Angel's Year in Books

A story about stories, aka my attempt to combine the two things I did most this year :)

It's that time of the year again, where we chart our progress on goals we set when we were far too optimistic. Fortunately for me, I love reading and routinely ace every Goodreads challenge I've joined – which is why it's my favorite habit to track :)

Copy of [My First Data Story] A Day In A Life of A _______'s property — 15 years apart and still nothing has changed. My eyesight is just probably worse.

For 2025, however, I wanted to challenge myself a bit more: to go beyond speed reading and try imbuing some intention in my favorite hobby. I asked myself:

Just how diverse can my reading choices get?

We'll get to that in a bit, but first, the basics. I read 45 books this year – a total of 10,332 pages. Some of the very best include:

So now we've got that covered, we can investigate these titles more closely. But first, what do I mean by diverse reading choices?

Personally, this means seeking out narratives beyond what the white, Western, heterosexual, male lens has to offer.

I'm looking for female voices, queer/POC authors and protagonists, translated work, and local literature.

So given this criteria, how did I fare? Well, I'm a hypocrite.

So, what do I do now?

Since reading has always been second nature to me, I've never had to think so deeply about the practice. Usually, I would just browse the shelves of my local bookstore, pick whatever plot stands out, and put it in my cart immediately, without stopping to think if it aligns with my criteria.

This coming year, I will:

✏️ Read more fiction

I'm more drawn to nonfiction because it resembles real life. (And yes, also because I dream of publishing a collection of my own and need all the inspiration I can get.) But there are actual scientific studies that stand by the power of immersing ourselves in another's shoes.

"Indeed, an ever-growing body of research shows fiction has the proven capacity to make readers more open-minded, empathetic, and compassionate—capacities critical to ensuring we come out the other side of a global pandemic and a culture of militarized white supremacy with greater societal equity."
– The University of Berkley (Source)

📚 Buy from unconventional places

It's no wonder that I'm drawn to the same kind of books in different fonts: I only ever go to brick-and-mortar stores. Now that I'm moving to a new city, it's about time that I discover neighborhood indie bookshops, secondhand stores, or even swap meets. Basically, anything outside of what I'm already used to is a welcome surprise.

🫂 Solicit recommendations from my community

I'm fortunate to be surrounded by people who are shaped by such rich experiences that they've developed diverse tastes and preferences. I already know what I want, but I wonder what my friends will have to suggest based on what they think of me.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Angel, it's not that deep."

Only it is. With reading taking up the lion's share of my free time, I am molded by the worlds I immerse myself in and the characters I expose myself to. I am who I am because of the stories I've been told – and if I open myself up to new ones, who knows what I'll be able to share for myself? :)

Methodology I created my own dataset on Google Sheets from scratch, referring to the Reading Challenge 2025 page on my Goodreads account. You can find the original document here. From there, I made use of basic commands to sift through and make sense of the data. Thank you, Peiying for holding this Data 101 camp for us! One day, I will learn how to make a more sophisticated version of this on Python...