The Year 2024? That’s That, With Stats

Posted by

93

Now that the 10th-anniversary year of this blog has come and gone, I want to offer my VERY grateful thanks to all visitors and commenters. I love the conversations! 🙂

Last year, 2024, saw “Dave Astor on Literature” get by far its most annual views (56,862) and visitors (39,689). Also, the 52 posts (one every Sunday!) elicited 5,702 comments — averaging about 110 a week.

The “lucky 13” posts with the most comments last year:

1. “Faking a Look at a Presidential Book,” November 10, 185 comments.

2. “When Genres Are Happy Together,” November 24, 179 comments.

3. “Batman and Robin Aren’t the Only Dynamic Duo,” August 18, 167 comments.

4. “Expecting an A, Getting a B,” September 29, 150 comments.

5, “Gaslighting, Gaza, and Genocide,” May 5, 145 comments.

6. “Book Titles Get a New Look Thanks to Trump the Crook,” June 2, 140 comments.

7. “Misty the Cat…Unleashed Is Unleashed into the Book World,” June 16, 139 comments.

8. “Prose and Politics,” March 24, 137 comments.

9. “The Art of the Con,” March 17, 134 comments.

10. “Reading Painful Novels Can Be Worth the Pain,” January 14, 129 comments.

11. “From Russia With…Courage,” February 18, 127 comments.

12. “More Than One Ghost in This Post,” September 14, 124 comments.

13. “The Art of Depicting Large Families in Novels,” May 12, 123 comments.

My most-read post of 2024 was actually one I published in 2018: “Strong Female Characters in 19th-Century Fiction.” Not only the most-read piece in 2018 but in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, too. Keeps popping up in online searches, I guess. 🙂

Strong Female Characters in 19th-Century Fiction

The countries that accounted for the most views of my blog in 2024? See the statistical image below. Readership came from 182 of the world’s 195 countries!

One final number: I read 54 novels last year.

Thank you all again! And back to actually discussing literature next week. 🙂

Misty the cat says: “Marcel Proust wrote In Search of Lost Car.”

My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Misty says Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for my book features a talking cat: 🙂

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about calls for a cursing councilor to resign, and more — is here.

93 thoughts on “The Year 2024? That’s That, With Stats”

  1. Having a debate on Quora, that I would like to share with Word Press readers.

    The US, especially under President Trump, but even under President Biden, an ally of the Jewish state! That you would assume otherwise of the OP speaks more about your bias than anything else. UN Resolution 3379, for example has nothing to do with the failure of the UN to force the Arab voting blocks to recognize Israel as a member-State of the Middle East – not an Apartheid policy? Only Israel treated in this manner.

    UN Human Rights Council Resolution 7/1, often referred to as item #7, addresses the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, specifically focusing on Israel’s actions. This resolution mandates that the UN Human Rights Council conduct an annual investigation into alleged violations of human rights in these territories. Only Israel targeted in this disproportionate manner. That’s not Apartheid at the UN? Have introduced two examples of “Nazi like” behavior. Which serve as proof that you Mitch speak only out of your butt.

    In 2018, under President Trump, the U.S. announced its withdrawal from the UNHRC, citing concerns about the council’s effectiveness and its alleged bias. The U.S. government has also called for reforms within the council to improve its credibility and effectiveness in addressing human rights issues globally. Nations that hold no diplomatic relations with Israel should not have the UN Right to publicly condemn Israel. Not in the Human Rights Council nor in the UN General Assembly.

    This makes the US completely relevant to this OP’s declaration “enough of this Nazi like propaganda”. The issue of recognition of Israel by Arab nations and the dynamics of voting blocs in the United Nations and other international forums … The U.S. has historically supported Israel and has encouraged Arab nations to normalize relations with it. Hence for you to declare, as if your an authority on the subject, the intent of the OP as you did in your opening dumb-ass declaration, again only exposes your silly ass.

