I might be one of the only people out there with a New Year’s resolution to read fewer books. Most people want to read more, to put down their phones and stop doomscrolling and pick up a book instead. That’s not a problem I’ve had, ever – I spend plenty of time with my nose in a book, or listening to an audiobook on a long drive. And in 2025 I read a ridiculous amount: 165 books (134 physical and 31 audiobooks).
Of course I did enjoy the vast majority of them, but by the end of the year it was beginning to feel like quantity over quality. It’s not that I set out to read so many books, but there were a few elements of my reading life in 2025 that led to such a large number, and those are the things I’d like to change in 2026.
First off, I want to sit with books longer, both during and after I’ve read them. I often have multiple books on the go, sometimes several print books or several a print book and an audiobook, and while I pride myself on being an excellent multitasker I sometimes feel that I’m not giving one book my full attention by reading another at the same time (I don’t mean that I’m literally reading them simultaneously, but that I’m jumping from one to the other).
I also often have quite a few books borrowed from the library at once, which means that sometimes when I finished a book I felt the urge to immediately start another with an upcoming due date.
Speaking of the pressure of library due dates, this year I want to spend more time in the back catalogue. While I love getting excited for new releases, I felt myself slipping into a sort of FOMO state where I was desperate to read all the new releases as soon as they were published.
For example, I read almost 40 horror novels and nonfiction books with 2025 publication dates. And although, again, I don’t have any complaints about having read most of these books (particularly a few novels that are destined to become horror classics – keep an eye out for my list of best horror of the year coming soon), was there really any need to read as many as possible, within the confines of the calendar year?
Further, reading new release books means long waits on holds at the library, and no chance of renewing them, so I always had to start the next within hours or minutes of finishing the last. This year, if I focus on older books, I’ll be able to keep them as long as I want, or buy them from used bookshops (which has the bonus of giving me another excuse to go to second-hand bookshops), without feeling a deadline lingering over my head.
And yes, on that note, in 2026 I want to read more of the books that I already own. I love my ereader for its portable convenience and for how easy it is to borrow ebooks from the library, but I do have a pretty massive collection of physical books that I’ve never picked up.
It’s such a cliché to be a booklover who loves buying books and never reading them, and I love the analogy that a bookshelf should be like a wine cellar – that not all books are meant to be read immediately, but should be available for the right season, the right circumstances, the right feeling – but I want to read these books that I’ve collected.
If I’m not constantly chasing the highs of new releases and library holds coming in, I’ll be able to spend more time delving into the books I’ve brought home.
Finally, I want to get better at putting down a book if I’m not enjoying it. I DNF’d (Did Not Finish) five or six books last year, which is probably a record for me, but that represents only a fraction of a fraction of the books I picked up.
I pride myself on choosing books – I’m known among my friends as someone who is great with book recommendations. Part of that is because I read a lot and across genres, and part of it is that I’m good at identifying what people will like. That includes myself; even when it comes to debut authors or books by writers I don’t know, I can usually tell whether I’m going to like a book.
And so when I get it wrong, when I’m reading a book that I’m not really enjoying, it feels more like a personal failing – I chose wrong – than that the book wasn’t good or that we just didn’t click. This year, I need to get over it, and just DNF a book that isn’t doing it for me.
I have a few other reading related resolutions for the years – more works in translation, more poetry – but for the most part, in 2026, less is more.
thebestpossibletime 