Hiya bookish friends! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT’S ALMOST 2025? I, for one, cannot. This year was absolutely a dumpster fire and I’m ready for it to be over, but it is WILD to me how close we are.
As the holidays approach, I’ve begun to think of my reading goals for 2025. As any of you who know me already know, I am physically, mentally, and spiritually incapable of following a TBR, so that isn’t what this will be.
Instead, here are some broad strokes/goals for the year.
FIRST - 2024 was not a year where it was easy being a woman (are any years, tbh?). And, since election night, I have tried not to digest male-centric media, and that is a goal I hope to bring into 2025. Thus, my first goal is to only read books by women. Historically, I tend to read a majority of female-written books anyways, so this won’t be a particularly challenging goal to meet. This, of course, includes trans women authors, because trans women are women. Obviously.
SECOND - As always, while I think reading itself is a morally neutral activity, I still do think it's important to strive to read more books by BIPOC authors, because even if reading itself is morally neutral, art inspires beliefs and actions that are not, so I want to continue to read outside my own experience.
THIRD - okay, here are the goals that are specifically rooted in my existing (and future) library. I am someone who clearly subscribes to the idea that reading books and collecting books are two distinct activities. Which means my TBR is insurmountable. And so, it is my goal to read the following each month. (Will I stick to this? Absolutely not. Will I try? Eh, we shall see.)
A BOTM book - this can be a backlist book (ideally) or a new one if I do get a box in that particular month, but my BOTM collection has grown to honestly embarrassing heights, so I really do need to pare it down.
A Persephone classic - Inspired by @readingbymyshelf, I went on a 2020 shopping spree of Persephone classics and have failed to read them (though I’ve started one and quickly became obsessed). So, much like BOTM, there are too many on my shelf and it’s an injustice that they haven’t been read yet.
An e-ARC - Introducing myself to NetGalley and Edelweiss was a mistake. Please don’t ask me my feedback percentage. That’s no one’s business, including my own.
An NYRB Classics book - I receive one every month. Have I read them all? No. Would I like to? Yes. (Although I will be prioritizing the ones by women a la my above stated goals.)
A pagan book (tarot included) - Since 2020, I’ve been on a spiritual journey that leans toward paganism, and as is my wont, I over purchased books on a variety of subjects that fit under that umbrella, and I have read more of them than my Persephone books, but alas, there are still far more unread than read.
A book on any subject I’m interested in that month - Will it be art? Writing? Crochet? Cats? The history of the Oxford English Dictionary? I’ll keep you posted.
Have you curated your 2025 reading goals yet? Share below!
Comments