How many books a year do you read, on average?
 

I'd say for me it can go from 5 books a year to 12 books a year. My average lies somewhere within there. It's gotten up again within the last couple of years after I bought a much needed new e-reader, though.

If you're reading between five to twelve books per year, you're definitely beating me! I have a small library in my house and I haven't done much reading at all this year despite my then-New Year's resolution to do so. :tconfuse:

If you mean a, "real book" as in not something like a comic or graphic novel, and something just with words in it...I haven't read a "real book" since my english literature class in college over 20+ years ago.

I wasn't aware reading books was still a thing people did. I thought it largely died off after the Harry Potter craze ended in the early 2000's. People really read books for personal enjoyment? Unless you're a librarian or a nerd I can't see any enjoyment in reading a book.

3/10

Weak, mate.

I have honestly never picked up a "real book" after that one English literature course I had to take in college over 20 years ago. Again this is not counting comic books or graphic novels with pictures. But if you mean a real fiction book with just words and chapters, I've never picked up a book to read for personal enjoyment in my entire life.

Books always felt like they were for old people when I was a kid. Like 50+ year olds who were reading since the 1940's or something. Our generation grew up in the visual age of movies, TV shows, videogames and the internet. I cannot even fathom picking up a book.

But please recommend me some books, a little context of what I like: I can read a little bit of everything, I prefer tech and business books though I've read a lot on those topics so it's hard to find recommendations there. I've read most of the "big" and popular books so please don't recoomend 1984 like it's some hidden gem. I dislike modern fiction. I generally dislike self-help books, though I guess if it's really good I'll make an exception but in general I feel thay're a bit basic. I like philosophy, I'm not big into poetry since it's difficult for me to "get it" but I'm open to the suggestion if you think it's good. I 'm not a big fan on reading about the human body in general since i'm a bit of a hypochondriac. But yeah in general I am open to various topics, especially ideas I'm not familiar with. Help me.

The thing about me and reading is that I go through it in bursts. It's been a while since I last read this year. I've read 12 books this year so far and my goodreads goal was to read 25 of them. Not that it's a literal goal, since I never reach my 20-25 books goal anyway :lol: but it's more of an "aim" that I want to get close to somewhat.

Meanwhile there's people who read 50 or even 100 books in one single year. I'm guessing those people aren't into video games like me and possibly don't watch tv series, movies, anime, etc.Reading is probably their only hobby. More power to them, but I couldn't just live off reading as my only hobby.

I haven't been consistent at all, but I have been reading more books lately, mostly in the past few months. Up to seven this year, working on the eighth now. Read six last year, not counting a thin volume on Mr. Bean that was basically a glorified magazine.

I read about 4 books a year for the classes I teach, about one book a month that I read to my kids and another two a month for myself, mostly high-profile fiction with the occasional biography in between. So about 40 books a year, sometimes a little more, sometimes fewer.

Ah you must be a German teacher or something. What authors do German kids read in school? I dunno how old your students are but I doubt you start them with Nietzsche in 5th grade :lol:

When it comes to books this is how I feel about them:

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When I was young only nerdy kids or librarians read books!

But you're a nerd too with your love for Ninja Turtles, Pokémon and video games lol

Ole Cubed always loves to double-down on his troll-nonsense when people point out how dumb it is.

Yeah, I teach English and German. Nietzsche is never taught in German class, his works are dealt with in philosophy and ethics classes. In later grades, we read Goethe, Büchner, Lessing and sometimes Schiller and a variety of more contemporary novels. In English class, it‘s mostly contemporary literature with the exception of one Shakepeare play (usually Othello) and often Lee‘s „To Kill a Mockingbird“.

Have you read the Bert books by Anders Jacobsson and Sören Olsson?

To my kids? No, I had never heard of them before. When it comes to Swedish books for children we‘ve read most of Astrid Lindgren‘s work, Pippi, Emil, Bullerbyn, you name it. The kids love Sven Nordqvist‘s Petterson & Findus, too.