    Arab nations have often cited Resolution 242 as a basis for their refusal to recognize Israel, arguing that it requires Israel to withdraw from all occupied territories, including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, as a prerequisite for peace. Britain and France, the main architects behind the writing of the Chapter 6 language of UN Resolution 242. Therefore this EU Voting block sides with the Arab refusal not to recognize Israel as part of the Middle East voting block of nations. Recall that LBJ preoccupied by the Vietnam War, compares to Putin in the Ukraine today.

    The Trump Abraham Accords challenges the UN 242 priority established by Britain and French propaganda. European imperialism as a strategic policy exposed in the Suez Crisis of the 1956 War.

    The Abraham Accords represent a significant shift in Middle Eastern diplomacy, as they established normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab nations, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain. These accords, seen as a departure from the traditional Arab consensus that normalization with Israel, absolutely contingent upon progress in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly in relation to the principles outlined in UN Security Council Resolution 242.

    The U.S., under Trump’s leadership, positioned the Accords as a way to foster cooperation among nations in the Middle East, potentially leading to broader peace initiatives. Must Arab states view the Trump Accords as undermining British and French written 242? An obvious YES, rhetorical question.

    Contrast the Trump Abraham Accords against Obama’s UN Resolution 2334. Trump prioritizes Arab states recognition of Israel as the top priority. Whereas Obama’s 2334 prioritizes Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state and Eastern Jerusalem as its Capital as the top priority to achieve peace in the Middle East. Hence UN Resolutions 242 & 2334 compare to Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dumb of UN Nazi like propaganda.

    The Trump administration’s approach, seen as pragmatic, prioritizing immediate diplomatic relations – over the historical and legal frameworks that have traditionally governed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. UN Resolution 2334 emphasizes the need for a negotiated settlement that recognizes Palestinian statehood, including East Jerusalem as its capital. The resolution reaffirms the 242 international consensus that a two-state solution utterly essential for lasting peace.

    Obama treats Israel as a UN protectorate territory, wherein imaginary “International Law” determines the borders and Capital of the Jewish State. Hence Israel now, based upon the Abraham Accords, can demand that Arab states permit Israel to join the Middle East voting block in the UN and all together disband the UN Human Rights Council on par with the UNWRA – which makes the Palestinian refugee crisis a permanent hereditary UN established conflict.

    The Arab majority States rejection of the Abraham Accords establishes an Arab EU alliance against Israel based upon UN 242 & Obama’s 2334. Arabs Palestinians exist as refugees according to UNWRA. Refugees have no “Palestinian Rights”.

    The concept of “Palestinian rights” encompasses a range of issues, including the right to self-determination, the right to return to their homes, and the right to live in dignity and security, the heroin of Arab propaganda against the Jewish state since the Nakba defeat. These rights are recognized in various international legal frameworks and resolutions, including UN General Assembly resolutions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

    The plights of Jews for 2000+ years where Jewish refugee populations had no rights serves as the basis & model for Palestinians rights today. Arab states in 1948 flat out rejected the Israeli right to self-determination, the foundation of Zionism based upon the Balfour Declaration. Yet the UN bias declares its unilateral support for Palestinian rights, in the face of Israel excluded from the Arab Middle East voting block and UN HRC item #7? Hence “Enough of this Nazi-like propaganda”.

    All Arab states rejected the legitimacy of the Jewish state in 1948. Post ’67 came the famous Khartoum Resolution Three No’s. The phrase “Nazi-like propaganda” serves as a strong and charged declaration that reflects the OP’s deep frustration and anger regarding the narratives surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    When Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, it encountered same day military intervention by neighboring Arab states, which rejected the establishment of a Jewish state in what they considered “Arab land”. Hence Arab voting blocks refuse to recognize Israel as a state in the Middle East!

    This led to the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, resulting in significant displacement of more Jewish refugees expelled from Arab countries than Arab refugees, who fled based upon the orders issued by the States of the 5 invading Arab Armies. Yet UN propaganda continually condemns Israel over these Arab refugees and never demands that the 22 Arab countries repatriate their Arab refugee populations as did Israel with the Jewish refugees of ’48.

