2025 Reading Challenge discussion

New year, new Shelf of Stuff! Time to set everything up for 12 new months of planning and tracking all the bookish things.
Feel free to say hi below if you're passing by!


Links to my previous shelves:
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020

Quick links to frequently used posts below:
Current month
Challenges

Shelf of bookcovers read in 2025

Reading goals for 2025
▪️Number of books&pages: 75 books, 25.000 pages
▪️Series: another attempt to focus on priority series to make progress in. Starting with 2 priority series, might add others later.
▪️Buddy reads: Buddy reads or readalongs are great motivation. Join readalongs (only for books I actually want to read) and initiate buddy reads especially for those pesky series books.
▪️Diversity: increase % POC authors and % non-binary authors vs 2024 %.
▪️Rereading: reread more books than I did in 2024 (reread 5 in 2024).
▪️Physical tbr:
- goals per haul-year: 2024 15 to 7, 2023 9 to 4, 2022 13 to 8, 2021 4 to 2, 2020-and-earlier 9 to 5.
- read 33% of my 2025 hauls within 2025
- the current 2 TBR shelves are the maximum TBR space
▪️Unhaul: get those unhauls actually out of the house. A couple at a time to the mini free library, or in bulk to charity shop, etc.
▪️Numbers of books at once: 4 is the absolute maximum. 2 or 3 is better…
▪️Work books: at least one a month. Find a place on my shelves for That Big Stack. Unhaul what I'm realistically not ever gonna read.
▪️ARCs: no more Netgalley. Write those last remaining reviews.
▪️Goal review: actually do quarterly reviews of my goals this time, and adjust goals where needed to reflect new priorities.

Series I’m working on (and which book is next up)
Priority series for 2025
-Mistborn, Era 1: The Hero of Ages
-The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass

The rest (in order of when I last read from the series):
-The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth (but reread original trilogy first after finishing the tv series)
-The Wormwood Trilogy: The Rosewater Insurrection
-The Lunar Chronicles: Scarlet
-A Song of Ice and Fire: A Clash of Kings
- - - - - - - -series with 2023 progress: - - - - - -
-The Farseer Trilogy: Assassin's Quest
-Imperial Radch: Ancillary Mercy
-Wanderers: Wayward
-Thursday Next: Lost in a Good Book
-Wayfarers: A Closed and Common Orbit
-A Chorus of Dragons: The Name of All Things
-The Hunger Games: Mockingjay
-Supernatural Investigations: Amari and the Despicable Wonders
-The Last Binding: A Restless Truth
-LitenVerse: Defekt
-Southern Reach: Authority
-Monk and Robot: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy
- - - - - - - -series with 2024 progress: - - - - -
-Robert Hunter: Gezicht van het kwaad
-The Resolution Universe: Ocean's Echo
-Fourth Wing: Iron Flame
-The Thursday Murder Club: The Bullet That Missed
-Bill Hodges: Finders Keepers
-Six of Crows: Crooked Kingdom
-Aaron Falk: Force of Nature
-A Kind of Spark: Keedie
-Wayward Children: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
- - - - - - - -series with 2025 progress: - - - - -
-Green Oak: The Long Game The Fiancé Dilemma
-Between Earth and Sky: Fevered Star Mirrored Heavens
-Sword Soldier: What Moves the Dead What Feasts at Night
-Shades of Magic: A Gathering of Shadows A Conjuring of Light

Uptodate:
-The Kystrom Chronicles: The Unkillable Princess
-Henbane Hollow: Mandrake Manor
-Alex Stern: Hell Bent
Finished:
-The Space Between Worlds: Those Beyond the Wall
-Rolling in the Deep: Rolling in the Deep
-The Arcadia Project: Impostor Syndrome
Series dnf’ed:
-Lightbringer: The Black Prism

Keeping track of my owned TBR
Starting point of my owned TBR, including books I’m currently reading:
1/1/2025: 63 books: 51 physical books, 12 ebooks.

Minus: read/dnf-ed/unhauled without reading
Plus: bought/gifted/got for free

📚January: 61 books: 50 physical: -1, 11 ebooks: -1
📚February: 60 books: 50 physical: +/-0, 10 ebooks: -1
📚March: 62 books: 50 physical: +/-0, 12 ebooks: +2
📚April: 62 books: 50 physical: +/-0, 12 ebooks: +2 -2
📚May: 60 books: 49 physical: +1 -2, 11 ebooks: -1
📚June: 59 books: 49 physical: +1 -1, 10 ebooks: -1
📚July: 63 books: 51 physical: +2, 12 ebooks: +2
📚August: 62 books: 51 physical: +/-0, 11 ebooks: +1 -2
📚September: X books: X physical: -2, X ebooks: +/-X
📚October: X books: X physical: +/-X, X ebooks: +/-X
📚November: X books: X physical: +/-X, X ebooks: +/-X
📚December: X books: X physical: +/-X, X ebooks: +/-X

