Chat Between Chapters: Authors we have read the most (2026 version)

We did this topic quite a few years ago (2018), and I thought it would be fun to see how our list of the authors we have read the most has changed over the years.

 Julie:

Did you know I’m a data nerd?

This is how I did my list – with Excel workbook magic. After exporting my books from Goodreads, I filtered for “read” only. Then I removed duplicates (for example, if I had individual books listed and the series omnibus, I removed the omnibus). I kept novellas. I’m making that note because last time I didn’t remove duplicates. I also removed duplicates if I did the graphic audio in two parts, I didn’t count those as two books. Finally, I went to my “re-reads” shelf and added those books to the list because a re-read counts as another read by that author. Then I did the COUNTIF. This time around, I included authors I have read more than 5 times. From this list, I excluded kids’ authors (yes, I have also tracked kids’ books I read with the kiddo) and things like Shakespeare, because most of those were read in school long ago, though I had them tracked on my Goodreads more recently. I started tracking Goodreads in 2006. Ok that’s my author review analysis.

It is interesting to note that the high numbers are due to reading an entire series or multiple series by the author. And many of these were read so many years ago and line up more with the table from 2018. So just for funsies… I did an additional review of authors read only since 2020 to grab the more recent years of my life. For this list, I included 5 and up because it’s a small list. I’ve read more widely in the last few years and haven’t read the same author again and again.

I am also curious to see this number change when I add the authors on my read-since-2020 list to the all-time tracking, by adding back all the books by those authors. This would show the authors that I am still consistently reading a lot versus authors I have read in the past but stopped reading. So I took all the authors I’d read since 2020, checked whether I had read any of their books before 2020, and added those back to my list for the COUNTIF. Here is the result of authors I continue to read:

I guess this would be more representative of authors read of all time to continue to be repeat authors. Asterisks indicate authors I haven’t read until recently, where the total counts match the list above.

Ok fine, one more data analysis. Authors read the most in the last TWO years (since I became more active in the Booksta space last year). This list of repeats is much smaller. But it will grow as I work through some series. I included 4 and above because the list is so short. I planned to use this list to showcase new-to-me authors over the past few years, but I see there’s one name that keeps coming up.

Likewise, I repeated the exercise to include books by authors I read pre-2025 that are on the list of authors I read in 2025-2026. For a full continuity comparison. Here we get:

And there we have it. I don’t know what we have or what conclusion to draw from this, with authors dropping off the list from 2020+ to only 2025+, but anyway. Data.

Lynn:

Ugh. Julie’s over here having us math when we are readers! Internet to the rescue. I joined Goodreads in 2012; I only added books that I actually tracked\read since then. I have a bunch of books marked as read with no dates; those did not count. And hah! I have no duplicates in my list!

Here’s my list of authors with at least 7 books read. And yes – I agree with Julie on the series of books. Lots of these authors have long series of books which I’ve read.

Interesting that this list is mostly female authors, with the male authors way down at the bottom. And this list crosses a lot of genres – romance, fantasy, YA. I am all over the place with the books I read (low boredom threshold).

I find it interesting that I’ve read 1 book, and 1 book only, from 295 authors.

I also took a look at authors I’ve read the most of since 2024. Here’s that list. A lot more newer to me authors on this list, rather than repeat authors like Janet Evanovich, who I’ve mostly given up on.

Now that’s enough math. Let’s get back to the reading.

What about you?

We are also linking up our discussion posts with the 2026 Book Blog Discussion Challenge hosted by Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight and co-hosted by us!