Reading goals in 2025

Hello dear friends,

Reading is a significant part of my life, and I want to keep it that way during 2025. I'm looking forward to many days and evenings cozied up reading a book and drinking a cup of tea — a must, of course! Many adventures and worlds will fill my head again this year, both new and familiar ones. As a reader you are not obliged at all to set yourself goals, but for me it is fun to challenge myself a little bit. This year I'm doing that a little differently compared to previous years. I used to focus primarily on the amount of books that I wanted to read. I still have a certain number in my head, but it is not what my main focus is for this year. This year is more about what I'm reading instead of how many books I'm reading.

These are my goals for the year:

1. Read 45 books

As I said, the amount of books I read will not be my main goal this year. Last year I read 61 books, and I decided to keep my goal lower than that this year. I wanted to be able to challenge my self with different goals. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to do that if I pushed myself too much with a set amount of books. So I choose an amount that — I think— is reasonable for me. And you know what, if I read less than 45 books this year that is fine. I just want to have fun.

2. Read intimidating books

Now you are asking yourself: Kirsten, what is an intimidating book? I know this is different for everyone, and even for me there is not one set definition. What this goal entails is books on my tbr that I am scared to read for some reason. Some are just absolute bricks, others are classics — I feel like everyone read them, except for me — or books I just don't want to be disappointed by. We all have books on our tbr that fit these criteria. My goal is to scratch some of my tbr during this year. To push myself a little more I made a list of books I'd like to tackle for this challenge.

• The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon
• A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
• The Outsider by Albert Camus
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
• Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
• The Complete Grimm's Fairytales
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

3. Diverse genres

Over the years I have been reading a lot of differen genres, but every year the winner by far are the fantasy novels. This year I'm attempting to more equally distribute the books I'm reading over different genres. So hopefully at the end of the year I won't have read 70% fantasy books, and the other books on my tbr are still waiting to be read. Besides that I want read more non-fiction aswell. I have recently been adding some memoirs and other types of non-fiction to my tbr, and I hope I can get to some of them this year. 

4. Reread beloved books

In the past few years I have ready many books, some of them I still remember vividly, or ar simply very important to me. They made me who I am. I would like to get to a few of these this year; just so I can relive these stories again. At the same time I don't want to flood my list of hopeful reads with rereads. That is why I settled on the following four books:

• The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Besides planning some things, how am I planning on achieving this:

1. Streak

First of all, when attempting to read 45 books, it is helpful to make reading a habbit. In order to do this I activated the streak function on Storygraph. I log my reading everyday, keeping my streak intact. The world won't end if I fail to maintain the streak, but I think that making reading an active part of my day will help me reach my goals.

2. Bookclub

Since the start of the year I'm active in the bookclub on my discord server. For this bookclub we read a  book every month. Often the month has a theme, for instance: February we chose a book written by a black author in honour of Black History Month. We try to vary the genres read each month, which will help me diversify my reading. Organizing this bookclub has also brought new books on my radar; making my neverending tbr even longer — I don't know if that is a good thing. 

3. Hoping I stick to my plans

In the end it all comes down to this. I have to stick to the plans I made which can be difficult as a mood reader. But that is why I didn't make a tbr for all the 45 books I want to read. Just the books I would like to read for the goals I have set.

Some of the books I have read so far in January and February were actually on these lists, so we are off to a great start. I can't wait to find out what I'll be reading this year. And I'm of course looking forward to telling you about whether I accomplished my goals at the end of the year.

Happy reading my friends!

Love,

Kirsten