Tag: storygraph

2025 in Books

On By Luther M. SilerIn ReadingLeave a comment

I need at least one more hobby. I mean, I have reading, and being a huge nerd about reading, and collecting books. I need a fourth.

According to Goodreads, I read 189 books in 2025, at 87,775 pages. According to Storygraph, I read 189 books in 2025, at 88,360 pages. Let’s call it 88,000 pages, as I’m entirely uninterested in trying to reconcile the discrepancy between the two. At the beginning of this year I started a bunch of different book app accounts and said that I was going to eventually settle on one, and Goodreads and Storygraph scratch slightly different itches, so I spent the year keeping both updated. 88K pages works out to 241 pages a day. How? I read every single night for at least half an hour before going to bed, and on weekends and days off I generally get up between 6:00 and 8:00 and spend a few hours reading in my library. For the record, I’m not trying to get up that early to read; believe me, I’d kill to be able to sleep until noon again if I wanted to. This is one of my body’s ways of showing me I’ve gotten old, apparently, but it’s working out for my reading, I guess.

26 of the books I read were nonfiction, and Storygraph claims I read 5% of them digitally, although I’m not convinced I was especially vigilant about making sure that was recorded properly. I said last year I wanted to read six books about teaching, and didn’t pull that off, mostly because after reading the first one I decided books about teaching were dumb and I didn’t want to read any more of them. I still want to read more nonfiction next year; maybe I’ll shoot for 36 nonfiction books by the end of the year. I definitely want to read more books digitally because my shelves are groaning and I’m genuinely running out of places to store shit. My bookshelves can only get so efficient, y’all, and I don’t think my wife is going to agree to buy a new house.

Average page length was 464 pages, which is another reason I’m thinking about moving more to digital. I read a ton of doorstoppers– according to Storygraph, ten different books were over a thousand pages. That’s nuts.

I read books by 141 authors, 86 of whom were new to me this year. Authors I read more than one book by were:

8 Books: Matt Dinniman

7 Books: Brandon Sanderson

6 Books: Robert Jordan

4 Books: Samantha Shannon, Ryan Cahill

3 Books: Brian McClellan, Megan E. O’Keefe, Wesley Chu, Anthony Ryan, Nghi Vo

2 Books: Keith Ammann, Leigh Bardugo, S.A. Barnes, Suzanne Collins, Osamu Dazai, H.E. Edgmon, K.M. Enright, James Islington, Yume Kitasei, James Logan, John Scalzi, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Xiran Jay Zhao

I’m expecting Robert Jordan to be the big winner next year, as I expect to finish The Wheel of Time, unless it kills me, which it might. Actually, that’s not true, I’m going to finish them even if it does kill me. I’m gonna do it this time, God damn it. I promise. Naomi Novik and Robin Hobb are also going to get a lot of attention.

I didn’t make any particular effort to pay attention to race or gender this year; those repeat authors mean that in terms of raw number of books read I’m absolutely tilted toward white men, but a quick count shows 74 authors who at least immediately scan as female-presenting, which is slightly more than half of the 141 total. There are probably a handful of nonbinary people in there who might move those numbers a bit if I looked closer.

Next year … man, next year all I want to do is get my TBR under control. That’s it. I will probably not manage it.

And, finally, the Big List o’ Covers:

Where to find me on the Internets: 2025 Edition

On By Luther M. SilerIn Blogwanking, Geek2 Comments

I chose that image because I am convinced that you’re supposed to see the word “fucking” in the first five logos, despite the Instagram image being in the way, and I’m trying to figure out what to do with the rest of it.

Anyway, I haven’t done a social media roundup in a while, and I keep turning things off, so in the absence of anything else to talk about (that said, I’m ranting on Bluesky right now) let’s list off my accounts.

  • Infinitefreetime.com. You’re here now. If you’re not here right now I’m very confused. This is the only one of these accounts that is never ever Going Away.
  • Microblogging is handled on Bluesky, at @infinitefreetime.com. I will probably cross over 3000 followers this weekend. Whee!
  • I really really really want more StoryGraph followers, so if you use that app, please send me a friend request at, wait for it, infinitefreetime. I’ll follow you back! I promise!
  • I’m still on Goodreads! My profile picture there is ancient and I should update it.
  • I’m not updating my YouTube channel any longer, but you can find it at lutherplaysgames.com anyway. You never know, I might get back into it eventually.

God, is that it? I think that’s it. I’m not on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, Google+. was never actually real, I don’t recognize that green app up there, and I don’t really post on TikTok so I don’t need any followers over there. I shut down my Mastodon account and was never on Threads. I’m on Reddit, but don’t post very often? I don’t even know if Reddit really has any follower/friend features.

Anyway, point is, go follow me on Bluesky and Storygraph. Please.

2025 Reading Goals

On By Luther M. SilerIn Reading4 Comments

I was hoping to get to the stats nerdery post today, but I took a nap this afternoon with a cat on my chest, so it’s just going to be this. 2024 was one of the heaviest reading years of my life, and it was a year with no particular reading goal beyond “whatever I want” and “clear my TBR shelf,” which not only never happened, it never came close to happening. I want next year to have a little bit more focus, and I’m going to throw one ridiculous challenge at myself in January just for the sheer hell of it.

Reading Goal the First: In January 2025, I will read all five of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives books, plus the two supplemental novellas. That is, according to Wikipedia, 6,335 pages. I have read the first two books and part of the third. My guess is that if I can get through Oathbringer this time without the issues I had the last time I picked it up, I’ll be fine; 204 pages a day during a month where I have one three-day weekend and don’t have work until the 6th is not even a particularly demanding pace. That said, shit happens. We’ll see if I can pull this off.

Reading Goal the Second: Setting a number of books goal is almost meaningless at this point, but let’s go with 100 again. Most years I don’t have to push too much to hit that number, and unless I rediscover some other hobbies I’ll blow it away again, but I don’t want to set it so high that I start adjusting what I’m reading to hit a number. That said …

Reading Goal the Third: At least 22 nonfiction books over the course of the year. Why 22? That’s two a month if you ignore January. I may adjust this after I look a little bit more closely at what I read in 2024; I’m pretty sure I didn’t read that many nonfiction books this year and I want to up the number somewhat.

Reading Goal the Fourth: At least six of those 22 books must be about teaching and, ideally, teaching math. I joined the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics this year and one of the benefits of that membership is deep discounts on their professional library, which is good; that said, these books tend to be hellaciously dry so I’m not going to commit to too much. Six is one every other month. That’s not bad at all.

Oh, and one more thing: Starting with January 1st, I’m going to start looking into moving away from housing everything at Goodreads. I’m going to start simultaneously recording my reading on Goodreads, Storygraph and Bookly, and we’ll see which app wins out. Right now Storygraph looks pretty cool because it appeals to the numbers nerd in me and there appear to be a thousand ways to generate charts and spreadsheets and such from your reading, and really, if you can’t make a spreadsheet out of something, is it even worth doing? I’ll report back on this as I get into what the different apps can do.

That’s what I’ve got for right now. Do you have any plans for your reading next year?