Physical books hauled in 2025 (and did I read them)
May:
🎁The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
June:
✅💰We Could Be Heroes
July:
✅💰Everyone in the Group Chat Dies
🎁De Stilte

Still to read 2024 hauled books
💰De geschiedenis van de steen en de fluit - en dat is nog niet alles
🎁Assassin's Quest
💰The Book of Doors
💰S.
💰Ik kom hier nog op terug
💰De nomade
🎁Waterland
🎁Brandoffer
✅💰Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop(dnf)
✅💰Orbital
💰Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror
🎁The Pale Dreamer
💰Senlin Ascends
🎁De plot
🎁Het vervolg

Still to read 2023 hauled books
💰Mickey7
💰The Hero of Ages
💰Catfish Rolling
💰De man met duizend gezichten
🎁Iedereen liegt
💰Schuilplaats voor andere tijden
💰The Best of All Possible Worlds
💰It Happened One Summer
🎁The Troop

Still to read 2022 hauled books
🎁A Clash of Kings
🎁Omringd door idioten
💰SF Verhalen 6
💰Code 39
✅💰The Shining
🎁De 19 dingen die je nooit met collega's moet doen
🎁Zeven talen in zeven dagen
💰The Priory of the Orange Tree
💰Fairy Tale
💰Later
💰If You Could See Me Now
💰Nation
💰My Best Friend's Exorcism

Still to read 2021 hauled books
💰To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
💰Neuromancer
💰Rusalka
💰Grunts

Still to read 2020-and-earlier hauled books
Tweeduister
The Science of Discworld
The City
Misschien wisten zij alles
The Dosadi Experiment
Everything is Illuminated
✅Het Hemelse Gerecht
Best Kept Secret
Die Wand

Out of sight, out of mind…the owned ebook tbr
📖Tot snel
📖The Way of Kings
📖The Rosewater Insurrection
📖Under Fortunate Stars
📖Bang Bang Bodhisattva
📖Lost in a Good Book
📖The Well of Lost Plots
📖Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction
✅Office Maxi
📖Iron Flame
✅Those Beyond the Wall
📖Interstellar MegaChef
✅Given to Fly
✅Mandrake Manor
✅The Unkillable Princess
✅The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door
✅Hell Bent
✅The Black Prism
📖Leviathan Wakes

Books I want to reread in 2025
Books on my shelves I don’t remember, to decide whether or not to keep (can also just read a few chapters!). If I don't reread this year, just unhaul them!
-Jouw hart is van mij
-De Einstein code
-De verdronken tuin
-all my Nicci French books

Old (and new) favorites:
-✅Het oneindige verhaal
-Ogen van tijgers
-Neverwhere
-His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass
-Discworld: next up: Witches Abroad

Books to get to soon(ish)
-Crime and Punishment with Jayne
-The Golden Compass with Kelcii
-Sundial with Chloe
-The Troop (Secret Santa gift 2023!)
-All Systems Red (restart series with eyeballs)
-City of Bones (because I liked the movie)

Challenges I'm doing (in this group or elsewhere)
Ongoing:
📚Shrink That TBR (CCC): message 24
📚Reading Roulette (CCC): message 63
📚Stagnant Series (CCC): message 23

Completed:
📚Cozy Escapes (January Monthly): message 51 (Result: 2/4)

Buddy Reads/TBR Twins/etc
August: TBR Twins with Samantha, read A Gathering of Shadows
September: TBR Twins with Tanu, reading Pink Slime

50 by 50
Turning 50 in Feburary 2029, so a few years left for this list of 50 books I’d like to read before turning 50. List is a work in progress and subject to change.

1 One Hundred Years of Solitude
2 Never Let Me Go
3 The Love Hypothesis
4 The City We Became
5 Crime and Punishment
6 Pet Sematary
7 The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
8 Project Hail Mary
9 From Blood and Ash
10 The Last Wish
11 Klara and the Sun
12 A Wizard of Earthsea
13 The Haunting of Hill House
14 Snow Crash
✅15 The Dry
16 Wool
17 The Bear and the Nightingale
18 The Priory of the Orange Tree
19 Children of Time
20 The Plot
✅21 Hell Bent
✅22 A Head Full of Ghosts
23 Perdido Street Station
24 Earthlings
25 Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters
26 Senlin Ascends
27 Middlegame
28 S.
29 The Sword of Kaigen
30 XX
31 Frontier
32 Zondagskind
✅33 Weaveworld
34 Mexican Gothic
35 The Curse of Chalion
36 Gardens of the Moon
37 To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
38 Sleeping Giants
39 De Camino
40 Old Man's War
41 Leviathan Wakes
42 A Winter's Promise
43 A Court of Thorns and Roses
44 The Ninth Rain
45 De Citadel
46 The Girl on the Train
47 Dracula
48 We Have Always Lived in the Castle
49 American Psycho
50 The Long Walk

