Books in numbers through the years

In 2014 on a lazy sunny afternoon, I took a challenge to read 1,000 books over my lifetime. Almost a decade later with nowhere close to the goal, the love to read & learn still endures.

The origin

In the summer of 2014 with no career prospects or ambitions, I sat on my bed lazying around reading the song of ice and fire. I came across the quote

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”

As you guessed I thought it would be cool to read 1,000 books over a lifetime. I already had a Goodreads account setup and had tracked 10 books I read the year before. So I simply continued with it.

Over the years, the number of books I own kept growing and started to look like a small library resting in the cervices of the available furniture and window sills.

In 2020, I started learning web development and thought it would be a fun side project to create a digital library to understand my progress over the first decade and the decades to come.

Below is a visualization highlighting how my reading habits have been trending over the years.

2013201420152016201720182019202020212022202301020304050Numer of books read by yearYearNo of books readtooltipweweyang: 12timqian: 13

I have read 179 books in the last 11 years, totalling 62,817 pages read so far.

Of the total 179 books 61% have been fiction

Non-Fiction vs Fictiontooltipweweyang: 12timqian: 13FictionNon-Fiction
2013201420152016201720182019202020212022202305101520253035FictionNon-FictionFiction vs Non-fiction over the yearsYearNo of books readweweyangtimqian

With less fiction in recent years with 0 fictional books read in 2020

The average book being 351 pages long

201320142015201620172018201920202021202220230100200300400500600Average book size by yearYearAverage pages tooltipweweyang: 12timqian: 13

2023

4

Books read

2,630

Pages read

The Midnight Library

Read this year

2022

6

Books read

3,279

Pages read

2021

5

Books read

1,521

Pages read

Ready Player Two

Read this year

2020

14

Books read

2,927

Pages read

2018

12

Books read

3,887

Pages read

Dark Matter

Read this year

2017

11

Books read

3,879

Pages read

2016

17

Books read

6,039

Pages read

2015

52

Books read

16,387

Pages read

Designing for People

Read this year

2014

38

Books read

15,773

Pages read

Looking for Alaska

Read this year

2013

10

Books read

3,775

Pages read

Mockingjay

Read this year

Made with 💖 by Atharva Patil. © 2025 Atharva Patil .