When I started entering my reading list into a spreadsheet in 2019 to get a feel for which and how many books and other printed reading material I consume in a year, I had no idea where this would lead me and what insights this list would provide.
Details
I also kept such a list for the year 2025, which has just come to an end, and this time I surpassed my record from last year. With 413 books and other printed works read, I had 74 more items, or 21.8 percent more, on my checked-off reading list than in 2024, and almost twice as many as in 2019 and more than twice as many as in 2020. I am not counting articles and posts read online.
That means I read at least 1.1 books or magazines per day. The details are worth looking at, because I distinguish between the following categories (I left out categories from which I didn’t read anything in 2025):
| Category | Number |
|---|---|
| Comic | 238 |
| Non Fiction | 46 |
| Biography | 3 |
| Illustrated book | 11 |
| Magazine, | 61 |
| Children’s book | 1 |
| Novel, Short story, Crime fiction | 52 |
| Memoirs | 1 |
| Sum | 413 |
When I talk about comics, I am referring primarily to French comic albums, which I have been collecting for years. They typically comprise 48 to 64 pages, but in many cases they exceed a hundred pages or are so-called intégrales, i.e., collections of several albums from a series in one omnibus edition.
I also subscribe to several monthly or bimonthly magazines that cover topics such as comics, political cartoons, and archaeology. In the category of novels/novellas/crime novels, I have had a slight preference for crime novels over the last two years, devouring series by Donna Leon, Jean-Luc Bannalec, Martin Walker, René Laffite, and Luca Ventura. But Asian literature was also well represented this time, as I mentioned in this post.
Incidentally, I devour reading material in three languages: German, English, and French. 19.4 percent of the reading material came from female authors. Yes, I know, it could be more.
How can I get through so much reading material?
The principle is quite simple: I don’t watch TV, I don’t have TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, and I always carry printed reading material with me. I consciously take the time to read for 3-4 hours every day, in addition to my work, household chores, or business trips. It’s easy to find a place to read: on the plane, in a coffee shop, on the train.
Why do I read so much?
As an author and someone who regularly blogs about topics such as autonomous cars, AI, humanoid robots, mindset, innovation, and technology and behavioral issues, you have to read as well as write. Not only to learn about topics and research material for your own articles and books, but also to improve your writing style.
Crime novels
Crime novels are not only entertaining reading for relaxation, they also help me understand how crime novels themselves are structured to build suspense, create atmosphere, bring characters to life, and, of course, construct an exciting and surprising case.
And that’s not only interesting in theory, but also practical for me, because I’m currently working on my first crime novel. It’s a San Francisco crime novel that brings together my actual professional world of Silicon Valley startups and technologies in a crime story involving murder, espionage, theft, and greed. And it’s set in a place of longing called San Francisco, or more broadly, California.
But more on that later in 2026.
If you have any tips on good crime series that I should definitely watch, let me know in the comments. I’ve almost finished watching all the crime series mentioned and am looking for new material.