    The Apartheid UN recognition of Palestine as a UN member reflects an utter racist Nazi like superior race jargon, used repeatedly against the Jewish state. The UN under Obama’s watch recognized Palestine as a non-member observer state status. This directly compares to the influence of the Vatican in the UN.

    The UN serves as a secular Papal Bull which ordered that Jews of Europe thrown into ghetto gulags for 3 Centuries. Morality politics defines both the UN today and the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages.

    The UN, like the Vatican in the past, may impose moral judgments or decisions & declarations – that have significant consequences for specific groups, in this condemned category; the Jewish people directly impacted by the Catholic church prior to the Protestant Reformation. The concept of “morality politics” refers to the ways in which moral arguments rhetoric used to shape political decisions and policies. In the context of the UN and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, different rhetoric narratives inflame emotions arousing demanding: justice, palestinian rights, and other non-specified “historical grievances” invoked as evidence of a strong ‘international’, meaning UN, bias against the Jewish people.

    The Obama 2334 racism, which equates, as does UN Resolution 242, Israel and Palestine as “equal states”, utter Nazi like propaganda used to justify the invasion of Poland in 1939.

    242’s calls for a negotiated settlement to the “conflict”, stands upon the corrupt foundation that the Jewish state and the Palestinian state stands as equals. Utter UN racism! The Jewish state does not compare to the mobs of Palestinian refugees who – based upon Jews living in European ghetto gulags – have no rights.

    242 calls for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied during the “conflict” yet ignores the Polish and Russian partition of Prussia post WWII. The UN, the EU, and Arab states continue their long tradition of using “morality politics” to persecute the Jewish people. Resolutions like: 242 & 2334, Item 7, and Palestine’s observer status, serve as primary modern tools of UN racial bias against the Jewish state. Trump’s Abraham Accords serves as the first major breach in that corrupt UN system since 1967, and they expose Obama’s policies as reinforcing the old antisemitic paradigm.

    Like

    Reply

  5. Happy Old Year and Happy New Year, Dave!

    Not only was that one fast year zipping by, but the last 10 raced by, exceeding the speed limit.

    The stats are piquing but 2 stood out, to me.

    1

    “My most-read post of 2024 was actually one I published in 2018:” and all years until now.

    Strong Female Characters in 19th-Century Fiction

    What does that say? I have some thoughts on that. Yes searches count, but why are people searching that?

    Question: Have you written a post – Strong Male Characters in 19th-Century Fiction?

    2

    You read 54 novels last year.

    Time is flying by. I’m wondering if time would slow down, if you read fewer novels?

    I’m thinking you read about 1 book a week. If you read 1/2 a book a week, perhaps time would slow to 104 weeks a year?

    Just a thought!

    Pet Misty for me!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Thank you very much, Resa! All kinds of interesting angles and tangents in your comment. 🙂

      Yes, time does go way too fast. 😦 Will contemplate trying that half-novel a week approach. 😂

      I guess a post like “Strong Male Characters in 19th-Century Fiction” would be like writing a piece titled “An Orange Is Orange.” 🙂 In the especially patriarchal 1800s, there were of course strong and three-dimensional male characters galore. Thankfully, at least some memorable and decently depicted female protagonists also appeared.

      Happy New Year to you, too!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      • Even 3/4 of a book might help. 🤭

        Yes, I agree reading “An Orange is Orange” would be boring (unless it was about the orange felon, and as long as he didn’t make any money off it)

        Of course I was being somewhat facetious with “Strong Male Characters in 19th-Century Fiction” .
        Only somewhat?
        Unfortunately, yes.
        It’s hard for me to put into words.
        Oddly in, mmm, the year before your election, there were interviews and articles on the decline of the male, the poor teen boys who can’t compete in life and so have to have virtual girlfriends, young men returning to mother’s basement because women were getting all the good jobs, men dropping out of college because women were getting all the good grades, etc.
        They boo hooed all the way to the polls and helped elect an orange.

        This is an unfortunate swing of the pendulum, and I think it has not swung all the way to that side.

        Am I making any sense, at trying to get at a point?

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

        • To borrow a little from the first line of Pride and Prejudice, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that…most decent-minded people prefer an orange melon over the orange felon.”