January
📚Plans: Rereading Favorites! Immortality thief with the sirens. Other reread options: 📖Het oneindige verhaal, ✅Dora, Book of M, Starless Sea, 📖Hex, Witches Abroad.
Also: library books: Dallergut Dream Department Store, The City We Became, Exit

📚Reality:
Orbital
Het blauwe uur
Alle moeders haten mij
Those Beyond the Wall
Dora een liefdesgeschiedenis (reread)
Black Sun (reread)

February
📚Plans: 📖The Immortality Thief
Chloe's Readathon
First roll: weapon on the cover ➡️ ✅Office Maxi
Second roll: seen recommended ➡️ 📖A Head Full of Ghosts
Third roll: name in the title ➡️ Senlin Ascends/ Mickey7/ Scarlet

📚Reality:
Office Maxi
Hex (reread)
Ergens, dichtbij
Kogelbrief

March
📚Plans: ✅finish The Immortality Thief, ✅finish A Head Full of Ghosts
TBR Trail:
green with light source on cover: Episode Thirteen /Impostor Syndrome
bookish goal (series continuation): The Unkillable Princess
free pick: ✅Light from Uncommon Stars
top five highest rated: Given to Fly
trope you dislike: Ghosted?
featuring sign language: ✅Rolling in the Deep

📚Reality:
The Rose Bargain
A Head Full of Ghosts
The Immortality Thief (reread)
Het perfecte gezin
Light from Uncommon Stars
Rolling in the Deep

April
📚Plans: ❌The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door (buddy with sirens), ✅finish Weaveworld

TBR Trail April:
green with light source on cover: ❌Episode Thirteen /Impostor Syndrome
bookish goal (series continuation): ✅The Unkillable Princess
top five highest rated: ✅Given to Fly
trope you dislike: ❌Ghosted?

📚Reality:
The Deep
Given to Fly
The Don (dnf)
Weaveworld
The Unkillable Princess

May
📚Plans: ✅The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door (buddy with sirens)

TBR Trail May:
Asia: ✅❌Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop
Free pick: ✅One Pucked Up Pack
Firefighter: ❌The Fireman
Paperback: ✅The Shining
Over 1000 pages: nope
Featuring music: ❌De geschiedenis van de steen, de fluit…

TBR Trail June:
Set in future:
Have someone pick a book:
Non-fiction: 19 dingen die je nooit met je collega’s moet doen
Set in Antarctica: Away with the Penguins
Set in Fiji, Guinea-Bissau or Peru:
Book from Bookish Challenge list (continue series): Fevered Star

📚Reality:
One Pucked Up Pack
The Long Game
The Shining
De Griezels
The Wind Weaver
Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop (dnf)
The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door
Het oneindige verhaal (reread)
Hench (dnf)

June
📚Plans:
Prideopoly!
First roll: (bi) disability rep: ✅Borderline (reread)
Second roll: (trans) poetry: ✅Blood Orange
Third roll: pansexual rep: ✅Fevered Star
Fourth roll: (nonbinary) indie published: ✅Mandrake Manor
(Fifth roll: library fines)
(Sixth roll: just browsing)
Seventh roll: community chest: 76. 2 spaces forward.
➡️ (trans) queer joy: ✅Felix Ever After
Eighth roll: (nonbinary) Horror/Scifi: ✅What Moves the Dead
(Ninth roll: checked your bank)
Tenth roll: (gay) romance: ✅We Could Be Heroes

TBR trail June/July:
Fantasy
White cover
Battlefield inspired
Magical realism
Free pick: ✅Felix Ever After
Bookish challenge

📚Reality:
Gebroken engelen
Borderline (reread)
Blood Orange
Mandrake Manor
Fevered Star
The Fall of the House of Usher
Felix Ever After
What Moves the Dead
We Could Be Heroes

July
📚Plans:
Pile of possibilities: ✅The Book of Lost Hours, ✅Phantom Pains (reread), Lost in a Good Book, Wizard and Glass, Crooked Kingdom, The Fiancé Dilemma, Fourth Wing (reread)
The Black Prism (Reading Roulette)

