Happy New Year! Did you make any reading-related resolutions for 2026? If you had any for 2025, did you make your goal?
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Some of the recent topics have spurred me to make resolutions. Mine are:
120 books this year (I read 110 in 2025, so I’m hoping that’s not too much of a stretch).
- 1 nonfiction book each month
- 1 classic each month
- 1 book from the James Mustich 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die book each month
I also bought a book journal, so another resolution is to actually use it, devoting more thought to what I’ve read rather than just noting a few basics about it. I find that as I’m getting older I don’t remember the books I’ve read as well, so I’m hoping writing a few words about them (by hand rather than typed) will help them stick a little better.
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I set 4-6 reading objectives every year. I had 6 in 2025 but this year have pared them back to 4 because we have a move in our near future. I generally read around 170 - 200 books so even with my objectives have lots of wiggle room to read outside the scope like my keeping up with my favorite series.
1 Read My Shelf (32+, at least 50% physical books)
2 Read the Globe (8+ new countries)
3 Classics (10+)
4 Non-fiction (at least 20% of total annual reads)
And across all the objectives, I track genres read and look for a good mix.
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- It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones. C S Lewis
When I ran across this C S Lewis quote it resonated and it quickly became clear that if I could adopt this philosophy for the next year I could clear my tbr shelf. That seems too good to pass up and easy enough to accomplish by reading one in every three books from my own shelf. I’m going to give it a try. Of course that doesn’t mean I will stop buying books but clearing the backlog would be a genuine accomplishment. So fingers crossed—here goes.
Other reading goals: I have plans to read a big book each quarter. Here’s the current plan:
Q1: The Eighth Life
Q2: Tom’s Crossing
Q3: The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
Q4: Circle of Days
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I plan to read more classics. At least one a month maybe more. My bookshelves are loaded with classics, some I have never read. Others I read so long ago they will be like new reads.
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Not really a resolution, more of a practice, but if I’m not enjoying a book for whatever reason, I have no qualms with putting it down and moving on to another title. I will not waste time reading something I don’t like when there are so many good books out there. A very prolific reader & one of my favorite patrons (& Board member) at the library where I worked advocated this practice to me years ago & I’ve passed it on to other patrons & friends, many who have told me it was a real game changer for them. I don’t set reading goals; that makes it feel more like an assignment. I figure I’ve reached an age where rules no longer apply when it comes to reading.
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My goal each year is to read 100 books. In 2025 I read 105 books, mostly fiction, but I also read Burn Book by Kara Swisher and Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams.
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OK, so this is embarrassing…I’ve never used my library’s Libby app to read library books on my Kindle. So my New Year’s Resolution (well, one of them) was to figure out how Libby works and see if I could save some bucks. I was especially worried because some of us are checking off some of the books on the 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die list*** and I was thinking I’d have to buy these titles. Since they’re all older (the book came out in 2018) I figured there was a good chance I could get them at the library - but I can only read ebooks because of arthritis.
Well…I can’t believe how easy it was to download to my Kindle. Amazon apparently works with libraries to handle the checkout process. You click your book on the library site, it takes you to Amazon, & you tell it to Send to Kindle. Wow.
(*** By the way, anyone’s welcome to join the read along. Basically we select one book per month, then starting on the first of the following month we reply to the topic with our comments about the book. Feel free to check it out! January’s book is A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan).
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I also discovered Libby and Hoopla a few months ago. I updated my Kindle and am so happy to have a library option on it.
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I have a tendency to leave books on my SomeDay/ Maybe reading list behind and read aTBR for new books that intrigue me because of the comments on “First Impressions.” I like the idea of alternating old and new books as @Anne-Glasgow suggested.
Yeah, @Lynne_G, same here. I have a friend who refers to that as “Shiny Book Syndrome.”
@kim.kovacs I’m confused. I thought January’s book is A Visit from the Goon Squad. Did I miss a post?
No, my bad; you’re correct, January’s book is A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I fixed the original post.
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My overall goal was to read 50 books in 2025 which I achieved with 57. Another main goal was to read 25 books that I already owned which I did not even come close to. A library is my favorite place in the world and I simply cannot stay away. I’m like a kid in a candy store and it’s all free! I also vowed to keep my book journal/planner up to date, but that also didn’t happen.
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Haha, @Lana_Maskus, welcome to my world!
What a great quote! Thank you for posting it. I definitely need to make it my mantra. My husband surprised me with 4 large bookshelves 4 years ago for all my books. I filled them up with the books I already had and in 3 years again have stacks of books everywhere. In every other aspect of my life, I’m a minimalist, but with books I’m the total opposite.
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Thanks @Lana_Maskus sounds like we are kindred. I’ve started the year doing one to one (new to old) I’m sure I’ll break that along the way but it feels good to get to those books that mattered enough that I bought them—once upon a time.