Programming Note: As is my custom, next week I’ll be looking back over the year that was—but I’ll try to come up with some new material, too. Many/most others have already done their best-of/year-end wrap-up posts, but I’m a stickler—I can’t start doing this kind of thing ’til the year is over. My brain doesn’t allow me to work that way (I just hate projecting things in general—and some years ago when I just read irresponsibly but hadn’t adopted the name, the last novel of the year was so far beyond the rest that I can’t start looking back until 12/31 at the earliest). I’m not sure at this point, but I bet there’ll be something read in the last 10 days that makes this year’s lists, one more vote for me doing this in my own time.
As we kick off 2026, I wanted to take a glance back at 2025—286 books finished—which is one of my better totals (Goodreads has it smaller, but I know there are a few titles I couldn’t get added there). Given all the Life Stuff™ in my life this year, I was shooting for 240 or so. I will not complain a bit over that. I stopped counting pages mid-year, and got really inconsistent in rating things by stars (and anticipate doing so more in the year to come). So, I can’t compare things this year.
On the blog front, I put up 514 posts—a drop of 59 from last year, that bothers me a bit. I had another year of solid gains in traffic—views and visitors—I’m not big-time (never going to be), but those numbers consistently weird me out (which is why I only look every 6-12 months). My follower count (here and on social media sites) is encouraging and humbling, I really feel like I ought to do more to earn them. Maybe there’s a book on how to be more interesting as a person that I should grab.
I got too caught up in other stuff and abandoned my monthly Highlights: Lines Worth Repeating series (it’ll be back soon), as well as my monthly wrap-ups (they’ll be back soon, in a different format). Oddly, I changed up my tracking spreadsheet this year to make it easier to produce those posts, but they made everything else worse. I’ve hopefully taken the right lessons from that. But on the positive side, my Literary Locals series slowed a bit, but it’s still chugging along. Grandpappy’s Corner, slowed a bit–the Grandcritter is coming around to letting me read to him, and the Littler Critter likes it when I do–so I have hopes for that series. My contribution to Self-Published Author Appreciation Week, Spreading the Self-Pub Love, ended up taking more effort than I thought, but the results were worth it. The YouTube channel hasn’t quite taken off as I hoped, but I had fun doing what I’ve done, and have some ideas to keep at it (and those who’ve given me feedback has been positive, so, that’s all good for me)
As is my habit, here’s my breakdown of books by genre—I read a few more hybrids this year (of course), but I stuck with the overarching genre, as is my practice. The percentages changed more than I was prepared for—I knew/assumed that my Mystery/Thriller reading had taken a dive—I didn’t figure it’d be that steep. The growth in Fantasy and SF makes sense, but I didn’t expect it to be that noticeable. Children’s books staying flat is what I assumed–I tend to only count the ones I read by my choice (not the Grandcritter’s) and that I’m going to write up—and I did less of that than I expected to in 2025. I’m going to force that number to go up this year.
| Genre | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2012-18 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Children’s | 9 (3%) | 9 (3%) | 25 (8%) | 5 (2%) | 2 (1%) | 5 (2%) | 7 (3%) | 11 (4%) |
| Fantasy | 49 (17%) | 41 (17%) | 34 (11%) | 32 (10%) | 20 (7%) | 35 (13%) | 28 (10%) | 30 (11%) |
| General Fiction/ Literature | 29 (10%) | 27 (11%) | 26 (9%) | 24 (8%) | 22 (7%) | 16 (7%) | 21 (8%) | 22 (8%) |
| Mystery/ Suspense/ Thriller | 54 (19%) | 90 (30%) | 114 (37%) | 117 (38%) | 90 (34%) | 105 (38%) | 107 (38%) | 532 (35%) |
| Non-Fiction | 38 (13%) | 22 (9%) | 22 (7%) | 29 (9%) | 22 (7%) | 28 (10%) | 25 (9%) | 22 (8%) |
| Science Fiction | 36 (13%) | 10 (23%) | 34 (11%) | 28 (9%) | 20 (7%) | 20 (8%) | 30 (11%) | 25 (9%) |
| Theology/ Christian Living | 35 (12%) | 31 (13%) | 30 (10%) | 45 (15%) | 38 (13%) | 23 (8%) | 34 (12%) | 25 (9%) |
| Urban Fantasy | 29 (10%) | 32 (13%) | 33 (11%) | 34 (11%) | 49 (16%) | 42 (16%) | 25 (9%) | 29 (10%) |
| “Other” (Horror/ Humor/ Steampunk/ Western) |
6 (2%) | 8 (3%) | 9 (3%) | 2 (1%) | 12 (4%) | 4 (2%) | 6 (2%) | 7 (3%) |
Here’s a few more stats I typically share. I find them interesting, and maybe you will, too. I really need to make better use of StoryGraph, if only because I like the look of their charts.
