A Note From Our Founder
“This update is what I needed!” wrote Jadyn on Instagram. “As someone who loves data, chef’s kiss,” said Charm de Leon. Margins readers are discovering their new stats, and I’m so glad they’re resonating. When we moved the calendar under Stats in the navigation bar last month, this is what we had in mind: a dedicated home for insights about your reading life. Below, a tour of what’s new. Best, Paul
New in Stats
Your reading life, quantified
The more you track what you read via Margins, the more robust the data in your Stats tab will be. Here’s a guide to everything you’ll find there now.
Ratings: Give books up to five stars (half- and quarter-stars included), then see how you compare to other readers.
Pages: See how many pages you read, from your best day and month to the books that took the most of them.
Reading Time: Understand when you read most, and what that time adds up to in TV episodes, movies, and social media scrolling.
Formats: Compare print, ebooks, and audiobooks by rating, days to finish, and average number of pages.
Series: Track your progress through every series you read, one book at a time.
Finish Speed: Learn how fast you finish books, from your quickest read to your slowest.
When They Were Written: Explore the decades your books were published in, and filter by week, month, year, or all time.
Genres: Find out which genres are your most read, how fiction stacks up against non-fiction, and which books are connected by genre.
Authors: Review the authors you read this year, who is new to you, and which ones you read most.
Listening: Tally up your audiobook hours, including your longest listen and the books you spent the most time with.
Meet a Book
Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House is called the definitive haunted house story, but her last novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, is the more disturbing one. Merricat, her sister Constance, and their Uncle Julian are the only survivors of a family poisoning six years ago. They live shut away from a town that despises them, and when a greedy cousin arrives, their fragile peace begins to crack. What then surfaces are the book’s real subjects: xenophobia, trauma, patriarchal control, and class resentment.
More Spooky Reads
USA Today asked Stephen King which horror books terrified him. His picks went straight for the jugular. “You can be afraid for your body, and you can be afraid for your mind – the Lovecraftian thing where you see something that’s so horrible, it blows your mind right out like a candle. But the idea that you would be afraid for your soul, that’s a big deal,” he explained. Here are his freakiest picks. Click on a title to track it on Margins.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954)
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (1971)
The Other by Thomas Tryon (1971)
The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris (1988)
Trad Wife by Sarah Langan (2026)
Meet a Reader
A full-time journalist from the UK, Heidi is a 23-year-old lifelong reader who gravitates toward horror, literary fiction, speculative fiction, and some fantasy. She reads in the evenings and takes her books to local coffee shops, switching between physical copies and her Kindle. “I can live a thousand lives and feel every part of it, and that enables me to lead with compassion,” she says. “There’s also so much community within reading. The friends I’ve made through this hobby are so wonderful and intelligent.” Sounds like an invitation to follow Heidi on Margins!
Also, welcome and thank you to new members: Gail, Brooklynn, Chloé, Nanii, Gingersnap, cnikens, casey, Paramitha, Rae, Lils, and more. Margins is free to use, but a paid membership unlocks extra perks and helps to support our small team.
Talk to Us
What’s one stats insight that changed what or how you read?
