December 30, 2025

2026 Reading Goals

I figure 3 days before the start of the year is a good time to decide what my reading goals are for the year. Who am I kidding. Cutting this close feels bad. Do not like. Nevertheless, here we are. I have decided on 4 goals for the year. Let's discuss.

  1. Read 50 books. Yeah, that's a drastic reduction from this year's goal. I will meet the 2025 goal, but at what cost? I hate crossing the finish line at the last minute, but it appears to be a theme this week. Anyway, I decided to reduce it to reduce my anxiety about how many books I'm reading each month. With a 50-book goal, I will only need to average 4-5 books a month. That feels doable and if I get behind, easy to catch up. That being said, it's a completely arbitrary number, and no matter how much I read, I'm still a reader. At the car dealership today, the salesman asked me if I'm a reader and Mike made a noise of disbelief, "Oh, yeah." So the person whose opinion matters most, still thinks I'm a reader.
  2. Read the 10 oldest books on my TBR. This really worked out in 2025. I enjoyed this goal. I didn't enjoy all the books necessarily, but I enjoyed checking them off my list. So I'm doing it again. This list does have one caveat. The book that has been on my shelves the longest is The Odyssey, but I read it in 2014, which is when Goodreads puts in on my list. I bought a new copy of it this year, which is the one that is on my to-read shelf. That definitely does not count. So basically, I am leaving that off this list. Here are the books on this list:
    1. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison
    2. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
    3. The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan
    4. The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl
    5. The Bad-ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer
    6. Arcadia by Iain Pears
    7. Morgue: A Life in Death by Dr. Vincent DiMaio
    8. The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye
    9. First Impressions by Charlie Lovett
    10. The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett
  3. Complete Book Bingo. I found a reading bingo challenge and I decided to give it a whirl. It appears to be easier than the other book challenges I've done. Here's what is on the Bingo board:
    1. A book with a one-word title
    2. A book set in a different country
    3. A book that was adapted into a movie
    4. A book with a one-word title (again)
    5. A book with a non-human protagonist
    6. A book published in the year you were born
    7. A book written by an author of color
    8. A book with a green cover
    9. A book with a number in the title
    10. A book with a one-word title (this appears to be a favorite)
    11. A book with an LGBTQ+ protagonist
    12. A classic novel
    13. A book with a love triangle
    14. A book written by a female author
    15. A book set in a post-apocalyptic world
    16. A book with a blue cover
    17. A book with a magical creature
    18. A book with a character who is a musician
    19. A book with a title that starts with the letter "B"
    20. A book with a character who is a detective
    21. A book with a red cover
    22. A book set in a fictional world
    23. A book with a charcter who is an immigrant
    24. A book with a character who is a scientist
  4. Read more books from my shelves that I bring in. In 2025 I set a goal to read 40 books that I owned on Jan. 1. If I finish the book I'm currently reading in time, I will have read 28 of those books. I have brought in 38 books this year, and I haven't even got over to Gardiner's yet. So I'm going to tweak this goal a little bit and try to go for a reduction in my owned, unread books at the end of 2026.

What are your thoughts on these goals? What am I not considering that maybe I should be? One thing I like is that I have more flexibility to read at Whim.