What I Read in 2025 (and 2026 reading goals!)

It was a good reading year! I think this was primarily because it was also a challenging year in other ways and, as I’ve written before, reading is a means of relaxation and, admittedly, escape, for me. It’s a way for me to take a little time for myself. I wrote back in 2020 (ironically at the beginning of the year before Everything happened):

When life is difficult and the struggles are coming fast and furious, reading not only allows me a means of escape, but often it can put my troubles in perspective. I can listen to Debussy on a homemade radio in the middle of the night in a pre-World War II, German orphanage. I can sit in a shell outside of Seattle and imagine the overwhelm of knowing I’m going to the Olympics. And I can just take a break from heavy things in general and cheer for a “mature” governess finally having a good time.

I have learned that reading is a sort of lifeline for me, and I am allowing myself this guilty pleasure even, and especially, when life is hard.

It’s still true today, and probably will always be true. And now on to books!

2025 Books

Overall Goal

My goal for the year, as has been the case for the last several years, was 36 books overall (3 books per month feels very doable to me, so I haven’t changed this), and as of right now (with three days left in the year!), I’ve read 62 63 books total. This is down from 73 books last year, 98 books in 2023, 67 in 2022, but up from 52 in 2021. The downward trend isn’t ideal, but I try to keep in mind the season of life I’m in, and it is just plain busy. Much busier than I’ve ever been before, so I’m okay with where I am. You can see a list of all the books here!

Personal Goal

My personal reading goal, meaning books that I don’t read for school or for my kids, was 36, and I’m close to that at 33 34 books. I have a few I’m working on right now, and I may be able to finish one or two, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get to three. This is a bit of a fluid goal, as many of the books I read for my kids could easily count for this category, since they’re books I’m interested in as well, but I also want to challenge myself to read books outside of what I read for them. You can see the books I read just for myself here!

Tea and Ink Society Classics Challenge

This a great classics challenge I’ve participated in the last few years!

1. A classic you discover in a used bookstore – The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. Does the used book sale room in the library count as a used bookstore? I got this book a few years ago in that manner. It was very sad, but very well-written.
2. A Russian novel or short story collection – The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy. This was depressing but profound, so basically Russian? 🙂
3. A classic about immigrants or pioneers – I have books in other categories (#4 and #8) that could’ve fit into this category, but didn’t get around to reading one specifically for it. I thought about putting The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson in this spot, as he breaks out of his Happy Valley to explore the world outside and find a new life for himself, but eventually returns home, so that might be a stretch.
4. A classic set on your own turf – The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather. (The first part of the book takes place in the fictional town of Moonstone, Colorado.) I’ve read four Cather books in the last three years, which was completely unplanned, and while I wouldn’t say she’s one of my favorite authors (The Death of the Archbishop was especially hard to get through), I’m glad I’ve read her work. This one was slow to start, then got very good, then got tedious. I know I’m in the minority, but I didn’t like it as much as O, Pioneers!.
5. A book you were supposed to read in school – The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. I was never actually assigned this book in school, but I should’ve been. I pre-read this for my son’s ninth-grade year, and it was intriguing to hear about the events surrounding the birth of our nation firsthand from Franklin’s perspective.
6. Nonfiction nature writing – (I’m still hoping to finish The Land of Little Rain before the end of the year! I will update this post if/when I do.)
7. A science fiction novel or short story collection – Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis. So many of you said this is one of your favorite books! I hope to read the rest of the series at some point.
8. A classic by an author you’ve only read once – Maggie-Now by Betty Smith. This was so frustrating! But well-written, though I didn’t like it as much as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which is the only other book I’ve read by Smith.
9. A classic World War I or World War II novel – The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy (WWI). I read this with the kids, and it was very good. Seredy was such a good writer.
10. A Jane Austen novel. Persuasion (third time!). I usually read at least one Austen book every year, so this was an easy category. Just when I think Pride and Prejudice is actually my favorite of her novels, Persuasion reminds me it’s still a contender.
11. A poetry collection by one of the Romantic poets – Didn’t get to this one. I am a v-e-r-y s-l-o-w poetry reader and am currently reading through Robert Frost, who doesn’t fit in this category.
12. A Medieval or Renaissance classic – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I started pre-reading this a few years ago for my son, but decided to wait until he was older, so I didn’t finish. This time I got to the end, and it was….interesting? It’s amazing how many different Arthurian stories, and variations of those stories, there are.

Art Book Reading Challenge

This is my own challenge!

1. A book about an artist from the 19th century – Camille Pissarro: The Audacity of Impressionism by Anka Muhlstein. This was perfect timing for studying Pissarro this year with my kids, and the Pissarro exhibition at the Denver Art Museum!
2. A book about a landscape artist – I had a book about Claude Lorrain sitting on my shelf, but I just didn’t get to it.
3. An art fiction book – The Raphael Affair by Iain Pears. I really wanted to like this, especially as it’s the beginning of a series about art history adventures, but it was only okay. (I also read Shades of Light by Sharon Garlough Brown, which could also fit in this category.)
4. A book about an art controversy (e.g., art theft, forgery, repatriation, etc.). – The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece by Edward Dolnick. This was a fascinating dive into the world of art theft, and again, perfect timing, with the Louvre thefts.
5. A book about an artist from the 18th century – I started A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley by Jane Kamensky, but most likely won’t be able to read the last 300 pages before the end of the year. It actually fits one of the categories in next year’s challenge well, so I’ll finish it then!
6. A book about an artist from or the art of your state/region/country – Frank Mechau: Artist of Colorado by Cile M. Bach. This was fascinating and gave me a great appreciation for this new-to-me local artist!

