Friday, January 02, 2026

Bestselling in 2025

No good explanation for why more boys than girls are born after wars.


Quite a few readers have posted 'year in reading'-round-ups -- always interesting to see (though I continue to be baffled why people post these before the year is actually over). Here some of them I've come across [updated]:



       Bestselling in 2025 in ... Switzerland

       The Swiss Booksellers and Publishers Association report(warning ! dreaded pdf format !) -- unfortunately without actual sales-numbers -- on the bestselling German-language titles in Switzerland in 2025
       Translations -- of works by Dan Brown and Joël Dicker -- come in at third and fourth, with German and Swiss Book Prize-winning Die Holländerinnen by Dorothee Elmiger rounding out the top five. The runner-up was the latest by Martin Suter, while the surprise number one -- which was only released in September -- was Lázár by youngster Nelio Biedermann; see also the swissinfo report, Biedermann und Elmiger schreiben ungewöhnliche Bestseller or an English translation. 
       Lázár is actually coming out in English fairly soon: Summit is publishing it in April; see their publicity page. 


       Reading in ... the US


       You.gov has a new survey of 2,203 U.S. adult citizens asking them about their 2025 Reading and Books (warning ! dreaded pdf format !); see also David H. Montgomery's YouGov's The Surveyor-post summing things up, Most Americans didn't read many books in 2025.. 
       Yes, the findings are ... not terribly encouraging. Forty per cent of respondents reported having mot read or listened to any books whatsoever in 2025 ..... (Hey, the survey was conducted 15 to 19 December, so maybe a few more managed to read one in the remaining two weeks .....)
       Other findings:
  • More people reported reading a play (Drama; 12 per cent) than Literary fiction (11 per cent)
  • Only 51 per cent of respondents reported having a library card
  • 2 per cent of respondents report owning more than 1000 physical books -- while 32 per cent have fewer than ten at home (but only 19 per cent reported having fewer than 10 in the home they grew up in)
  • As many people organize their books by color as do by "Dewey Decimal, Library of Congress or other formal system" -- one per cent (i.e. probably statistically insignificant)
       The survey has lots of detailed information, breaking down the responses; so, for example, 15 per cent of those identifying as Democrats had read some literary fiction, but only 8 per cent of Republicans; the poetry divide is 8/2 (and the only category Republicans read more of than Democrats was 'Religion and spirituality' -- 16 per cent vs. 8. 
Also: they only looked at three income categories, but the differences were pretty stark: 
47 per cent of those with a family income below US$50,000 had not read a book in the last year; while only 31 per cent with a family income above US$100,000 hadn't read a single book.
       As Montgomery's post points out, a mere four per cent of readers read nearly half of all books (46 per cent). Yes, reading looks evermore like a niche activity .....
Posted by at