2026 Reading Goals

2026 is here and that means it’s time to talk about my yearly reading goals! Some of these goals are ones that appear year after year, but they are nonetheless worthy of mentioning again.

1. Goodreads Reading Challenge
   • This year I’m keeping my Goodreads goal the same as what I ended up adjusting it to in 2025. I think 50 books is very doable (and probably easy to exceed) despite me spending a good deal of  time wrangling my little person.
2. Continue Limiting ARC Requests
   • I think this is going to be standard practice for me going forward. I like not having the pressure of a packed ARC reading schedule and since I am being more selective with my choices I’m not picking up too many duds.
3. Read Some Non-Fiction
   • I got really good at buying non-fiction in 2025, but wasn’t as great about actually reading those books. This year I’m going to try to complete a non-fiction book every other month, for a total of 6 non-fiction books by the end of 2026.
4. The Year of Weird
   • My biggest reading goal for this year is to read weird fiction. I’ve been stuck in such a genre rut and I feel like I keep reading the same story in a slightly different font over and over. It’s time to read the weird stuff – whether that be horror, science fiction, fantasy, or even romance!

And finally, let’s chat about how I did with my 2025 Reading Goals. First of all, I well exceeded my initial reading goal of 36 books, so I increased it to 50. I ended up reading 93 books, which I’m extremely proud of considering I had a baby in the spring and that was such a huge life change! Turns out I can get in a decent amount of reading time just by actually reading before bed instead of doom scrolling.

I also succeeded at limiting my ARC requests to mostly just books I was excited for rather than picking up any old book that was pitched to me.

I didn’t do so great at reading my backlist though… I kept picking up new (or new to me) books though I did listen to several audiobooks I had purchased during one of the big Audible sales in 2024.

My goal to do more mood reading was also a success! I did great about picking up more books that weren’t ARCs that randomly caught my eye. I even bought a few new releases and read them soon after the release date!

And lastly, I’m both pleased and proud of the fact that I kept this blog going pretty consistently all year long. I planned ahead and prescheduled like a months worth of posts for after my daughter was born and then kept on a pretty solid schedule thereafter.