2025 Reading Goals
I know, they are late, but think about it, what is time anyway?
I usually share my reading goals with folks in January. This year, as I was sitting down to write my goals, the fires broke out in LA. I didn’t write the goals. I did, and this is pretty embarrassing actually, think and stress about how I wasn’t going to post anything on the appointed day, while I was evacuated. I am actually ashamed to admit that, but as an extremely regimented person, it is hard for me to break with schedule even in the midst of literal disaster. A thing for my therapist and not you all? Yes, probably.
After not sharing goals in January, I thought, welp, the window has passed. I won’t be sharing goals at all this year. But when I asked my trusted pals
and if February was too late to post about goals, they said it was okay. So if this feels like too much and too late, please send them hate messages, not me. It was their idea.Before I get to my 2025 reading goals, and in an effort to always be transparent about my reading life, I want to share how I did on my 2024 goals (which I shared here on my IG).
Read 100 Books.
I read 139 books in 2024!
Read 10 pages a day.
I don’t really track this goal, but I know I didn’t read 10 pages a handful of days last year as I struggled through my many many many reading slumps. But mostly I did pretty good here.
Track my reading with The Storygraph.
I did do this. I was worried the transition would be hard and it was so seamless. I loved joining reading challenges. I also fell in love with their founder,
Complete The Stacks Mega Challenge.
I did it! It was a blast and we are on and poppin’ in 2025 with a new Mega Challenge. I’m beyond grateful to the challenge not only because of the way it expanded my reading life (it got me to read True Grit that
Launch a new project.
That was a cryptic way of talking about this here Substack!
Read 12 works of genre fiction2.
As you know genre fiction3 isn’t really my thing, so I tried hard last year. I ended up reading 11 genre fiction books, and one book that follows all the rules of romance but some romance readers say is not a romance. I feel like I did it, but maybe not.
Post my face more in feed.
I did it. I hate it. Algorithms are annoying.
Be a part of more book festivals and literary events
This was my favorite goal to achieve. I got to go to the San Antonio Book Festival, Mississippi Book Festival, Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and the National Book Awards4. It was a major year. I also got to moderate book events with Jesmyn Ward (still not over it) Hanif Abdurraqib, Joseph Earl Thomas, Sara Ruiz Grossman, Kiley Reid, Johanna Hedva and Lena (frickin’) Waithe. I am so so so so grateful for every single one of these events.
I had a veggie related goal — eat more vegetables by picking a new veggie each month and cooking it eight times with different recipes to really “get to know” it.
This goal came courtesy of
Now To My 2025 Goals
Read 100 Books.
I know lots of folks are reading less in 2025, but the truth is with my job, I can’t really read less than 100 books in a year. I mean I could, but I doubt that I would.
Read 10 Pages a Day.
This is my yearly goal. It is a nice way to accomplish a goal every day. Life is hard, reading ten pages is not. Even though on some days it does feel impossible. Most days, I do do it.
Read more “classics”.
I like to quantify my goals so I am looking at reading at least 24 books this year that are considered classics, including this month’s book club pick, Lolita.
There has been a push to reconstruct “the cannon” because it is exclusionary to anyone who isn’t a white dude, and more specifically a straight white dude. I fully support these efforts, because if I know anything it is that everyone else is sick with the pen. Those white dudes kept us out, so that the masses wouldn’t find out they were wack and everyone else was dope as hell. You know racism, sexism, etc. etc.
That being said, this year I want to dig into all the classics, the ones who have been added to the cannon more recently but also the ones that have held their spots for centuries.
Why? Because I want to be a better reader and critic and I don’t think I can do that without having a better understanding of the literary myth making and the world into which so many writers are writing into. I can’t know what is in conversation with what if I don’t read those books, however repugnant the authors and the content might be. I can’t tell when something is a remix or is paying homage if I don’t know the source text.
I am thinking of it as a my own little literary classics course.
