In 2023 I set a goal to read 10,000 pages in the year. Last year I set myself a goal to read 20,000 pages in 2024.

This year I went for 30,000 pages. (This wasn’t the intended goal, but there you are.)

Of course, the point isn’t pages. The point is:

  • To spend my time reading rather than scrolling
  • To try new books
  • To learn interesting things, or be moved by emotional stories

Really, I want to measure “time spent reading” (or indeed, “time spent prioritising reading”), and pages is a reasonably good proxy for that. There are more reasons in the previous posts.

In 2025 I completed 73 books out of 116 I tried. They were about evenly split between fiction and non-fiction. About five made me cry. There were about six graphic novels, none of which I felt I enjoyed. In general I was more likely to complete novels (75%) than non-fiction (50%); I expect that’s very normal.

I experimented with an audiobook this year and couldn’t get on with the format.

Looking down the list, there is lots of really fun stuff at the start of the year: The Children of Hurin, Black Sun, Nettle & Bone, The Galaxy and the Ground Within, and Lessons in Chemistry stand out in fiction, along with Uncorked, Rebel Sounds, Spare, and When Breath Becomes Air in non-fiction — and that was JUST in January.

By the summer, when work and other responsibilities were getting on top of me, I found myself reading to “go away”, which meant that I was reading Warhammer 40K. And when I did try books that I knew were great and thoughtful and fun (Your Utopia, Someone You Can Build a Nest in), I wasn’t getting more than 25% of the way through them.

Towards the end of the year I was taking more pleasure in reading: A Life in Footnotes prompted me to read all the early Pratchett I’d never got around to, William Gibson’s recent work was really good, and I read my first Margaret Atwood. I finished the year with Emma, which felt like I had come back to reading.

You can see the list of books here. I’ve included the type of book, how far through I got, and whether I’d read it before.

My favourite book of the year was probably Nettle & Bone.

Now, what shall I do in 2026?

  • I want to return to getting recommendations from The Science Fiction Awards Database — that has been a consistently good source of books I’ve loved.
  • I want to recognise when I’ve fallen out of love with reading. I certainly think I’d be better rereading books I’ve loved before rather than giving up on books that are probably really good.
  • I’d like to work through more of the classics. Emma was great, and it would be nice to do the rest of the Austen novels.
  • I need to either read my TBR pile or throw it out. Certainly anything that is there now should either be read or thrown out by 2027.
  • I need a better way to count graphic novels. Part of me wants NOT to count them at all because they often make me sad, but I should at least try to read the acclaimed ones (that said, most of the “acclaimed” ones I’ve read so far have left me wondering what all the fuss is about). I am going to look into the Eisner Award winners on that basis.

One of the things that has vastly increased my reading this year is Libby, which I highly recommend to everyone.