I'm not sure it was a New Year's resolution, exactly, but in 2025 I tried and (I would say) succeeded in reading more books than I have for a long time. Early in the year I signed up for goodreads1 and dutifully kept track of all2 the books I read throughout the year. According to goodreads, I read 40 books, but I think there was one I didn't finish because I disliked it, so the real total is 39.
Nearly every book I checked out from the library. My local library branch is just a few blocks away from my home, and except for the most popular or newest titles, I can request a book to be put on hold and it will be delivered to the branch within a few days. That's just about as fast as ordering the book online and way cheaper. A decent chunk of my property tax goes to the library, so I figure I might as well take advantage of it!
Some highlights:
- I really liked the John Scalzi books I read: Kaiju Preservation Society, When the Moon Hits Your Eye, Starter Villain, and Redshirts. I suggest you check them out!
- In the Spring I dove deeply into urbanism with the classic The High Cost of Free Parking and others (1, 2, 3, 4)
- Not all books were new to me, I reread a few books like The Hunt for Red October, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Ender's Game
I think the pace of my reading was just about right. It didn't feel like I had to force myself to read, and nearly all the books I enjoyed. I hope to achieve a similar amount of reading in 2026. You can see my year in review here.
- Yeah, I know it's an Amazon product, but I've already admitted to hypocrisy when it comes to Amazon. Besides, I'm not giving Amazon any money here, just a lil' bit of not very interesting data. ↩︎
- I didn't track the children's books I read out loud at bedtime, which probably added at least one per week. ↩︎