The 2026 Annual Reading Challenge List Thread

[ucfgrad93]

I'm in for 2026! Like last year, my goal is 3 books a month.


January
The Eagle And The Wolves by Simon Scarrow, 320 pgs
Field Of Dishonor by David Weber, 302 pgs
The Eagle's Prey by Simon Scarrow, 484 pgs

February
Flag In Exile by David Weber, 424 pgs
The Eagle's Prophecy by Simon Scarrow, 324 pgs



Books Read 5
Pages Read 1,854

[Tarana]

2026 Goals

60 books: 10
20,000 pages: 2,138
4 books over 600 pages: 0

TBR Down 10 for each category:
Ebooks: 9
Audiobooks: -4
Magazines: 0


Magazines Read So Far: 0

Spoiler:

01.

2026 Purchases Read:
Bought: 11 Read: 0
Free: 8 Read: 0

Spoiler:

January
1. Tangled Up In Blue - Joan Vinge
2. World's End - Joan Vinge
3. Dead Man's Hand - James J Butcher
4. Years Best SF 15 - Gardner Dozois
5. The Summer War - Naomi Novik
February
6. In Harm's Way - Viveca Sten
7. Buried in Secret - Viveca Sten
8. Tonight You're Dead - Viveca Sten
9. A Slowly Dying Cause - Elizabeth George
10. Hidden in Memories - Vivica Sten
11. Murder Sees All - Vivica Sten
March
12.


Free
1. Dead Wrong - Helen Durrant
2. In His Wake - Chad Zunker
3. The People's Library - Veronica G Henry
4. Body in the Bookstore - Ellie Alexander
5. A Murder in Pembrokeshire - Nicola Clifford
6. Reunion of the Three - C S Harris
7. Outside the House - Blake Pierce
8. Otherworldly - Dwain Worren

Short Stories: 0

Spoiler:

01.

Books Finished: 10

Spoiler:

January
01. 5 The Flood Tide - Cynthia Harrod-Eagles (audio+ebook)

Excellent story

02. 4 Killing Cousins - Flora Fletcher (audio+ebook)

Excellent narrator. Story was almost comical.

03. 4 The Rowan - Anne McCaffrey (audio)

Good story.

04. 4 Let the Dead Sleep - Heather Graham (audio)

Paranormal story. Pretty good.

February
05. 3 Murder Wears Mittens - Sally Goldenbaum

Good story. Meandered a little too long.

06. 4 A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burrows (audio)

Excellent adventure!

07. 4 The Gods of Mars - Edgar Rice Burrows (audio)

Another excellent adventure - continued.

08. 4 Warlord of Mars - Edgar Rice Burrows (audio)

Good story!

09. 4 Thuvia, Maid of Mars - Edgar Rice Burrows (audio)

Great story.

March
10. 4 The Chessmen of Mars - Edgar Rice Burrows (audio)

Another good story. Next generation.

11.

TBR as of 1/1/26
Audiobooks 1,512
Ebooks&magazines 2,139

[Musicman]

I'll try again for 50...

January
1) King of Sorrow - Author Joe Hill
2) The Tin Men - Author Nelson Demille - Alex Demille
3) The Venom Business - Author Michael Crichton
4) Killer of the Flower Moon - Author David Grann

[afv011]

My challenge is to read 24 book next year.

Completed

• January
  1. Earth (David Brin) - 760p
• February
  1. The Very First Damned Thing (Jodi Taylor) - 56p
  2. Just One Damned Thing After Another (Jodi Taylor) - 254p
• March
• April
• May
• June
• July
• August
• September
• October
• November
• December

Books read: 3
Pages read: 1070

[sakura-panda]

2026 Reading Challenge List

Currently Reading
1. The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by David McCullough
2. U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton
3. Seven Stones to Stand or Fall by Diana Gabaldon
4. Hearts Awakening by Delia Parr
5. Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones

January 2026
1. The Goodbye Quilt by Susan Wiggs
2. A Hearth in Candlewood by Delia Parr
3. Veins of Gold by Charlie N. Holmberg
4. The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lilian Jackson Braun
5. Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs
6. Refining Emma by Delia Parr

