lou's library

I’m not the biggest fan of setting ambitious reading goals, as I already have enough to do lists in my life as it is and I want my reading to be led by whatever pickles my fancy. That being said, I do think it can be beneficial to stop every now and then and ponder what I would like to read more of, what I might be missing out on, and what kind of stories I’m hoping to read soon. Today, that’s exactly what we’ll be doing, so grab a cup of hot chocolate and get ready!

Reread more books

In a lot of ways, 2025 was the year of rereading books for me. I listened to almost the entire Harry Potter series on audiobook (always a joy!!), reread every single Kerstin Gier YA book and had the time of my life, and then became a little obsessed with rereading classics. Pride and Prejudice, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Wuthering Heights – classics hated to see me coming in 2025. And it made me realise that classics benefit so much from reading them more than once – my opinions on some of these books honestly changed pretty drastically the second time around. So, in 2026, I plan to do even more of that. It has the added benefit of saving me a lot of money as I’m actually reading the books I already own instead of buying books (which I will by no means stop doing in 2026, let’s not delude ourselves here).

Use the library more often

I used to be great at this. And I love going to the library because little excites me more than seeing all those books and knowing I can read them all – FOR FREE!! Honestly, whoever came up with the idea for libraries deserves all the awards. How beautiful that as a society we decided literature is too vital to gatekeep it and simply had to make it accessible for everyone! Apart from the fact I love visiting libraries, I wanna use them more often because they make reading so low-stakes. If I don’t like a book I got from there, it’s no big deal, because I didn’t spend money on it. Yes, I spent time reading it, but at least I won’t have to decide if I should let it waste space on my book shelves or just part with it instantly. Getting books from the library turns me into a more adventurous reader, it makes me branch out and pick up books I wouldn’t necessarily want to buy. And often, I find books in libraries I have never seen in a book store before. It’s win-win, really.

Read whatever the hell I want

It’s funny, because this should be a given. But sometimes I like making rules for myself a little too much, and then that keeps me from enjoying life to the fullest. For example, I declared 2025 the year of reading big books, complete with a list of massive books I was to read this year. And I read all of them except one (and I still have three weeks left to go at the time of writing this), and yes, I’m a little proud of that, and yes, I did enjoy a lot of those books. But I’m getting too old for keeping myself from simply enjoying the books I feel drawn to. I don’t care how long those books are. So in 2026, I’m going to read whatever the hell I want, as I should have been all this time anyway.

Finish reading all of Remarque’s novels

I know I just said I’m tired of to do lists and while that is true, I have a 30 before 30 list full of things I genuinely want to do before I turn 30. Now, 2026 is not the year I will enter into that decade, but it’s close enough that I feel like I should get onto ticking off some of those things. And one of them is to read all of Erich Maria Remarque’s novels because he wrote my favourite book of all time, All Quiet On The Western Front, and I must check the dude didn’t write anything else equally as much of a masterpiece as that. I’m at book 5/15, so perhaps you can tell why I’m in a bit of a hurry. The good thing is that I have actually enjoyed almost all of his novels so far, so chances are this won’t be a tedious task. But even so, I would have liked to have made some serious progress on that front by the end of 2026.

These are my reading hopes for the coming year, do let me know what you’re hoping to read in the next twelve months! Happy reading <33