When
and I talk about Toni Morrison’s lecture on goodness, one of the things that struck me, was how many straight white dudes Morrison was invoking in her own thinking and writing. If Morrison was reading these books and thinking about them as she created her own work, and as she evolved her own philosophies, I want to be doing the same6. Not only to be better at what I do, but to see the depth of greatness of someone like Toni Morrison who is made even more impressive by understanding how her work subverts the previous era’s understanding of talent and merit.This is the goal I am most committed to this year, even though I think it will be the hardest.
Read the work of our living legends.
I had been thinking about this when I was at the National Book Awards this year and Barbara Kingsolver won the lifetime achievement award. I was taken by her speech but really knew nothing about her except Demon Copperhead. I didn’t know she was who wrote The Poisonwood Bible (though I knew of the title).
Then, Nikki Giovanni passed away, and I thought about how lucky I am to have been alive for some of the time she was writing and how I wished I knew more of her work in her lifetime.
So this goal comes out of a desire to read the world that is being shaped by our living legends in real time. Not to wait until they are gone to read and celebrate their work.
The idea of “living legends” can be a little amorphous. I have defined it for myself in this case as: (1) authors who are over 65 years old and (2) feel like household names and/or literary greats.
People like (but not limited to): Walter Mosley, Percival Everett, Joyce Carol Oates, Barbara Kingsolver, Louise Erdrich, Stephen King, Beverly Jenkins, Nell Irvin Painter, Alice Walker, JM Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro, Edward P. Jones, John Edgar Wideman, Isabel Allende, and Danielle Steel.
I won’t likely get to all of these people, and some of them I have read before7. But many, I have not.
I do anticipate some crossover with this living legends goal and the classics goal. So I am being flexible with number here, and counting these reads toward my total 24 books of classics.
Complete the 2025 Mega Challenge
This goal feels like a no brainer. Plus, my classics and living legends goals will fit well into a lot of these prompts.
Talk about nonfiction more.
I know you’re thinking, but Traci, girl, you won’t shut up about nonfiction. True. But I want to talk about it more and in different ways, not just recommendation lists, but how to read it and why. I am hoping to find my footing into some of that thinking here with Unstacked, so stay tuned.
Be a guest.
I want to be invited into more literary and culture conversations, that could be as a guest on a podcast, a panelist, or a contributor. Mostly I want to talk about books and pop culture with more folks. If you are ever looking for an opinionated Leo, call me!
Work less
I worked a lot in 2024. Too much. By the time I got to December I felt so exhausted. Thanks to my new pal
Teach the Mini Stacks to read
I have no clue how to do this, but I hope that just by wanting it it’ll happen.
Engage more with you all in the comments.
I want to hear more from you all, so please comment on whatever I’m talking about. It fuels me to think more deeply about topics, and helps me to figure out what you all are interested. Also, it makes posting here feel less like writing and more like being in a community.
I would love to hear about your 2025 goals. Which ones are you most excited about? Which ones do you think will be the hardest? Talk to me!
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In full transparency, I do still have my Goodreads account but I mostly just copy and paste from my Storygraph over there, and only because I am told Goodreads still helps debut authors and authors from marginalized groups get footing in the ever competitive battle to get books in stores.
I added this goal after the IG post
In my mind I thought of the genres options here as romance, sci-fi/fantasy, western, thriller/mystery, and horror
I know some you love that pigment free cruciferous beast, but eight times in a month seems like punishment.
I am not Morrison, obviously duh duh duh. But I want to emulate her practices even if the product is nowhere close.
But not enough.
After what went down in January, February is not too late to share goals; in fact, it's probably a good idea to give ourselves a do-over for the New Year. Re: the mini stacks, if you are a reader (you are) and you read to them (you probably already do) and you let them read whatever they want, even if they are 13 and still reading Dog Man, you will be doing all you can do to make them life-long readers. Also, Danielle Steel has sold more than 800 million books!!! Also, Also, I am still thinking about the episode on goodness!!
Love these goals-- especially reading the classics. I have a somewhat similar goal focused on 3 authors-- my goal is to read 24 books from either Toni Morrison, August Wilson, or Octavia Butler. I've only read 1 of each so far, and that feels insufficient given the huge influence each has had on literature.