#310 - 2025 READING WRAP UP & STATS

Books Unbound

Ariel Bissett and Raeleen Lemay

Books, Arts

4.8 • 623 Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2025

⏱️ 123 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

THE MOMENT WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR! TOP BOOKS! BOOK DATA! STATISTICS! READING TRENDS!

Links mentioned:

Reading Spreadsheet Template: https://www.booksunboundpodcast.com/stuff

Fill out our 2025 Reading Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeOaqDlWh7z2bDMsq5m2lc2xugveJtr3jpMxF_JJG9p22g5cA/viewform

Article about niche bookstores: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/one-genre-bookstores-calgary-9.6989662Article about bookshops opening: https://globalnews.ca/news/10935412/a-new-chapter-bookworms-canada-independent-bookstores/)

Article about AI book winning a big prize: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/aug/18/author-rie-qudan-why-i-used-chatgpt-to-write-my-prize-winning-novel

Support The Podcast:

Join our patreon and become a Dust Jacket! patreon.com/booksunbound

Our website: booksunboundpodcast.com

Need Info or Some Books?Buy books with our affiliate link: https://bookshop.org/shop/BooksUnbound

All the books we mentioned in this episode: https://www.booksunboundpodcast.com/books

Use our affiliate link to get 2 audiobooks for the price of 1! https://tidd.ly/3dyW1Xw

Our Patrons:

A special thanks to our Gold Foil Team on Patreon: Adriane, Alex, Alli, Bellanora, Brittany, Bronte, Candis, Cassie, Christina, Claire, Debra, Diana, Emily, Gene, Gerald, Inbar, Jessica, Jill, Judith, Karina, Livi, Michelene, Nicole, Róisin, Sherralle, Tiffany, Vanessa!

Chapters:

00:00:00 - 2025 WRAP UP

00:03:29 - Milestones of 2025

00:05:13 - Raeleen’s Top Books of 2025

00:16:39 - Ariel’s To Books of 2025

00:30:17 - Spreadsheet Time!

01:15:36 - Mashed Potatoes 2025

01:30:58 - Subgenre of the Year

01:40:14 - Reading Predictions for 2026

01:51:22 - Favourite Authors of 2025

01:53:37 - Book Memories 2025

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone and welcome to Books Unbound, the podcast where we Unbind Books to get to their hearts with your host, us.
0:15.3	It's Ariel and Ray Lee.
0:18.2	We're in huge energy today.
0:20.7	High spirits, because it is our 2025! Reading wrap-up!
0:28.2	Explosion!
0:29.2	Woo!
0:30.2	Oh my gosh. So exciting.
0:32.9	It's the biggest episode of the year.
0:34.4	Yep. Just before we started, we were both like, I'm scared. Like we're always always a little nervous before we start this, because it feels like so many people are watching me right now, even though it's just you and me. It's a big episode. But we know that people look forward to this, but also it just feels like we're writing something down for the history books. It's true. Personally, I'm like, wow, I'm about to announce my top five books of the year.
0:55.4	It does feel monumental. It does, yeah. But you got to draw a line in the sand at some point,
1:01.1	and this is where we're drawing it. So, this is a huge episode. I'm sure the time on it
1:08.9	shows that. But this is going to be a big one. We have a lot to cover as we always do.
1:14.1	I'm going to start, I think like I always do, by giving you guys a quick rundown on what we're
1:20.4	about to do. So, basically a table of context. Yes. Yeah. We're going to start by talking about
1:27.4	how many books we read this year.
1:29.2	Then we're going to talk about our favorite books of the year.
1:32.2	That's what we're going to give our top book.
1:34.4	Oh, huge.
1:35.9	We're going to look at our statistics, okay?
1:39.6	Because both Raylene and I keep very detailed spreadsheets of everything we read. And we're going to do a
1:46.4	huge breakdown into the nitty gritty details. We're going to talk about how many books we bought.
1:53.4	That's going to be a scary look into our souls. Then we're going to talk about, we're going to
	...

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