirrors the one above that shows books read by year, though my average pages per book has gone down each year. The chart on the right shows the monthly number of pages read over time. There are some really high and relatively low months each year, depending on how busy I am and/or how much I’m enjoying what I’m reading at the time. This beeswarm chart shows the distribution of number of pages for each book I read over the years. I read some really long books in 2019 and 2020. The swarm fattens at around 300 pages. This chart is interactive, so you can hover over each dot to see more info about the book.

Ratings

I look at the average rating for a book when deciding if I want to read it or not. The majority of books I read have near or above a 4.0 rating, but there is a pretty wide distribution overall.
The chart below compares my ratings to the average Goodreads community rating. I’m a generous rater, as over half of my ratings are 5 stars and just a handful are 3s. The blue dots are books that I rated higher than their average (all the 5 stars, for instance), while the red dots show books that I enjoyed less than the average reader (e.g., all the of the 3-star ratings, as I’ve never read a book rated below a 3.

I’m fairly consistent in the distribution of ratings, with just about 50% rated as 5 stars in 2021 and 2022.

Binding and Library Books

I make sure to select the correct edition of each book I read, so that it accurately reflects both the number of pages and the binding. I’ve read more and more hardcovers over time.
I bought a bunch of books in 2019 in addition to the backlog of unread books sitting on my bookshelf. I got a library card in the latter half of 2020, and ever since then almost every book I read was checked out from the library. The uptick in borrowing from the library is partially responsible for my increase in hardcovers read, as the majority of my library books have been hardcover binding.

Shelves

My interests vary, but the line chart below shows that there are three clear favorites among the shelves that I sort my books into: sci-fi, history, and historical fiction.
The below chart shows the distribution of ratings among all these different types of books. There are some types of books that I’m more likely to read lower-rated books from (horror and sci-fi) while I rarely stray below 4 in others (science and sports). Of course, the overall distribution of ratings within different genres probably varies as well, especially when considering older or more popular books.

Publication Years

I often switch between contemporary and older books throughout the year, as evidenced by the spread of the y-axis in the chart below. This plot is interactive, so you can zoom in or hover over dots to learn more about the books.

This might be an easier way of viewing the trend in original publication year. The most common pulication range in 2019 and 2020 was 2010-2019, but books published in 2020 or later have been the most common the past couple years.

To-Read List

I’ll usually add a few books each month to my “to-read” list, but sometimes I go a bit crazy. For instance, I read an article in July of 2022 listing all the classic books I needed to read, resulting in my to-read list going up by nearly 40 books! The chart on the right shows the balance, which takes into account actually reading those books that I add to the to-read list. It occasionally goes down, but generally has been on a slow march upward to where it currently sits, at over 160!