Category: thoughts

Wrapping Up 2025, Looking Forward 2026

Posted 3 January 2026 in thoughts /22 Comments

Wrapping up, looking forward

Welcome to my 16th annual ‘Wrapping Up, Looking Forward’ post. In this post, I take a general look back at how I did with my goals in 2025, and set some new goals for 2026. First, I tally up the posts I wrote in 2025 and my goal progress. Then I move into an overview of my posting and reading for 2025, followed by new goals for 2026.

2025 Posts

Family Reads

  • With my sister:
    • Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild (adult non-fiction)
    • We also read The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig, but didn’t have enough to say about it to warrant a post. It was a bit better than either of us expected, but also a bit too 2016 YA to be a timeless read.
  • With my dad:
    • The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard (adult speculative fiction)
    • Nightbooks by JA White (middle grade horror)
    • We also read The Wager by David Grann (adult non-fiction), but we read it too far apart and then never found a good time to discuss it. 😅 Overall, we found it somehow less interesting than the subject matter would suggest.
  • With my mom:
    • The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi (adult speculative fiction)
    • Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen (adult cozy fantasy/romance)

Reviews

Middle Grade

  1. Accidental Demons by Clare Edge (contemporary fantasy)
  2. Benji Zeb is a Ravenous Werewolf by Deke Moulton (contemporary fantasy)
  3. The Creepening of Dogwood House by Eden Royce (spooky)
  4. The Cookie Crumbles by Alecia Dow and Tracey Badua (mystery)
  5. It Came from the Trees by Ally Russell (spooky)
  6. Just Lizzie by Karen Wilfrid (contemporary)
  7. Max in the House of Spies by Adam Gidwitz (historical)
  8. Misadventures in Ghosthunting by Melissa Yue (supernatural)
  9. Prisoner of Ice and Snow by Ruth Lauren (historical fantasy)
  10. Silverborn: The Mystery of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend (fantasy)
  11. Something’s Up with Arlo by Matteo L Cerilli (spooky)
  12. Splinter & Ash by Marieke Nijkamp (historical fantasy)
  13. The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell (historical)

Adult

  1. A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand (horror)
  2. All the Murmuring Bones by AG Slatter (historical fantasy)
  3. Butter by Asako Yuzuki (mystery)
  4. Don’t Sleep with the Dead by Nghi Vo (historical spec fic)
  5. The Incandescent by Emily Tesh (contemporary fantasy)
  6. Making History by KJ Parker (historical spec fic)
  7. Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World  by Christopher De Hamel (non-fiction)
  8. My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix (horror)
  9. The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family by Jesselyn Cook (non-fiction)
  10. The River Has Roots by Amar El-Mohtar (historical fantasy)
  11. Stream Big: The Triumphs and Turmoils of Twitch and the Stars Behind the Screen by Nathan Grayson (non-fiction)
  12. Through Gates of Garnet and Gold (Wayward Children #11) by Seanan Mcguire (adult spec fic)
  13. Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods (historical fantasy)
  14. When Fragments Become Whole: A Personal Journey Through Healing Stories in the Bible by Lory Widmer Hess (non-fiction)

“I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Read That Yet”

Sundry

Monthly Recaps

Goals Progress

  • 69/83 = 83% books read
  • 25/30 = 83% middle grade fiction novels (excluding rereads)
    • This is one more than in 2024, so I’m calling that progress!! 😝
  • 10/10 = 100% owned books (excluding rereads)
    • I even read 4/5 of the original TBR books I chose for this goal!
  • 49/66 = 75% posts/year
    • I also set varying monthly targets. I met the target in Jan, Feb, Apr, Nov, and Dec.
  • 5/9 = 56% Family Reads
    • Whoops, we were unable to replicate the 100% success rate of 2024 😅
  • 3/4 = 75% “I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Read that Yet”
  • Reviewed 42% (29/69) of what I read (goal = 50%)
    • This goal turned out to be a lot more challenging than I thought it would.
    • I have included in the count four reviews scheduled into January and February 2026. I have some middle grade reviews I want to work on, so if those reviews end up cracking 125 words, then I will add them to the tally.
  • 2,600 views/month except in July and Aug = met in Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, and Oct (6/10)
    • View count declined drastically from 2024… Dec was a disappointingly low view count month, the lowest month since Aug 2023.

Posting and Reading Overview

I posted 49 times in 2025, virtually the same amount as in 2024. I consider this an improvement over 2024, as there were several factors that allowed me to blog more in 2024 (less summer travel, unemployed in December) and less in 2025 (kendo grading in April, home purchase and move in the fall). I need seriously readjust my expectations of blogging during the camping months (June to September). I can count on myself to blog steadily from November to February. I could also do better in March, April, and October. I think taking off the pressure to blog continuously throughout summer will help me post more regularly throughout the other months.

