Reading update…

And some different goals for 2026.

In 2025, I read 274 books and that total includes some novellas and short stories. My top three genres were of course fantasy, mystery/thriller, and rom-com. 122 were audiobooks that I listened to at high speeds while driving, walking the pup, cooking, doing housework or unwinding with a jigsaw puzzle or phone games. With touring colleges in spring and my son starting school out-of-state this fall, my available listening hours while driving increased as well. Just as in prior years with my nonfiction/memoir to-read list, leveraging audio format helped me finish more mysteries/thrillers this past year, which was a goal of mine.

So far this month, I have found myself getting sucked into audiobooks during leisure time more than I used to. I think I’m still a bit tired from the holiday season and listening while playing games or puzzling has been a welcome rest. Since my listening habits are changing, I have decided this year to expand my audiobook library borrows to include/balance all my main genres: SFF, mystery, romance, and nonfiction/memoir. I’m excited to see how audio format helps me meet my SFF reading goals for 2026 in particular.

I also am changing my approach to bookish challenges on Instagram (ex. 25in2025, 10BeforeTheEnd). I had hoped challenges would help me prioritize reading adult SFF recent releases—since being on top of those books helps with my writing and publishing goals. Unfortunately, I found myself scrambling at the end of the year to finish and struggling to let myself quit books I wasn’t enjoying simply because I had used them in a challenge list. I have therefore decided not to participate in 26in2026 and other such challenges. Instead, every time I go to the library this year, I plan to grab a few newer SFF releases, and again, I will add SFF books to my regular audiobook borrowing.

The only bookstagram challenge I joined for 2026 is a Kindle Crush reading challenge, where participants read at least one ebook from their Kindle library a month. Some people are using it to catch up on their eARCs, but I don’t request a ton and always read them by their pub date. Some participants are reading their oldest ebooks, but I plan to first clear out the last of my purchases (which are only from this past July-December). My main reason for diving into this ebook challenge is to tackle my huge backlog of free ebooks, the oldest of which are from February 2023.

For the past several years, I’ve eagerly taken advantage of free ebook promotions/giveaways from authors, BookBub, and Amazon stuff your kindle days. I quickly noticed that once I downloaded the ebooks, I forgot about them—oops! I’m a nerd, so a couple years ago I made an excel spreadsheet of my kindle library to help me keep them top of mind and it worked! This year, I added the ones remaining to my “want to read” shelf in Goodreads with a tag so I would know it was already in my kindle library. I have looked through those freebie titles and pulled out about 40 SFF, mystery, and romcom ebooks that I plan to read during the next couple months before I go back to the library to get a stack of physical books. Some are books by authors I know I like, but many are new-to-me authors that might not be a good fit, so I anticipate quitting several—which is fine! I want to give books I downloaded a chance, but if it doesn’t hook me, I’ll check it off the list and grab another. Eventually I hope to dive into my oldest books (about 80 SFF free ebooks from 2023) and clear a chunk out.

As of today, there are 549 books tagged in Goodreads as “TBR Kindle Library.” Of course, I am still purchasing and downloading free ebooks every month, so I know this number will fluctuate, but I’m hoping to read more than I buy/download this year!

Wish me luck on my new reading goals for 2026!