Other Art Books

I read a few other art-related books this year as well including All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me, The Art of Lent: A Painting A Day From Ash Wednesday To Easter (I’m also currently working through The Art of Advent: A Painting a Day from Advent to Epiphany), and Images of Faith: Reflections Inspired by Lilias Trotter.

Fruit of the Spirit

I wrote at the beginning of the year that I made a list of books corresponding to each of the fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), and I’m still slowly making my way through it. Here are the books I’ve read so far, including the ones I completed this year:

1. (Love) To Love as God Loves by Roberta C. Bondi (finished in 2024)
2. (Joy) Let Go by François Fénelon
3. (Peace) Life Without Lack: Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23 by Dallas Willard

So far, I’ve appreciated each of them so much for how they help me focus on each “fruit” and think about how I can make each one a habit.

2026 Reading Goals

Overall Goal/Personal Goal

I’ll be sticking with my 36 books total goal, so if life suddenly explodes, I’m not failing at everything. But that will also be my personal book goal. I have set this for myself for the last several years and have yet to meet it, so hopefully next year will be the year!

Read Your Bookshelf Challenge

I began doing “classics” challenges in 2017 when I participated in the Back to the Classics Challenge. I am eternally grateful for that challenge, as it got me to actually read classic books (for that year, it was anything before 1966), and I discovered that not only do I like them, I actually prefer them to modern literature now. Imagine that. When that one ended in 2022, I switched to the Tea and Ink Society Classics Challenge and followed that for the last few years.

Since reading classics is apparently no longer challenging for me, I’ve decided to pivot this year and will try the Read Your Bookshelf Challenge. In the intro video, Chantel stated that it doesn’t have to be only books you own, but since I began visiting our local free library in 2024, our home library has grown quite a bit, and most of the books we own I have not read, so I’m restricting it to the ones that are already in our home.

I’ve added a few different options for each category, depending on what other goals I want to pursue, versus books I’ve just been wanting to read for a long time (these are in bold; however, since I own all of these, they are all at least on my TBR list). I’m going to be doing the Art Book Reading Challenge again (more on that below), so I have a few books that can overlap. I also need to pre-read for my son’s tenth-grade year (these books are indicated by an *), so it would also be good if I could hammer a few of those out.

Here are my options:

1. January – title includes an article (a, an, the)
   • Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard
   • The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer*
   • Les Misérables by Victor Hugo* (les is an article in French :))
2. February – three or more objects on the cover
   • Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly
   • God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew*
   • Hard Times by Charles Dickens*
3. March – weapon on the cover
   • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
   • A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley by Jane Kamensky
4. April – title includes a conjunction (and, but, for, so, etc)
   • Love and Freindship: And Other Youthful Writings by Jane Austen
   • Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
   • The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home: The Happy Luddite’s Guide to Domestic Self-Sufficiency by Rosanna Nafziger Henderson and Ken Albala
5. May – includes a place
   • The Magnificent Mountain Women: Adventures in the Colorado Rockies by Janet Robertson
   • Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe*
   • The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism by Ross King
6. June – title is five or more words
   • The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives by Dallas Willard
   • Tending the Heart of Virtue by Vigen Guroian
   • Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity by Ronald Sider
7. July – has a map
   • The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough
   • 1916: A Novel of the Irish Rebellion by Morgan Llywelyn
8. August – water
   • Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith by Richard Foster
   • Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle
   • A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
9. September – animal
   • The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
   • Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich
   • All Creatures Great and Small: The Warm and Joyful Memoirs of the World’s Most Beloved Animal Doctor by James Herriot
10. October – bookish
    • The Midnight Library by Eric Haig
    • Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading by Eugene Peterson
    • Howards End Is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home by Susan Hill (I feel like I should start the year with this one)
11. November – transportation
    • Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
12. December – true or false
    • And the Word Came With Power by Joanne Shetler
    • It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered by Lysa TerKeurst

Art Book Reading Challenge

And, finally, for my own challenge: the 2026 Art Book Reading Challenge! I hope to get through all the categories this year. Here are my ideas:

1. A book about an artist from the 20th century
   • I haven’t decided on this one yet, but Norman Rockwell is the AmblesideOnline first term artist for next year, so I may pick up his autobiography.
2. A book about portraiture or a portrait artist
   • A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley by Jane Kamensky
3. An art fiction book
   • I used to keep track of new books by Tracy Chevalier, an art fiction writer, and read them as soon as a new one came out. Somewhere along the line, I fell off the bandwagon, so I may try to read at least one of the ones I’ve missed (The Glassmaker looks the most intriguing).
4. A general book about art
   • Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey. So many people have asked me if I’ve read this and what I thought of it. I’ve started it several times but never made it far, usually because the book was due at the library and I couldn’t renew it (and it’s hard to find a reasonably priced used copy!). I plan to make it a priority this year.
5. A book about an artist from the 17th century
   • Rembrandt’s Eyes by Simon Schama. I really enjoyed Simon Schama’s History of Art when it aired on PBS quite a few years ago, so I was drawn to this when I saw he was the author. Apparently, this is a Rembrandt year!
6. A book about female artists or a single female artist
   • I’m leaning toward Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits right now.

I’m excited for more reading in the new year!

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