Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Bookish Wishes, with the prompt: List the top 10 books you’d love to own and include a link to your wishlist so that people can grant your wishes. Make sure you link your wishlist to your mailing address or include the email address associated with your e-reader in the list description so people know how to get the book to you. After you post, jump around the Linky and grant a wish or two if you’d like. Please don’t feel obligated to send anything to anyone!
When wishlists come up as a TTT prompt, I typically don’t share a link… but what the heck! I’ll jump in with my Amazon wishlist this time around. Really, I’m not terribly comfortable asking people for anything! Mainly, I’m posting this to say — here are books I want to get my hands on… and eventually, I may end up treating myself to at least one or two.
A couple of these are books that I read via the library and would love to own; one I just purchased in hardcover using a gift card, but would love to get a Kindle edition; and one is an upcoming new release that I already know I’ll need!
The Children by Melissa Albert
Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser
The Calamity Club by Katheryn Stockett
Kin by Tayari Jones
My Friends by Fredrik Backman
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
Daggerbound by T. Kingfisher (not out yet; release date 8/25/2026)
As 2026 gets underway, I’m taking a moment to think about my book-related goals for the year to come.
My bookish goals mainly have to do with my reading habits: What do I want to focus on more — or less? What types of books do I want to read? What challenges do I want to join or set for myself?
Many of my reading goals are similar to those from years before… but that’s okay! I’m a work in progress — and my life as a reader continues to evolve.
Below are goals (intentions) that I’ll try to keep in mind as 2026 rolls along.
READING CHALLENGES
I’ll be joining a few challenges, as well as creating a few just for me:
Goodreads:
This is one I do every year. Last year, my goal was 150 books, and I ended up reading 159. However — I want to take things a bit slower this year and give myself breathing room for longer books and/or books that take more concentration or effort. Keep in mind that my goal number includes print and audio books, and I usually also have at least a few graphic novels and children’s/middle grade books in the mix.
StoryGraph:
I love that StoryGraph lets us break out our annual goals in three ways: Total number of books, number of pages, and number of hours (for audiobooks). I think my page and hours numbers from last year are pretty doable, but once again, I’m going to lower my total book count for the year.
More StoryGraph challenges:
I’m creating several challenges for myself on StoryGraph to help me stay on track with my personal goals. I’ve set these up as public challenges, just in case anyone wants to join in… but really, my intention is to use these as motivation for myself! My challenges are:
Non-Fiction Reading: Read at least 10 works of non-fiction — any topic will do.
Read My Coffee Table Books: Because I have a tendency to buy these and not truly spend time enjoying them. This is the year to change that!
Read My Shelves: My most important challenge of the year! I’m committing to reading at least 20 books that I’ve owned since 2025 or earlier.
Getting Graphic: Making time for more graphic novels, especially those I own and haven’t read yet.
Series Starters & Sequels Challenge: Committing to reading at least 10 books from series — either starting a new-to-me series or continuing a series I’ve already started.
20th Century Decades Challenge: This is a holdover from 2025 (and it’s a challenge I love). The goal was to read one book from each decade of the 20th century. I’ve made it through all but two, and decided to extend the end date so I could actually finish!
GENERAL INTENTIONS & GOALS FOR 2026:
Beyond the challenges, here are my overall goals related to reading, blogging, and my bookish life:
Read whatever I feel like, as much as I can. I say this every year… and every year it’s worth repeating! I’m always happiest when I read without a plan. It’s a wonderful feeling! Apart from ARCs and book group books, this is the approach that works for me… which is why I tend not to join big, popular reading challenges with a ton of prompts and categories to live up to.
Keep ARC requests manageable, and keep up with the ARCs I’ve committed to. I did really well with this goal in the 2nd half of 2025, but find myself starting 2026 with more ARC commitments than I’d really prefer. I’ll see them through — after all, my ARC request are all for books that I truly want to read! But beyond the ARCs I’ve already committed to, I’m going to attempt to limit my requests for the rest of the year.
Keep up with my book group books. We have our book-of-the-month picks all set for 2026, and I find I do best if I plan ahead and figure out in advance when to start each book.
Make time for my priority series for 2026, which I’ll be highlighting in a separate post this week.