          I definitely detected your humor when you suggested “Strong Male Characters in 19th-Century Fiction.” I should have conveyed that more. 🙂

          Yes, the “male as victim” myth has taken hold. Not that some males aren’t among the people grievously hurt by the American economic system, the American political system, etc., but they still generally have more advantages than females in a patriarchal/misogynist society.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

    • Oh, I’d very much like to get behind the idea of slowing down Dave’s reading so that we get more weeks in the year!

      Congrats on another fantastic year, Dave. It’s so interesting to see that 2018 post still getting so much attention. I wonder if we’ll ever figure out why that one stands out in the hundreds of posts that are just as good?

      Australia only 5th on the list? I’ll have to up my game in 2025 🙂

      Sue

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      • Thank you very much, Sue! 🙂 I think you putting Australia in the top 5 with your viewership is quite impressive. 🙂

        As for the continuing high readership of that 2018 post, I think it has something to do with the enduring popularity of certain 19th-century female authors: Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot, Louisa May Alcott, etc.

        There were more than 52 weeks in a year until some got laid off during the 2007-2008 economic downturn.

        Like

        Reply

        • Well that seems unfair, as I was also laid off during that crisis and could have done with fewer weeks of unemployment.

          I understand the popularity of those authors you listed, but you write about them a lot so I’m still intrigued about why that post in particular stays so popular.

          And I know I’m late to the party, and I’m melting in the heat here, but your last post about winter made me want to comment about CS Lewis’s Narnia where it’s always winter, and yet never Christmas, which seems more than a little sad, even though in this part of the world, Christmas is definitely a summer thing

          Liked by 2 people

          Reply

          • Sorry about your layoff back then, Sue. 😦 I was also laid off in 2008. 😦

            Thanks for that “Chronicles of Narnia” mention! Definitely a wintry work. Opposite weather here than in Australia — frigid cold in the northeastern U.S.

            I suppose that 2018 post had all those memorable 19th-century female authors in one place. 🙂

            Like

            Reply

  9. Neat to see which of your posts got a lot of attention. And that’s amazing about the number of countries where readers found your blog! I really like that WordPress shows us those stats, so we can see the stretch of readers 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  14. Happy 10 Years and congratulations Dave. I admire the attention you give to books, your posts are very insightful. Also, stats are always fun to look at!

    On the topic of blogging reflections – you were the first person to ever interact with my blog years ago, and that won’t change, here I am also adding to the Australian visitors bar to say thank you. 😊

    Looking forward to your update a and best wishes for the New Year!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  18. Bravo,Dave!

    👏

    Continued increase in your blog views in 2025, thank you for continuing to share your insight of not just classic novels but contemporary books including applicable films and other commentary. A happy and productive New Year 2025!

    Michele

    E & P way back

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  20. Thank you for an amazing year of reading, connecting, and sharing, Dave. Your passion for reading has fostered a unique connection among us, sparking engaging discussions that have enriched our understanding and appreciation of literature. Books truly serve as the glue that binds us. Thank you for creating a space where ideas flow freely and there is always a warm welcome.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    • Thank you very much, Rebecca! I greatly appreciate the kind words. 🙂 I totally agree that books — and discussing them — can help bring people together. Book blogs can be like book groups/book clubs, only online. 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  27. Congratulations, Dave! I always look forward to your posts, and I enjoy the chance they give me to think about the reading I’ve done and the books I’ve especially enjoyed–or the books I should try, thanks to your recommendations. I’m sure I’ll continue to get a kick out of them in 2025.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Thank you very much, Kim! 🙂 I greatly enjoy the conversations, too — and also get MANY recommendations from commenters who introduce me to the work of authors I never would have tried otherwise. 🙂

      Like

      Reply

  29. Impressive statistics, Dave, and well-deserved. I’ve looked back at some of your older posts, including the one on strong female figures in literature, and they’ve been well worth the time. Here’s wishing you another year of high reading figures for a selection of new blog posts. Looking forward to interacting with them! 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a reply to SoundEagle 🦅ೋღஜஇ Cancel reply