What did I read? 2025 in books, and Tracking your reading in 2026 📚

It's fun to see how your reading year went. Looking back at my 2025, the numbers were:

• 107 books read 
• 61 books (print)
• 46 audiobooks
• 61 non-fiction
• 47 fiction
• 39 biographies / memoirs
• 21 Aotearoa New Zealand
• 9 graphic novels

I started using Storygraph, which like the name suggests puts a fun graphical spin on your reading.
Storygraph reading wrap-up

Trends in my 2025 reading

Keeping track of your reading means you can look back and notice trends or themes in your reading. Mine are coincidental rather than planned. 

Reading modern classics

I mostly read new books, but this year I picked up some well-known books that I haven't read before. I enjoyed them all, but A Little Life was excruciating. I who have never known men and Station Eleven were two of my favourite reads of the year. 

• I who have never known men Jacqueline Harpman. "This is the end, my friend, the end. This strange, bleak, stark work of speculative / dystopian fiction is gobsmackingly good."
• Station Eleven Emily St John Mandel. "A wonder-filled dystopia - both epic and human in scale."
• My year of rest and relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh. "A weird claustrophobic book that has atmosphere aplenty."
• A little life Hanya Yanagihara. "2025 is the 10th anniversary of this book's publication. Basically it is the story of four friends and their intersecting lives. Oh my it is unrelentingly bleak and sad. It is so OTT that it's ripe for parody."

Surprise!

I loved these two surprising books. I didn't know the artist Kent Monkman, or anything about the production of ginseng in Wisconsin - but I LOVED these books. 

• Ginseng Roots: a memoir Craig Thompson
• History is painted by the victors Kent Monkman

True Crime packs a punch

The true crime books I read this year were bloody brilliant. If you've turned your nose up at true crime, thinking it's just gore - try these titles. The combination of history, society, and human nature is endlessly fascinating. 

• Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the time of serial killers Caroline Fraser
• Story of a murder: the wives, the mistress and Doctor Crippen Hallie Rubenhold
• Polkinghorne: inside the trial of the century Steve Braunias
• The Peepshow: the murders at 10 Rillington Place Kate Summerscale
• Whack job: the history of axe murder Rachel McCarthy James
• The Mushroom Tapes: conversations on a triple murder trial Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper, and Sarah Krasnostein

People behaving badly

So many baddies of all varieties, both fictional and real!

plus see also True Crime picks above!

How to track your reading

How do you note what you've read? My system is:

Deciding what to read

• Look at New For You (titles picked by our selectors), new titles, and various booky sources for titles of interest
• Put holds on those books I want to read (it's free!)
• Add other books to my For Later shelf
• Make a monthly "What you waiting for" list of upcoming titles of interest

Having three books on the go

• An audiobook (for the commute, walks, and working round the house)
• A print book for reading at home
• A print book for reading at work on my lunch break

Recording and rating what I've read

• Start a book, note it in my diary
• Finish a book, transfer it into my "book notebook"
• Give it a star rating and brief review in the library catalogue
• Add to Storygraph

Here are my current three 2026 books on the go - audiobook, home book, lunchtime work read:

This works for me. I'm up to 1,657 items on my Completed Shelf. I can sort it by date, rating, author, or title - and filter it by subject, format, etc. Tracking what I've read makes it easy to sum up the year in reading and make "Best of the year" lists. 

Tracking your reading in 2026

If you are keen to make 2026 a Year of Reading 📚, you will probably want to keep track what you've read. There are lots of ways to do this, both digital (the aforemention Storygraph, Good Reads) and analogue (notebooks, journals).

🔥 Tip: Use the library catalogue
Record what you've read using the Completed Shelf, give books ratings and reviews, and even show which books you own.
Read our guide How to keep track of what you've read using our catalogue.
This information can be private, or you can share it with library customers (spread the word about good books!). 

If you have any tips and tricks, let us know in the comments. 

Happy reading!

Related Reading about Reading

• Jessie on levelling up your reading
• Moata's year of reading intentionally
• Simone reads around the world - 50 countries, 50 books
• Return to reading recommendations if you want to get back into reading and want ideas of where to start
• Best of 2025
• My year of reading in 2024