2025: A Year in Books and Blogging

Happy New Year! 🥳

As we enter into a new year, I like to look back over the previous twelve months from a books and blogging perspective. It’s nice to summarise the year and, as long time readers of Jo’s Books Blog will know, I don’t need much excuse to roll out a few stats!

2025 was something of a mixed year for me. There were some real positives but also some low points, and this has influenced my reading stats. I don’t set a target to read 𝑥 books a year, but my total of 84 books read is a noticeable reduction for me. Ok – they were slightly longer books on average, but not by so much as to account for that difference. There were some excellent books though, and I shared my favourite books of the year here. I should add that I also loved Empire of the Dawn by Jay Kristoff, but read it after I’d shared my books of the year post 🤷‍♀️

My reading year in more detail:

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While I don’t pay much attention to the stats WordPress provides throughout the year, I do like to look at which of my posts were the most viewed come year end – it’s usually not the ones that I expect it to be! For 2025, the following were my most viewed posts, and the year I originally posted my review:

• Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2022)
• The Island by Victoria Hislop (2023)
• Us Against You by Fredrik Backman translated by Neil Smith (2019)
• All Her Fault by Andrea Mara (2021 – this one at least makes sense given the recent adaptation)
• Fair Play by Louise Hegarty (2025)

Of the posts I did publish in 2025, the following were my most viewed:

• Fair Play by Louise Hegarty
• The Artist by Lucy Steeds
• Human Rites by Juno Dawson
• The Inheritance by Trisha Sakhlecha
• Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

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Here’s to a great 2026! 🥂