That’s a 6% uptick in re-reads. Last year, I’d predicted a big jump. I’m not sure that qualifies, but it’s good enough. 
Borrowed, Author-submitted copies, and ARCs went down, everything else ticked up. I’m not sure I like that trend–but I can live with it.
Paperbacks and eBooks went up, Hardcovers went down accordingly–and Audiobooks dipped a bit (I’d expected worse).
Enough about me. Now we get to my favorite part—I want to talk about you, who keep me going and show an interest in what I’m doing here, and give some thanks to people for their impact on The Irresponsible Reader (the blog and the person) in 2025:
- Thanks to everyone for your comments/feedback—texts, emails, comments here/Goodreads, tweets/Twitter-replacement posts, FB comments, even the occasional Face-to-Face conversation. Keep it up! I really appreciate the time you took to leave feedback. Hopefully, you can tell that you’ve shaped the conversation here—it has, I assure you. Many of you are pushing me to be a better writer—some of you push me to read better books. I’m going to give a particular thanks to Robert Germaux, The Write Reads, Allyson Johnson (you really push me to think about what I’m reading!), W&S Bookclub, Carol, and KWHR for their encouragement, retweets, and interaction.
- A hearty thanks to all the authors, editors, illustrators, translators, and other people behind the production of the books I spent time with this year—this blog would be nothing without your efforts, your blood, sweat, tears, fears, work, love, dreams, hopes, art, and words. Your books were my companions throughout this year, and I can’t thank you enough for them (and I hope I get to spend time with many of you again soon!).
- More thanks to all those who requested that I read and talk about your (or your clients’) books. I know how much work, effort, heart, and everything else that went into your books. It’s super humbling. I know you all didn’t like what I said, but I am grateful for the opportunity.
- I cannot thank every participant in the Q&As from this year enough. I got to ask “A Few Quick Questions” to: Kate Ashwin, Ed Duncan, and Adam Holcombe.
- Beyond those, I really want to thank Nathan Keys, Cindi Hartley, Ashley DeLeon, Glen Gabel, and Joe IDAHO (aka Samuel Smith) for answering my questions about writing in Idaho.
- And I do have to thank Jodie, M.D. Presley, Paul Regnier, Michael Michel, Tom Bookbeard, JCM Berne, Vanessa Ricci-Thode, and A.J. Calvin, for sitting down with me on camera. I had a real blast doing those and would love an excuse to do them again.
- I also hosted some great Guest Posts this year. Many thanks to Robert Germaux, Reena Bhojwani, Shannon Knight (as welcome and well-timed as always), and Lawrence Gale for those.
- All my kids have acted as sounding boards this year—helping with some graphics, jokes, themes, etc. They (largely) do a solid job of pretending to care about what I’m saying about books, reading, and whatnot. A hat tip to Owen, Calvin, Katrina, Carleigh, Taylor, and Machen.
- A lot of thanks need to go to the Grandcritters, and my pack—Tanny and Athena. Not only have you brought me joy and inspired some reading, you’re also great at reminding me to stop all this nonsense and pay attention to life around me.
- A special thanks to my wife. Without your support, indulgence, and patience, this thing wouldn’t exist—and I’d read a lot less (the horror!). Thank you. I love you.
- And thank you all for reading. This may feel obligatory and insincere. It is not. Honestly, each time I get a notification of a comment, or a like, or a share, or a follow, etc. it makes my day. To know that someone took a couple of seconds or more out of their day to glance at this? It means the world to me. Thanks.
Have a great 2026, and I hope you find plenty of good things to read!
Cut down on my Goodreads Want-to-Read list and the unread books that I own (a perennial project, but 2024 was not good for the size of that stack)—at least two of the Book Challenges this year should be a fun way to help.
I’ve posted favorite Picture or Children’s books before, but now that I’m a Grandfather, I’m thinking about these things more. So, it’s not unusual for me to read these kinds of books, but I’m doing more of it. I fully expected this post to be larger this year–but there were fewer new-to-me reads and many, many re-reads (which I really should’ve anticipated). Anyway, here are the books that really stuck with me and struck me as ones to keep talking about.
