It’s time for another Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.
This time, we’re talking about the different ways my reading habits have changed over time. Well, we’re in luck because I’ve been keeping track of my books read for quite a few years now and have all the data plotted on Tableau—so we also have some charts!
1. I’m Reading More
In the past two years, I started reading way more books than before, jumping from 10 books in 2022 to 45 books in 2023. The reason? I started working with Data Visualization and found several ways to plot my book stats. Every time I finished a book I wanted to see the change reflected on my charts! =)
2. More Books in English
Ever since I moved from Brazil to Canada at the end of 2016 my rate of books read in Portuguese drastically fell, in comparison with books in English. That made sense since it’s now way harder for me to get books that were published outside of North America. In the past few years though I was able to discover how to buy Brazilian books online, and have recovered some of those numbers.
3. More North (American) Books
Another consequence of my moving to Canada was that I started consuming way more North American Literature. That’s natural if it wasn’t for one problem: I was reading almost only American literature, and almost no Canadian books. That trend started to change in the last 2 years as well.
4. Reading More Diversely
In 2023, other than start plotting my book data and reading more, I also started my Read Around the World Challenge. That prompted me to seek authors from countries and continents I haven’t read before, and the number of African, Middle Eastern, Asian and Oceanic books increased. In the past, I was mostly focused on Europe, Brazil and the US. In 2024 I decided to focus on Asia, and that shows in the chart as well.
5. Goodbye Fantasy and Sci-Fi
Another interesting thing I noticed looking at those charts is how the genres I read changed over the years. When I was younger I used to read way more Fantasy (lots of Harry Potter) and Sci-Fi (lots of Asimov), but over the years I almost entirely abandoned those genres. Lately, this is because I’ve decided that Sci-Fi and Fantasy are better consumed in the cinema or on TV (hello The Expanse and Star Wars marathons).
6. The Self-Improvement Wave
I also noticed that there was a period of my life in which I consumed a lot of Self-Improvement and Productivity books. Interestingly enough, this coincided with the years I was trying to find a new career path, right after moving to Canada in 2017, until figuring out my data career in 2022. To be honest, a lot of those years I was feeling like a failure professionally, so I think I was trying to get better at being myself. We can say it worked?
7. Goodbye Old Favourite Authors
Another big change was that I left some old favourite authors behind. While writers like Isaac Asimov, J. K. Rowling, Italo Calvino and José Saramago used to figure a lot on my shelves in the 2000 – 2010s, they don’t appeal to me as much in the 2020s. Last year I tried Saramago again and it just didn’t resonate with me the way it used to. This also explains the drop in Fantasy and Sci-Fi books.
8. Hello New Favourites
While the old favourites went away, new ones came to join the scene. I’ve been discovering the works of Elena Ferrante, Isabel Allende, Itamar Vieira Jr. and Margaret Atwood lately, and I’ve not been disappointed.
9. Agatha Christie Resurgence
But of all the old authors on my shelves, there’s one that made a reappearance. I used to love reading Agatha Christie’s books as a teenager and had access to a nice collection in my uncle’s house. I forgot about it for a long time, but last year when I discovered that Sophie Hannah was continuing Christie’s legacy, I had to go back to it.
10. Reading More Women
This is something that I didn’t plan, but the share of female authors has been increasing over the past years. I think it has a lot to do with my change of favourite authors, names like José Saramago, Isaac Asimov and Italo Calvino who are now not so present on my shelves. It’s interesting how my reading used to be male-author-heavy during my 20s, and how it started to shift after I came to Canada – does it have to do with the editorial market in North America? Or is it me who changed my preferences?
What about you? How did your reading habits change over the years? Or do they remain the same?
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