Ah that's a fair point. Of course Nietzsche would be taught in philosophy class instead. Does Kafka get taught as well? I know he lived in Prague which was in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire at the time, but are German language authors from Austria and Switzerland also taught in Germany?

Ah right, that explains why Goethe Institut is a thing.

Do you guys read Max Weber and Karl Marx at some point in school as well? And in which subject? Because while they were philosophers, their work is also highly political and historically relevant.

English class here... we read an Oscar Wilde book: The Happy Prince when I was a kid. I think we also watched a movie adaptation of Romeo and Juliet but we didn't read it. We also went to the theatre to watch a MacBeth play when I was in 7th grade, I think?

I've never read any of those English-language classics teenagers in American cartoons bemoan about like Ivanhoe, Moby Dick, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Mark Twain and Charles Dickens books, etc.

No, it's nothing you should read for young children, they're aimed at teenagers.

Come on barkworm bark some recommendations up, don't be a worm. at 40 a year surely you have a great list to share, don't be selfish.

I could easily do that but you said that you dislike modern fiction and that's about 90 per cent of what I read. Sooo, it wouldn't make too much sense, would it?

Yes, absolutely. I love Kafka, ‚The Metamorphosis‘ and ‚The Judgement‘ are often taught in higher grades or ‚The Trial‘

They are read in politics classes.

If you want a short but powerful classic, definitely go for ‚Of Mice and Men‘. The others you mentioned are great too (I haven‘t read Ivanhoe though) but much longer and thus less accessibble. ‚Huckleberry Finn‘ is a great read but you could also go for the 2024 re-imagination by Percival Everett ‚James‘ which is like a woke version of it, told from the perspective of the slave Jim but later becomes like a Tarantino-esque revenge story.

I even visited Kafka's museum when I went to Prague last year. Got myself a keychain from the museum shop even!

Ah you have politics classes? We don't have those here outside of university. We covered Marx and Weber in my 1st year of uni, but I pursued a humanities degree. If I had studied architecture, engineering, medicine, law, etc. I'd not have gotten taught them in uni either.

Wasn't Dickens paid by the word?

As for Huckleberry Finn, if I ever read it I'll stick to the original. Clearly the book is a product of its time just like, let's say, Tintin in Congo is.

The Kafka museum is amazing, it's more like an experience.

Dickens wasn't paid by the word, that's just a myth. His works are brilliant but his novels are very lengthy which can make it hard to get into them.

Ah there was a user who used to post here who was an English teacher, I believe. Cipher was his username. He said Dickens was paid by the word and couldn't imagine anyone reading him for leisure.

Come to think of it, one of the reasons I missed the whole Harry Potter craze despite the first book coming out in 1997 when I was still a kid was simply because I did not read. Harry Potter was huge in the late 90's and early 2000's, but it's one of the few kids fads at the time that passed me by.

I didn't even watch any of the 8 movies adapting the books till like 15+ years later, and even then I only saw them each once. So yeah, Harry Potter was probably the big children's franchise at the time I skipped simply because reading books is not my thing.

I also missed the harry potter craze, even as a kid the books did not seem appealing, the only thing I read was goosebumps and other young adult sized books. By the time the movies came out I was transitioning to be a teenager and Pokemon already had all my attention. I do remember playing the HP trading card game and people were jealous of me because I got fluffy in the one boosterpack I bought which was like their Charizard :lol: My first date with a girl was also a harry potter movie.

I mean if you have a recommendation that is must read because it's that good I'll read it I guess, but yeah not a big fan of the modern fiction. I feel older fiction did make you think more about concepts and ideas, like modern sci-fi is just copying star wars and it's boring. Not big into fantasy and I don't read horror/romance or other genres like those, but I'm open minded. I guess thriller/mystery is interesting to me but I don't think I've ever read a novel that I say was a great mystery novel but haven't really given that genre a chance only read like a book or two.

