2025 READING CHALLENGES & THEMES
Can you believe I used to read within my monthly themes exclusively, except for ARCs? Even when I was reading 8-10 books a month? I haven't done that for the last three years, or so. Two themed books has been my goal the last three or four years.
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The original idea for monthly themes was to keep my reading diversified, however, over years of book blogging my reading has become instinctively diverse, so I have added some personal interest months over the last few years.
MONTHLY THEMES
JANUARY
DRAGONS & DICKENS
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I consider myself a Book Dragon, so what better way to start off the year? I have added Dickens because I have decided January is when I will start my new annual Dickens slow-read. Slow-reads, where you read longer books a bit at a time... while you are reading other books, have become extremely popular as of late, especially among Bookstagrammers who read a lot of classics.
FEBRUARY
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
MARCH
WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH
APRIL
CELEBRATE DIVERSITY MONTH
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I have started concentrating on books with characters who have physical disabilities, or intellectual/developmental disabilities (other than autism) because books with this subject matter seem not to be talked about very much.
MAY
ASIAN AMERICAN & PACIFIC ISLANDER HERITAGE MONTH
JUNE
NATIONAL CARIBBEAN-AMERICAN MONTH
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I join the ten day Carib-A-Thon read-a-thon every year.
JULY
SUMMER IN THE CITY
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Reading stories set in New York City.
I love NYC and this is one of my pleasure themes.
AUGUST
DOG DAYS OF SUMMER
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Reading stories with dogs in them.
I love dog stories.
SEPTEMBER
WITCHES
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Fantasy witches are my heart, and this is also a fun way to segue into Halloween season.
OCTOBER
SCARY
NOVEMBER
SCI-FI MONTH
DECEMBER
CATCH-UP MONTH
CHALLENGES
These were my 2024 PERSONAL CHALLENGE totals...
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NONFICTION 7/6
MIDDLE GRADE 13/12
NATIVE AMERICAN/FIRST NATIONS AUTHORS 2/6
MUSIC 2/6
PLAYS 0/4
BACKLIST ARCS 3/6
CLASSICS 6/3
RE-READS 8/3
FREEBIES/99¢ KINDLE BOOKS 3/12
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Music and plays were new categories last year, and I did dreadfully. As you can see I also failed at fulfilling the Native American authored books goal, the backlist ARCs expectation, and freebie/99¢ ebooks target. I also failed at these three in 2023 and 2022.
Once again I will be lowering my expectations for some of these challenges, but will also be raising two.
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NONFICTION 0/6
MIDDLE GRADE 0/12
NATIVE AMERICAN/FIRST NATIONS AUTHORS 0/4
MUSIC 0/4
PLAYS 0/4
BACKLIST ARCS 0/4
CLASSICS 0/6
RE-READS 0/4
FREEBIES/99¢ KINDLE BOOKS 0/4
NYT 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST 0/4
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As you can see I have added a NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century category. I had already read five from the list over the years and read two more in the last six months of 2024, after the list was published, so I think four a year is a doable number. I don't intend to read all of the 100 books; there are only thirty-five to-reads on my Goodreads shelf. Most of the books have subject matter which doesn't much interest me, but once I finish my forty-two intended reads I'll see if I can find eight more to make it an even half-mark of fifty. Unless I end up reading more than four a year, I'll have to live to be nearly seventy-nine to do that, so cheer me on!
GOODREADS CHALLENGE
52 BOOKS
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For seven years I had been setting my Goodreads Reading Challenge at one book (only using it as a page counter) because I had grown tired of GR telling me I was behind in my challenge counts constantly. Seeing my goal after 2021 has been keeping my reading down to one book a week... I decided to set it at fifty-two in 2024 and it worked well, so I have set it at fifty-two again.
Are you challenging yourself this year?
If you have a 2025 reading challenge post leave a link in the comments and I will hop over.
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