Including graphs from Book Roast’s CAWPILE, and my own, as needed.

With 156/165 books, I didn’t reach my original goal, but still, I’m very happy with the quantity and quality of books I read in 2025.
Let’s look at it more closely.

My total numbers of books read/listened has been fairly consistent.
111 books reads (108 in 2024), and 45 listened to (53 in 2024) = 156  (161 in 2024), which is an average of 13/month (13.4 in 2024)

Books read in 2025:
111. That’s an average of 9/month
Total of 20,781 pages (23,093 in 2024), which is an average of 56 pages/day (63 in 2024).
That’s an average of 187 pages/book (213 in 2024).
Definitely reading shorter books!

Books listened to in 2025:
45 [53 in 2024]. This is an average of 3.7/month
Total of 19,291 minutes (20,522 min in 2024) with an average of 52 min/day (56 in 2024)
That’s an average of about 7H07/audiobook. (6H27/audiobook in 2024).
And listening to longer audiobooks!

So I read less books than last year, and shorter, but my audiobooks were longer.
Also, this does not show in my stats, but I also read 11 Japanese short stories written by women in August.

In graphs, this is what it looks like
(if you need to zoom on these,
right-click then open image in new tab – then you can zoom in)

18 in July is my highest, but not my record, which was 21 in June 2024

Definitely shorter books: only 1 month with over 4,000 pages

Wow, never got to 90, and 5 super low months

Only 1 month with over 40 hours.

Nice diversity.
Lots more poetry than usual, thanks to my Mary Oliver challenge

More print than last year,
and a bit less of audio, which surprises me

Even less female authors than last year.
The diversity that really counts for me is country of origin
and languages, as you can see below

Out of a Total of 104 authors (124 in 2024),
64 were new to me (61%. It was 35% in 2024). I thought it would be much less!

Books by the same author: 63 [57 in 2024]:
12 by Agatha Christie, Mary Oliver
7 by Tove Jansson
5 by Guy Delisle
4 by Wataru Nadatani, Sunny Seki, Georges Simenon
3 by Haru Hisakawa, Jean-François Pasques
2 by Michel Bussi, Érik Orsenna, Ellis, Peters, Lun Lun Yamamoto,
Marguerite Yourcenar

I’m happy with this diversity, though it is 6 less nationalities than last year!

Even less English than last year.
Less languages than last year, but sme original ones!
See details below.

In translation: 45 [51 in 2024] = 28% of all books read

• 19 from the Japanese
• 7 from the Swedish
• 6 from the French
• 3 from the Romanian, Russian
• 3 bilingual Japanese-English
• 1 from the Chinese, German, Greek, Sadukkari

In original language other than English: 41 – 26% of all books read
41 in French

Only 4 Re-Reads (3 in 2024):
– Huis Clos, by Jean-Paul Sartre – with a French student
– The Three-Body Problem comic #1, by Cixin Liu – graphic-novel version
– Une Rose seule, by Muriel Barbery – with my Discord francophone group
– Mémoires d’Hadrien, by Margeurite Yourcenar – with a French student

I’m surprised that 30% of my reads were published in the 2020s!

Oldest: On the Human Image of God, by Gregory of Nyssa (379)
Newest: Physics for Cats, by Tom Gauld (Oct 7, 2025)

More or less the same as last year.
A few more bought – French audiobooks subscription

36 countries these books led me to (30 last year):
France (30)
Japan (28), US (26) England (21)
6 books set in space (1 being on the Moon)
4 in Moominvalley
3 in Finland, Germany, Russia
2 in Canada, Italy, Romania
1 in Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Chechnya, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Ingushetia, Israel, Kuwait, Myanmar, North Korea, Rwanda, Scotland, Switzerland, Turkey, Vietnam
1 was in hell
1 in a parallel world

I visited 10 US States:
New York (5), Ohio (3),
California, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, Texas

Shortest book:
Cent mille milliards de poèmes, by Raymond Queneau – 10 pages

Longest book:
Alfie, by Christopher Bouix – 468 pages

Shortest audiobook:
My First Goose, by Isaac Babel –  10 minutes

Longest audiobook:
The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, edited by Otto Penzler – 32H33

Funniest:
 Physics for Cats, by Tom Gauld

Most Unique Book:
Cent mille milliards de poèmes, by Raymond Queneau
Click on my review to see why I’m sure you have NEVER read anything like this!!