Read books I already own. I know, I know… we all say this, every single year! I’m getting a little annoyed with myself for not doing a better job of reading books promptly after I add them to my shelves. I have so many books in my home and on my Kindle that I haven’t read yet — and while some no longer interest me, there are plenty more that I really do want to read. I’m going to push myself in this direction throughout the year, although it can be hard to keep the momentum going when favorite authors keep releasing new books.
Continue finding time for classics. I’ve been participating in the Classics Club spins for the past couple of years, which I love — but I have a big list of classics yet to read, and I’d like to carve out some time for at least one or two outside of the “spin cycle”.
Continue to pare down the number of physical books on my shelves, and be mindful about which I keep and which I send on their way. I’ve now had my own Little Free Library for over a year, and I’ve loved seeing the books come and go. When the LFL starts looking a little empty, I restock with a few books from my shelves that I haven’t looked at in ages. It’s a great feeling to see my “old” books get grabbed up and taken to a new home! I’m continuing to list books on Pango Books too, which helps me feel like I’m offsetting my book buying dollars a bit while also sending my gently loved books onward to someone new who’ll love them.
Do a big audiobook reread: I’ve been wanting to do an audio re-read of the Green Creek series by TJ Klune for a couple of years now. There’s also a new audiobook edition of Outlander, and well… it’s never a bad time for an Outlander re-read!
What are your bookish goals for 2026? Whatever they may be… wishing you lots of bookish delights!
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books Set in Snowy Places.
Note: The Silent Land is an under-the-radar gem! I read it back before I was blogging, so I don’t have a blog-based review to share — but here’s what I posted on Goodreads at the time:
A couple on a romantic ski getaway in the Pyrenees is caught in a sudden, early morning avalanche on the ski slopes. When they finally manage to dig themselves out and find their way back down the mountain, they find their hotel and its village have been evacuated, and they’re completely alone. Or is there something else going on? “The Silent Land” is simply told, but does a masterful job of evoking the glory of a snowy mountain, the joy of being with a soulmate, and the disquiet of realizing that some things defy explanation, no matter how hard you try to understand it all. It’s hard to go any further without divulging spoilers, which I won’t do. Suffice it to say that “The Silent Land” is both beautiful and ominous, gave me the chills, and kept me intrigued enough that I ended up reading in all in one day. Definitely recommended.
Do you have any favorite books with snowy settings?
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is a freebie — we choose whatever topic appeals to us! I enjoy finding patterns among my book titles — and I also enjoy having simpler TTT topics during weeks I know will be especially busy — so this week, I’ve chosen books with the word SECRET in their titles. There are a lot of them!
I’m focusing on books on my physical and virtual bookshelves. Some of these are books I’ve read, and some are from my TBR… and there are plenty of others I haven’t included, mainly because I’m trying to keep this list under control!
Reading now:
The Deepest of Secrets (Rockton, #7) by Kelley Armstrong
Read previously:
The Secret Christmas Library by Jenny Colgan (review)
The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (review)
The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust, #2) by Philip Pullman (review)
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna (review)
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Modern Books You Think Will Be Classics In The Future.
I could digress into a whole discussion of what constitutes a classic… but I’ll spare everyone! My feeling is that “classics” are very much in the eye of the beholder. That said, I’m interpreting this week’s prompt in terms of staying power. What book from the past 20 – 30 years (or so) are likely to continue being read and appreciated in the future, and for many years to come?
I’ve decided to focus on science fiction and fantasy for this week’s list. Here are 10 books that I believe will continue to amaze and delight for many, many years!
(Note: After finalizing this list, I realized I’d done a version of this topic in 2022! At least I’m consistent… three of these books were on that list too, which didn’t only focus on sci-fi/fantasy)
Old Man’s War (series) by John Scalzi
The Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins
Wayward Children (series) by Seanan McGuire
The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow
A Discovery of Witches (series) by Deborah Harkness
The Expanse (series) by James S. A. Corey
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
His Dark Materials (series) by Philip Pullman
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Do you have any favorite sci-fi/fantasy books that you can see as future classics?
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books I Enjoyed that Were Outside My Comfort Zone.