I didn't like reading books when I was a kid either. So that's also why I never read the HP books, even though my aunt gave me one of HP's books as a birthday present when I was a kid. I've never even opened it.

I watched the first couple of HP movies as a kid. I remember enjoying the 2nd one at the time but I have zero memories of it these days.

Harry Potter was "cool" among my generation up until 6th or 7th grade. Then it became lame and a thing only girls could like. The Lord of the Rings was much cooler in comparison.

I remember lots of guys crushing on Emma Watson and all but she never did anything for me when I was a kid. Ditto as an adult. She's very overrated.

In the music section, I saw that you‘re into Rock music. Might want to consider reading some rocker autobiographies. Anthony Kiedis‘ Scar Tissue was really good as it gives you a very detailed look into the history of the Chili Peppers as well as a fascinating look into the mind of an addict. Same goes for Mark Lanegan‘s Sing backwards and weep which is downright depressing at points and well-written. I heard good things about Tony Iommi‘s Iron Man but I haven‘t read that one (yet). I was rather disappointed with Ozzy‘s I am Ozzy since it doesn‘t give you much insight about the process of, you know making music even though it was entertaining enough.

One of the best novels I‘ve read in the last couple of years is Paul Murray‘s The Bee Sting, a 600+ page story of the troubles of a family in contemporary Ireland. It‘s a brilliant novel for several reason: The narrative is told from different perspectives and full of little quirks to highlight the family members‘ personalities. Murray also succeeds in adding thriller and some mild fantasy elements into the story without getting into a more pulpy territory.

A gut-wrenchingly fun read that was released this year was Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda. It‘s a collection of interconnected short stories which all deal with women in Mexico and how their life can be a living hell. Overall very gloomy themes all told in a darkly-comical way.

Okay, how much reading did you guys get done in 2025? I've read 36 books, mostly contemporary novels. Big highlights:

• David Szalay - Flesh: A novel about a man's life, starting from his his first sexual experience as a fourteen year old kid with a much older woman, it takes you through various parts of his eventful life. It left me depressed.
• Ben Markovits - The rest of our lives: About a middle age guy who tries to leave his wife after his kids move out by going on an extended road trip.
• Ian McEwan - What we can know: Set in the 22nd century, it's about a scientist who's trying to find a long lost poem only to discover the poet's hidden past.

12 books only, here. I read a mix of fiction and non-fiction, as usual.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is the big standout. It's a classic and had an interesting twist near the end.

As for non-fiction... hum perhaps Guns, Germs ans Steel by Jared Diamond? It was fine but got a little repetitive after a while. And I know it's not a very well liked book by anthropologists, for example. But I thought it was an interesting read and Diamond was well-intentioned.

Funny that you mention this, I've never read Lolita and literally bought it this morning. Looking forward to it.

Oh I bought it for Christmas some years ago(2022 I think?), but only got to read it in 2025.

I liked it but I can't say whether you will or not. Only one way for you to find out heh.

There are five books I need to read before I‘ll get to it so we‘ll talk again in… let‘s say April lol.

Wouldn't you even read TMNT books if they were around on a wider scale?

Hey, it's not a race. Take your time!

Anyway, time to set my 2026 reading goal on goodreads. As usual I will aim to read between 20 and 25 books. At the end of the year I'll only read 10-15 at best, but again, 20-25 is not a literal goal. It's just a little "push" to remind me to read.

I used to have a Goodreads account but decided to delete it when I got rid of all social media (apart from this dump lol). The reading goal was a fun setting but it was a bit frustrating as well. Today, I keep all my thoughts on books in a reading journal.

I've finished two books so far (one of them was a novella though). Han Kang's We Do Not Part and Marlen Haushofer's Killing Stella . I can recommend both of them, I learned a lot about one part of Korean history through the former.

Korean history? I recommend this one: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...hrimp-to-whale

Short and straight to the point. It's only about South Korea, though.

Oh thanks.If you want something like that about North Korea, check this one out: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...9tqW8qX5&qid=6