Most tearjerker:
The Travelling Cat Chronicles, by Hiro Arikawa

Most disappointing:
The Prefect, by Alastair Reynolds

Creepy:
La Guerre des mouches, by Jacques Spitz

Eye-opener:
Les Ombres du monde, by Michel Bussi

Best reading companion:
Proust, roman familial, by Laure Murat

Beautiful illustrations:
Tokyo on Foot, by Florent Chavouet

Biggest discoveries:
Orwell’s Roses, by Rebecca Solnit
Proust, roman familial, by Laure Murat
Cyborg Fever, by Laurie Sheck
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, by Merlin Sheldrake
Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman
Calypso, by Oliver K. Langmead

Favorite characters of the year:
Joe (Des Diables et des saints)
Lou and No (No et moi)
Riko (Cat + Gamer)
Rochelle (Calypso)
Tsukiko (Strange Weather in Tokyo)
Cats: Musubi and Soboro (Cat + Gamer)
Robot: Alfie (Alfie)

Classics I finally got to read:
I read 57 classics, that is 36% of all my 2025 books. (42% in 2024)
Check my 5th list (tab “sheet 4”) here.
The ones with the red margins are the ones I read – with the date.

Books present for a while on my TBR that I finally got to read
(other than the classics just mentioned):
Cat + Gamer #6-8
Tout ce qui est sur terre doit périr, by Michel Bussi
Orwell’s Roses, by Rebecca Solnit
35 kilos d’espoir, by Anna Gavalda
Strange Weather in Tokyo, by Hiromi Kawakami

Which authors new to me in 2025 that I now want to keep reading?
Tetsuya Ayukawa
Christopher Bouix
Laurie Sheck
Thomas R. Weaver
Stefan Zweig

I have read a good number of books from series,
though less than last year (42.2% in 2024):

There are at least 5 series I really want to keep reading from

Best titles:
Eternity in the Moment
Every Sigh Can be a Prayer

Longest book title:
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures,
by Merlin Sheldrake

Shortest book title:
Lux, by Maxime Chattam

Title categories, inspired by Marianne @ Let’s Read:

Adjectives in title:
abridged, artificial, beau, big, black, blue, clos, closed, dernier, douce, ecstatic, entangled, fruitful, fun, golden, grand, green, hard, human, invisible, joyful, last, little, lucky, many,  mortelle, new, nice, old, other, petit, sauvage, secret, selected, seule, spiritual, strange, travelling, white

Animal in title:
animal, cat, cerf, cochon, crane, dinosaur, dog, mouches, owl, swan

Nationality in title:
American

Nature:
canicule, Christmas, cloud, day, death, Earth, foot, frost, fungi, goose, grass, island, jour, leaf, leaves, life, light, Lune, Midwinter, Moon, November, nuit, pasture, pine, queue, river, rose, sea, Space, summer, Sunday, Terre, wave, weather, West, wind, winter, world

Number in title:
1, first, 3, 5, 6, 12, 15, 35, 400, 1000,
cent mille milliards

One word title:
Accident, Alfie, Calypso, Confusion, Frankenstein, Hostage, Lux, Randomize, Slan

Person/creature in title:
Fictional:
Alfie, Alien, Athena, Chimneys, Cyborg, Dodin-Bouffant, Edward Robinson, Frankenstein, Goodhart, Haroun, Hopkins, Jane, Kappa, Laila Starr, Layton, Listerdale, Maigret, Moominpappa, Mr. Eastwood, No, Philomel, Rajah, Robot, Triffids, Yotsuba, Yuko-Chan
Real:
Edgar Allen Poe, Elder Arsenie Papacioc, diables, God, Hadrien, Hokusai, Kabir, Mishima, Orwell, Proust, saints

Place Name in title:
Burma, France, Holy City, Japan, Jerusalem, Moominvalley, New York, North Korea, Ohio, Paris, Pyongyang, Styx, Tokyo

Preposition in title:
about, and, dans, de, des, du, en, et, for, from, in, of, on, sans, with, without

Questions in title

COME BACK ON TUESDAY
FOR MY LIST OF FAVORITE BOOKS READ IN 2025

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