TBR trail June/July:
Fantasy: ✅Phantom Pains
White cover: ✅The Final Empire
Battlefield inspired: ✅Uitbarsting
Magical realism: ✅The Book of Lost Hours
Bookish challenge: Hell Bent

📚Reality:
Uitbarsting
Phantom Pains (reread)
The Book of Lost Hours
The Final Empire (reread)
Ninth House (reread)

August
📚Plans: ✅Harmattan Season (Siren Buddy read), ❌The Well of Ascension (reread), 📖Impostor Syndrome, ✅The Black Prism, ✅A Gathering of Shadows (TBR twin)

TBR trail August:
Bookish challenge: ✅A Gathering of Shadows
Free pick: ✅De vergeten spion
Social scroll: ❌A Fellowship of Bakers and Magic
Family history:
Magical realism:
Book set on coast:

📚Reality:
Hell Bent
Submission
Stink tegen de tovenaar
Harmattan Season (dnf)
A Gathering of Shadows
Curvy Girls Can’t Date Quarterbacks (dnf)
De vergeten spion
The Black Prism
De Schaduwsluiper

September
📚Plans: The Well of Ascension (reread), ✅Impostor Syndrome, Pink Slime (TBR Twin)

📚Reality:
Het hemelse gerecht
Everyone in the Group Chat Dies
Impostor Syndrome

October
📚Plans:

📚Reality:

November
📚Plans:

📚Reality:

December
📚Plans:

📚Reality:

Q1 stats and goals review
Very belated Q1 stuff.
▪️Number of books&pages: in Q1 I read 16 books and 5547 pages, putting me slightly behind my goals but not by much.
▪️Series: not good. I read 1 continuation, 1 prequel. Nothing from the priority series yet. I did reread two series books in order to continue the next one. Might have to do that with more series that lingered too long to remember…
▪️Buddy reads: did one semi buddy read with the sirens but that’s all.
▪️Diversity: i think i made progress but don’t know the stats
▪️Rereading: I reread 4 books in Q1, excellent!
▪️Physical tbr:
- goals per haul-year: 2024 15 ➡️ 14, nothing further
- read 33% of my 2025 hauls within 2025: didn’t haul anything ✅
- the current 2 TBR shelves are the maximum TBR space ✅
▪️Unhaul: i unhauled quite a lot! Gotta keep this up
▪️Numbers of books at once: changed my mind a bit on this one, I don’t mind a big stack anymore
▪️Work books: read 6, so 2 a month, which is great. Nothing from the Big Stack though
▪️ARCs: did not request new things but didn’t write those last remaining reviews yet
▪️Goal review: i kinda forgot but at least i did it now…

Q2 stats and goals review
▪️Number of books&pages: during Q2 I decided to take the pressure off and lower my goals to 60 books and 20.000 pages. In Q2 I read 20 books and 6595 pages. So I’m over halfway the newly adjusted goals, which feels much better. I also dnf’ed 2 books.
▪️Series: still not very good. I read 2 continuations, nothing from the priority series yet. I did start a reread of one series to be able to finish it.
▪️Buddy reads: did two semi buddy reads with the sirens.
▪️Diversity: I definitely made progress, especially in June participating in Prideopoly.
▪️Rereading: 2 rereads in Q2, which makes 6 for the year so far, already over last year’s number, so this goal is already ticked off!✅ (But I’m sure I’ll be rereading some more later in the year)
▪️Physical tbr:
- goals per haul-year: 2024 1 more off the list, down to 13, 2022 1, down to 12.
- read 33% of my 2025 hauls within 2025: so far 2 books hauled, and 1 of them read, so this is on track ✅
- the current 2 TBR shelves are the maximum TBR space ✅
▪️Unhaul: I unhauled a few books, the train station table and the little free library are definitely the easiest ways to make some quick progress with this.
▪️Numbers of books at once: I know I changed my mind on this goal in Q1, but in June I had to focus on 1 or 2 at a time because of Prideopoly and that did feel good, so goal is reinstated.
▪️Work books: slightly under goal with 2 for the quarter. Average for the year is good though. Nothing done with the Big Stack yet, and still deciding if I need to start adding those to the official TBR numbers…
▪️ARCs: did not request new things but still didn’t write those last remaining reviews yet
▪️Goal review: done within the first week of the new quarter, proud of myself. And with 4.22 average rating it was a good reading quarter!

Q3 stats and goals review

Q4 stats and goals review

2026 plans

Evaluate 2025 goals

Brainstorm 2026 goals
Number of ongoing series under X (excluding up-to-date series)

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Welcome visitors or random passers-by! Feel free to say hi below. I hope you'll have a good reading year in 2025!