When I originally wrote my reading round up of 2024 I included a little bit at the end with my 2025 goals and then I thought why not write them down properly? And share them, of course!

So here they are, my 2025 reading goals.

Number of books

As I said in the round up I, without thinking, set my goal for 150 instead of my usual 100. That works out at 12.5 books a month, or 2.9 a week. Or to put it another way, finishing a book every 2.4 days. Sounds sort of scary when you put it like that! Thankfully I don’t actually count how many books I’m reading a day/week, I just read.

I definitely don’t feel as it I read that fast, but I have managed 150 for the past two years, so hopefully this year will be the same! When I was writing the round up I was on 3 books, which was 1 behind so that didn’t feel like a great start. However now I’m on 8 which is on track. That’s what happens when you read 4-6 books at a time. I can go a week or more without finishing anything, then finish several within a couple of days.

Types of books

As always I’ll aim to read more books for grown ups as opposed to children, and read more new books than rereads. More recently added is making sure I try new authors. (The only problem with that is then discovering those new authors have loads of books and I then want to read them all!)

I don’t always have a particular author in mind, but for example I have been intending to try Val McDermid for some time. While I’m not the biggest fan of police procedurals, she comes from fairly near where I am and I like her as a person from seeing her on TV and in the news. I’ve just finished two of hers and really enjoyed them so it’s worth branching out sometimes!

I also keep thinking I should read Agatha Christie, but reading a short story collection last year was mildly off-putting as I didn’t know many of the characters.

Although these are goals every year I don’t have to put a lot of effort in to them, it’s just something in the back of my mind when choosing my next read. If I’ve just reread something then I’ll pick something new for my next couple of reads.

A classic

I will aim to read another classic this year – though I don’t know which yet.

I have thought about completing the Brontë hattrick by reading one of Anne’s books (Agnes Grey or The Tenant of Wildfell Hall), or perhaps trying another Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility maybe). Though I do also want to read Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier and that counts as a classic, so I might go for that, and hopefully enjoy it more than some of the older classics I’ve tried.

Things not to read

Given how many bookshop/library books I have read in the past two years I may have to have to aim to read LESS of those so I can read other things instead. Too much of a good thing, and all that. Saying that I’ve already read one this year and am halfway through another. Maybe I should just aim to read no more of those than last year.

I did briefly think about reading more books about lighthouses… but that’s probably because I saw a series about a lighthouse library. Oops.

Similarly, I think I’ll have to aim to borrow less books from the library – which sounds really bizarre! But I have SO MANY books in the house that I haven’t read that I really need to read at least some of them before I let myself get tempted by shiny new library books. So really the goal is to read all the books I have lying around the house more than it is avoiding library books. This one is going to be hard as I’ve already seen a few on display that I want (and yes… they were about bookshops and libraries…)

This should help me tick off some non-fiction reads as I do have several of those on my shelves waiting to be read.

To read to Brodie

I’m always thinking of what’s next for bedtime stories. We’re on The Secret Mountain right now, so we still have The Secret of Killimooin and The Secret of Moon Castle to go.

We also have four of the Caravan Family ones to read, and then we might try Galliano’s Circus and the Adventurous Four. Plus we still have the final Famous Five to read, and the short stories.

Those should last us quite a while. Aside from Blyton I could also read him the Great Friends at Grey Towers books by Zoe Billings and the Adventure Island books by Helen Moss.