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.