Merry Christmas, everybody. I’m wondering if setting a higher goal would motivate me or just add pressure and I’ve decided to increase my reading goal from 52 books a year to 60 books a year. It’s not a huge increase but I want to challenge myself and I know audiobooks will help me too. There are many TBR lists on my shelf and there are so many books I want to read so 60 books feels justified for me. I don’t want to miss my chance on this earth by skipping great books especially classics. When you think about it, there are millions of books out there and even if only 1% are gems, that’s still hundreds of thousands of great books. I really don’t want to miss out on them. Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2026 and I hope you all have a great reading year ahead.🎄
by Delicious_Maize9656
30 Comments
I totally get wanting to be able to read all the good books out there! But the thing I learned about having a big reading goal (at least for me) was that it lead to me not actually appreciating the good books I was reading because I was trying to get through them so fast. If you ask me, it’s better to go at your own pace and just celebrate the books you *do* read.
Eh I tried to give myself a few years ago with an objective of 36 books. It made the length of the book influence more my reading choices, and I was spending less time thinking about what I was reading. Overall I felt like I enjoyed reading less and I wouldn’t recommend it. But to each their own!
I really don’t track books by a number goal. I read about 50ish books a year (and listen to about 20 or more audiobooks a year). I do plan on tackling some long books this year that I’ve been putting off for a while though. That’s my goal.
i don’t set reading goals for myself, i just read when i want and what i want. i don’t like to set goals on my leisure time, or most of my hobbies.
Every year I say there’s no way I can surpass the previous year and every year, I am wrong.
I’ve read 227 books this year. Planning on hitting 230 by the end of the month. I think I’ve hit the upper limit. But I said that in 2024, 2023, 2022…
Nah, I read books I enjoy at the pace that works for my life at the time and try to not make reading a sport or competitive.
I’ve been upping my reading count from 30 pages a day to 50-60 pages. Maybe not a whole lot, but I’ve been seeing an increase in reading endurance the past year when I started to read consistently. Might make it to 50 books in a year at this pace, but I’ll have to see what it adds up at the end of next year. Your right that there are so many books that I’m trying to make it an effort at reading more often than I used to, not just for a challenge, but because its been helping me mentally as well.
I’m older so maybe that’s why I don’t understand these posts about numbers. Seems like a great way to add stress to most people’s lives, when many of them seemed stressed out already. I read a lot, have for decades. Sometimes 3 a week, sometimes 1 if it’s really long. Thousands of books over four decades I’m guessing, but why care about the exact number? (I do like our library we have built). I also reread some stuff I like every decade or so. Do the counter people count that?
Just read for pleasure. Not everything has to be enumerated and put into spreadsheets.
You WILL miss out on great books no matter how long you live.
No I always keep my number goal at 52 but I give myself other challenges. Last year to read at least 2 classics and one long book.
Next year I want to keep that and add 4 non fiction.
I think keeping the number achievable allows me to relax with dnfs and allows me to experiment more.
If I was always rushing to read more more more then I wouldn’t feel chill enough to tackle something epic like a 1000 pager or read something outside my comfort zone.
New year new job new schedule new me (more books)
Every year I set my reading goals, and of course I try to out do the previous. Its a great thing to strive for, but just know the year can be unpredictable. I set some higher goals this year, and am coming up rather short to them sadly. It was a tough year for reading, between work and grad school, and the reading I had to do for them, I didn’t get much personal reading in.
I like to keep track of the books i read, but I read some longer books this year, so my “count” is lower than usual. Finished Shogun and Don Quixote tho, both of which took ages.
I think setting goal numbers can prevent you from trying out longer or challenging works.
I always aim at increasing my book count but I don’t stress about it. Reading ten 200-page books is not better than reading five 400-page ones.
Also, I don’t limit myself to the classics, supposed masterpieces or “serious books”… I just read what I feel like and my selection is usually very diverse.
In the end, I usually reach between 60-80 books every year (not counting graphic novels).
Merry Christmas and have a great 2026, full of great reads!
