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A Reading Life

1999 to 2026  ·  423 books merged from four records  ·  as of 30 August 2026

Reading

199920052010201520202026
4.0 1.7 5.7 books finished per quarter
pages, cumulative108,160
books finished423across 26 years and four records
pages116,173estimated, where knownbest year201765 books finishedrate swing65×one book to 65finish rate39%2021 to 2024, from 87%

Fiction

199920052010201520202026
3.0 0.2 0.7 novels finished per quarter
running share26%
fiction since 201813%it was three in four before 2005
before 200574%63 of 85 booksnovels since 200537of 307 dated bookspoetry0in 423 booksfiction by era
  • 1999–200474%
  • 2005–201211%
  • 2013–201711%
  • 2018–202613%

Authors

199920052010201520202026
0.8 0.1 1.3 books by women per quarter
countries, cumulative24
distinct authors310260 of them appear exactly once
anglophone86%364 of 423 bookscountries2814 appear onceby women7217%, rising to 21%most read
  • Crichton19
  • Brown7
  • Kalman7
  • Palahniuk6
Crichton counts one co-written

The shelf

199920052010201520202026
1.5 5.4 2.9 left open per quarter
finish rate47%
books still open127the oldest has waited nine years
oldest open9years, shelved September 2017to read14chosen, never startedmedian wait4years, of the 127 still openlast finished
  • Pocahontas2026-08
  • Range2026-08
  • Polysecure2026-08

Strips and step charts run over the 392 books that carry a finish date, on one shared axis of 108 quarters from the fourth quarter of 1999 to the third quarter of 2026. Amber lines are era averages, annotated with their value. Heroes and the figures beneath them are corpus-wide and include the 31 books no record can date.