2026 Reading Intentions

I like doing these as it gives me time to reflect on what I have and (mostly) haven’t achieved over the past twelve months. I can see what is working and what isn’t. It is often why certain things stay the same if you look back at previous years’ intentions.

I call them intentions as they are not hard and fast rules to stick by, but rather a framework of reading and enjoying it, rather than obsessively trying to reach often unachievable targets. I have reduced the number of books I read last year and will be sticking to the same target of 150. I had regularly read at least 190 a year from 2013 to 2023, and it had become a bit of a bind. Whereas reading 150 is much more manageable. And less stressful.

My rule of thumb is: Read whatever takes your interest, don’t be told what to read. If you have been recommended something and don’t like it, then stop. Make your own reading journey. Not everyone can like the same book, and as strange as it sounds, everyone reads a slightly different book!

Blogging

As I have said many times in the past, I have always tended to think of myself as a reader who blogs rather than strictly a book blogger. I tend to have pretty niche reading interests, which may reflect my much lower following, too. I have never been that fashionable, so I will keep doing what I am doing.

Review Books

I am forever grateful for every single review copy that I receive. I am making a concerted plan to work through all of the review books that I have been sent and much reducing the number that I request still further. That said, I would be delighted to receive some of the books that were on my anticipated list (here). However, it is not a deal breaker, books that I really want to read I can get from the library or buy if necessary. I am hoping to read and review at least 60 books next year from my spreadsheet!

My Own Books

I am still adding in detail to the catalogue of books that I own and this will carry on in the coming year. We had put our house on the market back in September with the intention of moving to a slightly smaller property, which would be more accessible for my daughter. It didn’t happen for a variety of reasons, so I will try again next year. This meant that I had to get rid of a lot of books, and this will continue as, if I am honest, it had got slightly out of hand… The intention is to get nearer to 2000 books, but we’ll see!

I started in 2024, detailing the number of books that came into the house and the number that left. The intention was that the outgoing number should be higher than the incoming. Mostly this worked, and I will be continuing this habit in 2026. For 2025 the numbers were this:

Total In:

Total Out:

Library Books

I have reduced the number of library books that I have out on both cards and have got the number down to 30 now. I am intending on lowering this to around 10 per card in 2026. I am not going to stop using the library, they are essential for communities and having a space that anyone can use without having to pay any money, and by continuing to use them they stay open. Oh, and the author gets paid a little every time you borrow a book of theirs. A win-win as far as I am concerned.

Reading Plans

I am fairly happy with the mix of books that I am reading at the moment. I feel that I got the balance right between travel writing and natural history books last year, but as these make up the bulk of my collection, I want to read more of them. I also have some other intentions detailed below, that, whilst not set in stone, I would like to achieve.

Female Authors

I am going to keep my target of reading women authors at 40% for 2026.

Ethnic Minority Authors

I had my target set to 12 last year, and I am going to set the same again for 2026. Slowly more ethnic minority authors are being commissioned in the genres that I like reading, but it is sadly still too few.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Aiming to read twelve books over the course of the year. Science fiction is good for expanding the mind and as Terry Pratchett says: Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.

Fiction

I don’t read or buy a huge amount of fiction, but I do have a lot around that I have acquired or been sent. I have a pile of the Tales of The Weird Fiction to read so those will count for this.

Poetry

I am aiming to read one poetry book a month this year again.

Literary Awards

Last year I didn’t so well reading some of the shortlisted books from my favourite prizes, so would like to get back to that if I can. A reminder of some of my favourite prizes:

Stanford

Wainwright

Royal Society

Baillie Gifford

Arthur C Clarke

I would like to read some of the winners from other prizes too, including:

The Republic Of Consciousness Prize

Rathbones Folio Prize

Women’s Prize for Fiction

Jhalak Prize

The Portico Prize

Challenges

I have concluded that challenges are great but they can distract me from reading the backlog that I have. So I only take part is these two at the moment. One of my own and one hosted by other bloggers.

The World From My Armchair Challenge

My ongoing challenge is to read a travel book set in, or that passes through every country, sea and ocean in the world. (See post here).
I had twelve books lined up to read and read a grand total of three. Three!! I just got carried away reading other things. There will be an update on a blog post sometime in the first part of the year (promised it last year and didn’t do it – sorry). I have even worked out how to do maps in Excel to add a graphic element to this.

20 Books of Summer

This used to be run by Cathy of 746 books, but she has passed the responsibility on to Annabel at AnnaBookBel ( ) and Emma at Words and Peace.  I normally sign up to read 20 books and will do so again this summer. I didn’t manage to read all the 20 books in 2025. Ho Huum. I am going to stick to the 20 Books of Summer as I use that to clear a particular genre. I read fiction in 2024 and science fiction in 2025. Haven’t thought about the plan for 2026 yet.

Other Bookish Stuff

Cataloguing Books

I am still cataloguing books and have a small number to locate that are in the odd pile that I haven’t got too. The total number of books peaked at about 2700 and am now around 2400. Still lots more to pass on or sell, and this could take some time…

Spreadsheets

I wrote about this back in 2023 here. I drafted a post and even typed it up and never published it! Partly because life got in the way a bit, but also because I had some further ideas that I wanted to develop and am still doing that little by little. My main master sheet works so much better than before!

Bookshelves

I wrote a blog post showing all my shelves here. I had intended on redoing this, then we had the idea to move, and I thought that would be a good time to redo it. Both things never happened…

Planning Matrix

This got developed a little bit further, and I have some other ideas that I want to work on to see if that will improve what I want I have in mind, but it is nudging towards a database rather than a spreadsheet. Not sure I have the time to do that at the moment though!

Literary Festivals

I am intending on going to the Sherborne Travel Writing Festival and the Shaftesbury Reading The Land festival this year. And maybe some others, as I now don’t have holiday restrictions in my current job. Maybe I’ll see you there?

What aims or intentions do you have for next year? Let me know in the comments below or post a link to your post on your blog.