This year I’m finishing 90 books. But no, I’m not planning to up my read count any further. 50 books a year is my comfort zone 🙂
I don’t keep a count of the books I read, but yes, I’d like to read more this year.
I try to not put any sort of pressure on my hobbies. It immediately makes it less fun for me. Give it a whirl if you want, some people are motivated by it, but if you find yourself reading books you don’t want, or finishing things you’re not interested in because you want to hit a number it’s fine to stop. I set my reading goal at something easily achievable just so I can track the books I’ve read and that works for me.
My goal at the start of 2025 was 30 books. I ended up reading 120, averaging over 400 pages per book. I doubt I will get anywhere near 120 in the near future. I think my 2026 goal will go back to 30 and we’ll see where we end up.
I don’t set numeric goals, but I hope to read even more books next year than I read this year and even more the next year and so on and so forth until I’ve read every book I’ve ever wanted to read!
It’s a totally reasonable goal.
I do page count goals instead of number of books. The latter always makes me feel like I should prioritize shorter novels and discourages me from reading short stories since those don’t count as novels. If you track you page count instead you can read whatever you like.
My goal is 20,000 pages for the year which amounts to a little more than 50 pages per day.
I actually don’t think I’m going to set a reading goal this year. I find I read a lot more in the fall/winter than other seasons and the reading goal looks like a flop for most of the year because of that.
Nah I tend to set mine realistically and then act pleasantly surprised when I destroy it lol. This year was 35, actual probably 55 or 56.
No. I focus on reading for pleasure and let the number of books I read a year become what it’s meant to become.
Honestly, I only set a ‘goal’ because that’s the only way to get goodreads to count them & give me stats. I will admit, it’s interesting to see my numbers affected by what’s going on in my life.
I average between 120-230 books a year (with a low of 50 from the Plague Year) (this year I’ve read 150; I don’t think I’m getting the current one finished before the new year.) I’m still not reading a tenth of all the books I WANT to read. (So little time! So much to know!) So I feel your pain.
I personally found that setting reading goals robbed me of some of the joy of reading. I found myself picking books based on size as opposed to interest and I was speeding through books.
I read just for myself so having a goal or reading a certain number of books didn’t add to my experience.
>I don’t want to miss my chance on this earth by skipping great books especially classics
You will. But I think that it’s important to find pleasure in reading a book, and not just finishing it. Because, by doing these challenges and setting up goals, you tend to put much more emphasis on finishing books than reading them.
And what people that set these goals do, is that they end up picking specific books based on length or they read faster, just so they will be able to mark a book as read.
It takes what it takes, and you’re never gonna finish your TBR list. And it’s perfectly fine, if you actually enjoy doing the activity and you don’t care much about how fast you finish a book or how many do you finish by the end of the year. Setting these goals and putting this pressure, you might reach a point where you feel that deciding what to read is hard, as you’ll always have FOMO. And it’s not uncommon for this pressure to eventually make you dislike reading.
I highly disagree with “1% of the books are gems”, but that might be a personal opinion. I found myself liking to read. And I can count on the fingers of a hand the books that I truly disliked, and that I abandoned before finishing them.
I used to read 8 books a month. I love rereading my favourites multiple times.
I’m editing my own novel so I don’t read as much now.
Do whatever you love. 🩷 then you’ll always love it.
No, I currently have read 94 books. I doubt I can reach that again, it’s a personal record of mine ever I started taking my books
I’ve finished 136 this year. Some of them dragged. I’m looking to read longer books – Count of Monte Cristo, Anna Karenina, 2666, reread Shogun and James Clavell’s other books. The number doesn’t matter imo, narrowing your search for quality and for what you like is the best to have the most fun
I did 52 this year as a way to really kickstart my reading again. I had been off for years because I was in law school and couldn’t read for fun. I’m about to finish my 52nd book and I’m super proud of myself and it really got me to try all kinds of new things and connect with friends for recommendations and push my boundaries and put my phone down and turn the TV off in bed and read instead. It was a huge life improvement overall. Brought me so much joy! I do think I’m going to stick with 52 this year, though. It was really the perfect pacing for me with work and life.