I read 69 books in 2025 (a slight decrease from 2024), including 25 middle grade novels. I am really pleased I reached my goal of 10 owned books, and read more middle grade than in 2024. I will not have an owned books goal in 2026, simply because I do not own that many unread books haha. (Well, I do own more than 10 unread books, but the majority of them are non-fiction about Tolkien and Arctic exploration, and I’ll be covering those topics in separate micro goals.) I struggled a bit with reviewing the books I read in 2025 because a lot of them were middle-of-the-road reads about which I didn’t have many thoughts. I also seem to have developed this weird habit of not reviewing books that I absolutely loved?? I noticed that in both 2024 and 2025. So one goal I will set for 2026 is reviewing five star reads (or at least writing down my thoughts) within one week of finishing the book.

On the whole, 2025 was another step in the right direction with my reading and blogging habits (albeit not as steady a step as I might have liked). I have big amibitions for blogging in 2026, so read on to find out what those are. 😁

Personal Goals

  • 80 books read
    • I’ll stick with this goal until I surpass it.
  • 30 middle grade fiction novels
    • Although I fell short of 30 the past couple years, I still think this is a fair target so I’m trying it again in 2026. Thanks to Annemieke @ A Dance With Books for once again setting up a middle grade challenge in Storygraph.
  • 6 Tolkien books
    1. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
    2. Unfinished Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien
    3. The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary by Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner (the winner of“I Can’t Believe” #31)
    4. The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-Earth by John Garth
    5. Flora of Middle-Earth: Plants of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium by Walter S. Judd and Graham A. Judd
    6. TBD
  • 4 Arctic books
    1. The Private Life of Polar Exploration by J.M. Scott
    2. Arctic Obsession: The Lure of the Far North by Alexis S. Troubetzkoy
    3. TBD
    4. TBD
  • 5 books by Indigenous authors based in Canada
    1. Prairie Edge by Connor Kerr
    2. The Luminous Life of Lucy Landry by Anna Rose Johnson
    3. Weird Rules to Follow by Kim Spencer
    4. Elvis, Me, and the Lemonade Stand Summer by Leslie Gentile
    5. TBD
  • 60 posts/year
    • Possible monthly breakdown:
      • 6-8 posts/month for Jan and Dec
      • 6 posts/month for Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Oct, and Nov
      • 4 posts/month for June and Sept
      • 2 posts/month for July and August
    • This works out to min. 60 posts for 2026. I almost put no posts for July and August. I decided to go with two/month in order to keep on schedule with my other posting goals.
    • Something new I am trying this year is drafting a schedule in my WordPress post calendar for the entire year. I have scheduled draft templates of: Month in Reviews, Family Reads, “I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Read That Yet“, Review Round Ups, assorted discussion memes, and other seasonal posts such as Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon and End of Year Survey. This means I have 59 posts prepared! I just need to fill in my review posts around them. If I succeed with this plan, then I will absolutely crush my posting goals haha. I tried to set the posting goal realistically while planning ambitiously. We’ll see how this works. 😉
  • Participate in more community blogging memes such as:
  • 9 Family Reads
    • The 2024 game plan of three books per family member followed by a rest month between was a winner. I’ve reviewed the reasons it didn’t work in 2025 and have recalibrated, so it should be a success again in 2026. 😄
  • 3 “I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Read that Yet”
    • These will be tucked in to the Family Reads rest months.
  • Review 50% of what I read in 2026
  • I am not including a viewcount goal this year. It’s too far out of my hands. I want to focus on publishing posts and connecting with book bloggers in 2026. Viewcount doesn’t have anything to do with those goals.

Lastly, I have some loose goals that are blogging related but not about reading or posting.

  • Post 2 times/week on Bluesky
    • Not including my own blog posts
  • Track daily reading in StoryGraph
    • At the end of 2024, I partially migrated to StoryGraph so I could take advantage of their stats. This year, I’ll be logging my daily reading in StoryGraph in order to dig further into reading stats. GoodReads remains my go to for logging my TBR and posting and reading reviews. Overall, I think of StoryGraph as where I track my current reading and Goodreads where I track everything else.
  • Share StoryGraph stats in monthly wrap ups
  • Use buddy read feature in StoryGraph for Family Reads
    • I have done this a few times but want to make it a regular practice in 2026.
  • Try cross-posting to Substack?
    • This isn’t really a goal but something I will try out over the next month or two to see if it’s worth sticking with. I’ll be trialling these resources created by Automattic Special projects.

So, I have a lot of plans for reading and blogging in 2026. I also have many personal goals that I don’t share here. This is the year I am feeling confident about figuring out work-life balance. After all, I’m going to have to deal with it for the next 30 years or so. I am hoping 2026 is the year I take everything I’ve learned from 2019-2025 and put it to good use. Let’s just hope I actually get to keep my job for all of 2026 lol. 🤞🏻

How was your 2025 reading year? What goals or challenges are you undertaking in 2026?

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