2025 Reading Challenges and Resolutions

Insert *spring, new beginnings* cliché here

Hello book nerds! It’s been awhile since I posted but hopefully I can resume a regular posting schedule now that my honeymoon trip has come and gone. If you’re still here I appreciate your patience, I’ve got some fun nerdy things coming. The plan for April is to post every week and then go back to my twice monthly schedule.

I always knew I would share my reading resolutions late but I thought it would be February late, not the beginning of Q2. But alas here we are, better late than never. I want to share these to hold myself accountable and get some recommendations (bonus points if you name something on my shelf that I haven’t read yet). I did start the year with some loose goals and then narrowed them down further as my 2025 reading life got underway.

Image via UnSplash

Storygraph (add me) is one of my favorite ways to track my reading and most of the challenges I’m participating in can be found on there. While I do not write down every title I read (but I’m tempted as others have talked about how valuable this and let’s be real Goodreads could crash any day) I do log my '“challenge” reads on Storygraph and in a notebook. This year, just like the last few years, I’m participating in the following:

The Old Faithful Challenges:
20BooksByAsianAuthors: I have come so close but always seem to fall short, never surpassing 19 books read. At this point the number is arbitrary because I’ve succeeded in expanding my reading life but it’s a goal I want to try to achieve at least once. Books Read Thus Far: 7
Books on my TBR that apply: Homeseeking, Interior Chinatown (this has been on my TBR for so long it’s embarrassing, I found it in a DC Little Free Library FOUR years ago), The Great Reclamation

ReadLatineLit: One book a month by a Latine author, I completed this last year which was nice. This year I decided to aim for 20 for the sake of parity.
Books Read Thus Far: 3
Books from my TBR that fit: Ordinary Girls, Mama’s Girl, Vanishing Maps

12BooksByBlackChicagoWomen: I am a Black woman who lives in Chicago and yet I could not complete this challenge to save my life last year. I think the issue was that I’d read all the obvious choices already; Maud Martha (a book of my life), A Raisin in the Sun (another book of my life), Ghosts in the Schoolyard etc so I struggled. This year I wrote out a list, a mix of underrated backlist titles and some newer mysteries, so that I have options depending on mood. Books Read Thus Far: 3
Books On My List: A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun, Original Sins, Saavy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

New Challenges:
Read What You Own: There is an Instagram version of this with prompts started by Cori and Alison but my own personal goal is just to read at least one book I own each month. I’ve chosen that approach because I’m a mood reader and unfortunately the Jan-April prompts thus far did not match what I wanted to read for those months. I love the library but the library holds list dictates my reading life and with my book buying problem that has to end. My shelves are overflowing.

Other Resolutions:
Read 12 books in translation. Last year my goal was to read four (one a week in August during Women in Translation when I realized I read an appallingly low amount of books in translation), this year I’m going for 12. I own at least four books in translation (On a Woman’s Madness, Off-White, So Long a Letter and The Color Line) so that should help with my goal of reading non library books as well.
Books Read Thus Far: 3

Read 12 books by Indigenous authors: This came about because when I looked at my reading stats for the last five years I realized, much like my lack of reading translated lit this was an area where I needed significant improvement. This isn’t a set challenge anywhere although there is one on Instagram with very specific genre prompts. My thought here is that I need to build the habit of reaching for Native authors first and then I can focus on diversifying the genres down the line.
Books Read Thus Far: 2
Books from my TBR: Crooked Hallelujah, Tracks, The Truth According to Ember

Read at least four 500+ page books: When I read that Ochuko reads one 500 page book a month my jaw dropped. I want to get on her level (in so many ways) and I also want to remind myself what it means to truly sink into a book for days on end. Middlemarch is one of my favorite books so I’m tempted to join in Haley’s read-a-long but I also want to try some other options.
Books Read Thus Far: 1, Ida: A Sword Among Lions¹ by Paula Giddings, a phenomenal biography, so good that I needed to deviate from my format and sing its praises here. Ida B. Wells needs a biopic like yesterday and monuments throughout the country.
Books on my list for this: In the Eye of the Sun, Divine Days, The Parisian

This is also the year I want to become a Jessie Redmon Fauset² completionist, it shouldn’t be hard because I’ve read Plum Bun so there’s only three left. However it’s always hard to fit in backlist especially when her books don’t fit any of my other goals so I’m not sure how feasible this is for the year. I am also hoping to have a reading project revolving around books from the Harlem Renaissance³ era.

Finally like everyone else on BookStack I want to read slower and more intentionally. This is reflected in both my “big book” challenge and my ~loosely held goal~ to read no more than 8-9 books a month.

This is a lot! But I like a good challenge and I love a list so writing this out was very satisfying. I’ll have a progress report over the summer. Tell me, based on these challenges what books should be on my radar? Do you want to do a buddy read for any of these? What’s your most ambitious and least ambitious reading goal? If you posted yours on Substack let me know, I am obsessed with people’s reading lives and their bookish goals.

1. I technically started this in 2024 so I may try to push myself to do five books this year instead, we’ll see.

2. I wanted to do this before the Harlem Rhapsody hoopla but I admit that the petty in me wants to read all of Fauset’s work in order to properly dissect all the holes in that particular book

3. At the very least I will do a post recommending my favorite reads from this time period and noting which ones are on my TBR. It deserves a separate post and will give me an excuse to share photos from the Met’s Harlem Renaissance exhibit