I don’t know that I have a particular comfort zone when it comes to reading. I read across genres, and wouldn’t say that certain types of books or topics make me uncomfortable. Still, there are books that are more unusual choices for me, and those are the books that I’m highlighting today.
Here are ten books that are not my typical reads! For a variety of reasons, these books were out-of-the-ordinary when it comes to my reading habits… and I’ll share why!
1. The Roommate by Rosie Danan (review): I enjoyed this contemporary romance, but it was WAY more spicy (i.e., extremely explicit) than anything I typically read.
2. The Blind Side by Michael Lewis: If you’d asked me in advance if I’d consider reading a book about football, the answer would have been no! Not a football fan, and really, little to no interest in reading about sports. And yet, after hearing an interview with the author, I decided to check out the book, and found it surprisingly fascinating.
3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (review): After geeking out on Hamilton (the musical), I decided to read the biography that inspired it. I would not normally pick up a massive history/biography like this… but I’m glad I did.
4. Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow: Yet another massive history book that I picked up thanks to pop culture! I went through a phase (many years ago) where I was very into both TV shows and movies set during the Vietnam War, and decided I needed to go deeper. As a fiction reader to the depths of my soul, reading a big history book like this was definitely an unusual step, but it paid off.
5. Red Earth and Pouring Rain by Vikram Chandra: A book group I participated in many years ago picked this book, and I was not prepared for the writing style or subject matter! I stuck with it for the sake of the group discussion, but this was not a typical read for me by any means.
6. An Immense World by Ed Yong: I do like to pick up pop science books from time to time. This one was a gift, and was much more science/detail-heavy than what I might typically read. I’m glad I was gifted this one — I might not have picked it up otherwise, and I found so much of it really fascinating.
7. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: An unusual reading experience for me, in that I only succeeded in finishing this book on my 3rd (or possibly 4th) attempt. At various times in my life, I’d started this book, only to quit somewhere around the halfway mark. For a long time, I considered this my own personal unreadable book… and then finally decided that I was going to give it one more try and actually finish it, no matter what. I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t love it, but I’m still glad that I made it happen.
8. Death of an Eye by Dana Stabenow (review): If not for being a fan of the author (I love her Kate Shugak series!), I probably would have skipped right by this book. A mystery set during Cleopatra’s reign, there was so much about the time period and setting that I had to Google while reading that it took real perseverance to see it through. It was a good read, but the subject matter made it an unusual choice for me.
9. Reading Shakespeare for myself, not for a class! A catch-all category here… I’ve now read Shakespeare plays a few times over the past several years, just for my own enjoyment. Again, definitely not something I’d consider part of my typical reading habits! I’m looking forward to continuing — there are still plenty left that I haven’t read or studied.
10. Moby Dick by Herman Melville: At some point a few years ago, I decided that I had to read Moby Dick. Just because. Maybe as a point of pride, to be able to say I’d done it? Overall, it was a rewarding experience… but the endless chapters about different types of whales? Definitely not something I’d ever thought I’d spend that much time on!
And finally…
One extra book — this is one from my to-read pile that truly feels outside my comfort zone… mainly because I keep hearing how hard it is to get through it!
Have you read The Silmarillion? Thoughts on whether it’s worth the effort?
Have you read any of the books on my list? Do you have any particular books that were unusual reading choices for you?
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf, with the prompt:
Stand in front of your book collection, close your eyes, point to a title, and write it down. If you have shelves, point to your physical books. If you have a digital library, use a random number generator and write down the title of the book that corresponds with the number you generated. You get bonus points if you tell us whether or not you’ve read the book, and what you thought of it if you did!
I do have lots and lots of books on my physical shelves… but I also know exactly where each book is, so I don’t think closing my eyes and pointing will help me be particularly random! So, I’m going with the virtual option. I have a spreadsheet (Excel nerd alert!) with all the books in my Kindle library, and I used a random number generator to help me pick books.
Here are the ten books that I landed on:
The Sky Vault (The Comet Cycle, #3) by Benjamin Percy
Read? No
Thoughts: The first two books in this trilogy were great… but I think by the time I got a copy of the 3rd, my interest had waned. I do still want to read this (eventually).
