2026 survey results are here!

Readers, last month we asked you to complete our first-in-a-while reader survey. I’m sooo grateful for everyone who took the time to fill it out. We appreciate you SO MUCH and you were on our minds as our team read through each and every response.

I love this survey because it’s fun. It’s great to hear from you, and as a personality geek, survey-making and taking is oddly enjoyable. Your responses are immensely helpful to me as a I plan for the blog, podcast, and book club, your questions inspire new posts, and your feedback helps set new directions as we continue to build our bookish community.

I’m deeply grateful for those of you who took the time to share about yourselves and what your experience is like around here. And there were a lot of you: 6,538 to be exact. Some of what you shared will directly impact our processes around here. (To give you one lighthearted example: because of survey results, we’ll stress a little less about coming up with the perfect title for each podcast episode.)

Blog comments across the web have gone wayyy down in recent years, yet through the years that’s been a huge way I’ve learned what kinds of posts you enjoy. For example, I’ve wondered if anybody wants to peruse thematic book lists anymore; your survey answers were extremely helpful in letting me know what actually interests you these days. (For those who are wondering: a big answer was “book list posts,” with 61.1% of you naming those a favorite.)

Some of your answers directly contradicted each other; no surprise, because we’re all just people with our own priorities and preferences and ways of using the internet. For example, some of you thanked us for including links to MMD blog posts and WSIRN podcast episodes in Friday Links I Love posts, and some of you told us it was a waste of space because you read about that stuff the first time. I get it. (For what it’s worth, the reason we include those links is so many of you have told us you use Links I Love as a sort of weekly digest. And then again, some of you told us you never read Links at all! That’s okay, too.) That’s just one of numerous examples we could share.

But if you’re interested, as I was, in learning more about what kind of readers are actually showing up in this space, we’ve got some fun data for you. Now… on to the results.

You still read a lot of books. 

The more you read, the more you read. Almost 65% of survey responders have read over 50 books in the past year. Over 200 of you—that’s 3.7%—are reading more than 200 books per year.

Please note: these stats are just for fun! I firmly believe that reading is NOT a competitive sport, and that quality matters more than quantity. Please note that if you read 1-6 books each year, you are in very good company, we salute you, and we’re glad you’re here.

Bookish joys

We asked about your biggest sources of readerly joy. Here are the top three results:

• Finishing a 4- or 5-star read (60%)
• Learning a favorite author has a new book coming out (42%)
• Visiting the bookstore in person and browsing the shelves (40%)

These results weren’t terribly surprising, but I’m still glad to know!

Bookish pain points

We also asked about your biggest readerly pain points. Here are the top three results:

• There’s never enough time to read all the books you want to read (66%)
• Feeling overwhelmed by too many options (37%)
• Getting distracted by the new and shiny and not necessarily reading what you really want (30%)

To all of the above, and especially the “so many books, so little time sentiment” that came in first: I feel your pain.

You’re happy-ish with your reading life.

The reading life can ebb and flow but right now, the majority of you are are either “mostly happy” or “pretty happy” with how yours is going. But for those of you who have been struggling, I hope you can take solace in knowing you’re not alone.

Top 10 completist authors

In honor of our new team series about completist authors, we wanted to know which authors you are completists for.

Here are the top 10 most mentioned authors, but they appear below in no particular order:

1. Ann Patchett
2. Elin Hilderbrand
3. Elizabeth Strout
4. Emily Henry
5. Fredrick Backman
6. Jane Austen
7. Liane Moriarty
8. Louise Penny
9. Tana French
10. Taylor Jenkins Reid

You love the library.

No surprise here, but these results still fill my library-loving heart with joy: 78.3% of you borrow your books from the library with great regularity, saying the library is a top way you get your books.

Thank you again!

Readers, that’s it for our 2026 survey! Thanks again for reading, and for helping me make this a happier corner of the internet.

With much love and wishes for lots more happy reading,

Anne