I make yet another return to the blog with my tail between my legs and a hope that I will remain here in the new year, as the months wane and the days bloom and 2026 deepens. In any case, at LEAST I read 50 books this past year, and despite still needing to do a better job being offline more and in the pages of a book, I am very pleased because 50 is much more like it and much more like me.
Goodreads Summary
After a meagre 40 books last year due to way too much screen time and a hideous lack of reading, I aimed for 10 more in 2025 and thankfully managed to pull it off, in the eleventh hour on NYE (not literally, but metaphorically ofc) despite a year of planning my sister’s wedding, getting back to grad school, completing 90+ hours of classroom observation + work…but I digress.
Where my pages dropped by 10k last year, they went up 3k this year! Not sure quite what that means as I did do quite a lot of Kindle reading + online book reading, and I am unsure how much that type of formatting compares with a physical book, but I am glad to have read more in any case.
Shortest book of the year goes to St. Paddy’s Confessio as I was writing a Substack article about the legendary dude for St. Patrick’s Day and which I actually did not finish in time, so I will be getting that one done and uploaded for this year HAHA. Love that my longest book was Order of the Phoenix, wouldn’t have it any other way since I didn’t reread LOTR this year.
2025 Reading Goals
Didn’t have any. Never got around to writing them down. Just wanted to read 50. Did it!! We go again this year.
General thoughts
I truly have rereading to thank for saving the year for me, and honestly, I would not have it any 0ther way. I meant to write about this when I realised it sometime last year, and perhaps I still will, but there is something to be said about going back to stories and media and music that you enjoyed when you were much younger (and when life was much simpler) when you are in a time of personal turbulence.
2025 was beautiful, so so wonderful, but it was also a year of much sanctification and many shed tears. 29 out of my 50 reads (58%) were rereads, and my return to these worlds not only kept my reading challenge on track and afloat, but helped to comfort and soothe me personally. How sweet the Lord is to give me Himself, which is more than enough, and yet so many other nice things, like books, to brighten dark days and hard stretches.
Four books I read this year were research for my Substack articles, and I love that very very much! I am looking forward to continuing this and upping it in 2026 as I also had a lot of writer’s block over there in the second half of the year and didn’t do this very much.
Stoked that 20% of my reads were non-fiction!! 5 were theologically-slanted/oriented, and 6/7 (haha) could be classified as historical.
Books I enjoyed oh so much
Some “new” reads I loved: Light Bringer (canNOT wait for the final book!!), The Familiar, Hell Bent (GIMME MORE DARLINGTON NOW I NEED BOOK THREE), Sunrise on the Reaping was heartbreaking and beautiful and I am not prepared for the film, Beren and Luthien, and Oathbound (ready for book 4!!).
The rereads that especially helped in the healing of my heart and the comfort of my inner being:
- Sense and Sensibility — it has become my favourite Austen over the last two years and I love it more than I can say
- Atonement — Ian McEwan you genius of prose ily
- The Great Divorce — this john always GETS ME
- The Space Trilogy — C.S. LEWIS U GENIUS I THANK THE LORD FOR YOU
- Rainbow Valley + Rilla of Ingleside — leftover from rereading the Anne books in 2024, gorgeous, stunning, lovely, heartwarming + heartshattering and everything good and warm and lovely
- EIKAL — dolly alderton u r my star xxx
- Hunger Games trilogy — PEETA MELLARK THEY WILL NEVER TAKE MY LOVE AWAY FROM YOU
- Jane Eyre — JANE U WILL ALWAYS BE A PARAGON OF INNER STRENGTH AND SELF-RESPECT THAT ALL WOMEN OUGHT TO ASPIRE TOO (also my GOODNESS i forgot how FUN the 1:1 scenes w/her and Rochester are heheheh)
- Harry Potter — my love for these stories just continues to ripen with each passing year!!
- The Cruel Prince & The Wicked King — cardan greenbriar, high king of elfhame, how i missed you and how i LOVE AND ADORE YOU
Fin
V happy I read 50 books in 2025. How lovely and wonderful and good that Story remains a path to joy, a means of comfort, and so, so much more. I cannot wait to read even more in 2026, even if my total book count is lower than this year (🌝) (see my upcoming reading goals post for clarification on that). Happy new year & happy reading in 2026!!!!!
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