The Book of Hidden Things by Francesco Dimitri
Read? No
Thoughts: Honestly, I’d completely forgotten about this book! I picked up a copy over five years ago, after seeing positive reviews. Now that I’ve been reminded of it, I may still want to read it!
The Baker’s Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan
Read? No
Thoughts: I’ve read two other books by this author, and thought they were great. This is yet another “someday, maybe” book.
Feed (Newsflesh, #1) by Mira Grant
Read? YES!
Thoughts: I loved it! This series is amazing… I’d love to reread it at some point. (Check out my review of the trilogy, here)
Kilmeny of the Orchard by L. M. Montgomery
Read? Yes
Thoughts: Not the best of this author’s works (by a long shot!), but for those who want to explore beyond Anne and Emily, it’s an interesting stand-alone to check out. (review)
And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Read? No
Thoughts: I absolutely want to read this novella! Funnily enough, I’ve only read novellas by this author (although I have a few of his novels on my TBR too). The ones I’ve read have been excellent, so I look forward to checking this out.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Read? No
Thoughts: I think I grabbed a copy when there was a Kindle price break… but given that I’m not much of a non-fiction reader, I doubt I’ll ever get to this book (even though I’ve heard great things about it).
Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby
Read? No
Thoughts: Another one I’d forgotten! I remember hearing good things about it, so this is a helpful reminder that I should give it a try.
The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
Read? Yes
Thoughts: Now that the 3rd book is out, this trilogy has been on my mind. I’m leaning toward reading #3 (The Rose Field), but I’ll need a major refresher on the previous book first. (Here’s my review of La Belle Sauvage)
Crazy Rich Asians trilogy by Kevin Kwan
Read? 1 of 3 books
Thoughts: This last item that came up randomly for me is a 3-in-1 edition of the Crazy Rich Asians books. I read the first book earlier this year (review), and I do want to read the rest!
Have you read any of my books? Any that you’d particularly recommend?
I’d love to see other people’s random book selections! If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is a Halloween freebie! For my Halloween post, I’m going to focus on horror novels on my to-read list. (I’ve done this topic a few times in the past several years, and given the state of my TBR list, it’s time to do it again.)
About half of these are holdovers from last year’s Halloween TBR… giving you some idea of how behind I am when I comes to keeping up with my reading plans! Of the books on my list, most have been around a while, and a couple are upcoming new releases:
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
Needful Things by Stephen King
Dread Nation by Justine Ireland
Hemlock Island by Kelley Armstrong
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
A Dowry of Blood by S. T. Gibson
Dead Weight by Hildur Knutsdottir
The Place Where They Buried Your Heart by Christina Henry
Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon
Have you read any of these (or for the upcoming new releases, do you plan to read them)? Which ones look best to you?
What’s on your Halloween TTT this week? Share your link, please, and I’ll come check out your top 10!
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Cozy Reads. Cozy fantasy is having a moment, but there are so many other types of cozy books too.
I tend to think of cozy fiction as anything with a focus on cuteness, baked goods, restoring an old building, settling in a small town, bookshops, cats… you get the idea!
Here are my top ten:
A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna (review)
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time. To me, that means books that made a huge impact the first time around — anything from an intense emotional experience to sheer delight to big twists and surprises I never saw coming.
Here are my top ten:
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon: As a die-hard fan of the series, I can’t help but think back on how powerfully the first book affected me.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell: The opening pages knocked me for a loop.
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: The jumps between times confused me and delighted me so much.
Fingersmith by Sara Waters: This book made me literally gasp out loud at certain twists.
The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans: I just remember sobbing. That’s it.
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison: Such an incredible reading experience. I find something new to appreciate with each reread, but the first time was especially mind-blowing.
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal: My heart was in my throat.
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn: Such a delightful, playful story.
The BFG by Roald Dahl: I don’t know if I’d appreciate it on my own, but I read this for the first time with my kiddo when he was about 9 or 10, and his laughter was everything.
Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant: This horror novella is like nothing I’d read before, and the key horror element is a knock-out.
What books do you wish you could read again for the first time? Do we have any in common?
Bookshelf Fantasies 