February 2026
7. Where Love Dwells by Delia Parr
8. Sleeping with Schubert by Bonnie Marson
9. The Last Letter by Rebecca Yarros
10. Nefertiti by Michelle Moran

March 2026


April 2026


May 2026


June 2026


July 2026


August 2026


September 2026


October 2026


November 2026


December 2026

[astrangerhere]

Length Goals:

• Total Books: 50 (stretch goal of 75)
• Total Pages: 25,000 (stretch of 30,000)
• Read from Print-TBR: 20

Substantive Goals:

• Read at least 51% non-American authors
• Read more female/nonbinary authors than male
• Read at least 52 poems
• Read at least 12 books across all our collections that are selected by my wife. It's a great way to read things I would not ordinarily do, and I almost always end up enjoying them. List of books will be added as soon as my wife selects them. Denoted by +

POEMS READ

1. "Burning the New Year" by Naomi Shihab Nye
2. "The Man in the Wind" by Anne Stevenson
3. "Renegade" by Lionel Jonhson
4. "Absence" by Elizabeth Jennings
5. "The Want of Peace" by Wendell Berry
6. "Inversnaid" by Gerard Manly Hopkins
7. "The Problem with Early Warnings" by Charles Rafferty
8. "The Secret Day" by Stella Benson
9. "Winter Walk" by Lynette Roberts
10. "on paper" by Jacqueline Woodson
11. "Sea-Fever" by John Masefield
12. "Love Comes Quietly" by Robert Creeley
    

BOOKS READ

1. The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid - DROPPED
2. A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith
3. The Saint of Bright Doors by Varja Chandrasekera +
4. The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk +
5. The Black Mountain by Rex Stout
6. Notes to John by Joan Didion +
7. Book and Dagger: : How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II by Elyse Graham - DROPPPED
8. If Death Ever Slept by Rex Stout
9. And Four to Go by Rex Stout
10. Not Quite Dead Enough by Rex Stout
11. The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer +
12. Might as Well Be Dead by Rex Stout
13. The Letters of Shirley Jackson by Shirley Jackson, edited by her son
14. Plot It Yourself by Rex Stout
15. Pedro the Vast by Simon Lopez Trujillo +
16. One Aladdin, Two Lamps by Jeannette Winterson +
17. Gambit by Rex Stout
18. The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton - DROPPED
19. Rome of One's Own, A: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire by Emma Southon
20. If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho by Sappho, translated by Ann Carson +
21. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
22. Lady Joker Vol. 1 by Kaoru Takamura
23. Lady Joker Vol. 2 by Kaoru Takamura
24. Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo +
25. Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde +
    

[WashWest]

I'm in, here and on the Story Graph challenge! My goals:

• Read 52 books
• Read at least 2 books for every 1 book I buy

Read

• January
  • Dog Songs, by Mary Oliver
  • The Rose Code, by Kate Quinn
  • The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. Audiobook narrated by Aidan Gillen
  • How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying, by Django Wexler

Bought

• January:
  • Print: 1
  • Ebooks: 4
  • Audiobooks: 0

[Waylander]

1. January:
2. February:
3. March:
4. April:
5. May:
6. June:
7. July:
8. August:
9. September:
10. October:
11. November:
12. December:

[bdub]

Reading Goal: 48 books (approximately 100k a book)

Currently Reading:

Skeleton Crew
Dangerous Visions
Jeeves Stories (from Standard EBooks)

DNFs:

Sweetness of Water

January:

A Wrinkle in Time
Long Walk
Housemaid
Lion Women of Tehran

February:

Wuthering Heights
Club Dumas
Burnout Society

[Indio777]

Thanks to government shutdown & a three-week vacation when I ended up staying at home, as well as reading more shorter books, managed to read a lot in 2025. 2026 more classical history/literature and other stuff, including in translation.

J.R.R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky - The letter killers club (tr. Joanne Turnbull)
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky - Stravaging "strange" (tr. Joanne Turnbull)
Anthony Kaldellis - The New Roman Empire: a history of Byzantium
Alfonz Bednár - The hours & the minutes (tr. David Short)
Anthony Kaldellis - A cabinet of Byzantine curiosities
Vladimir Sorokin - Their four hearts (tr. Max Lawton)
Vladimir Sorokin - Blue lard (tr. Max Lawton)
===========================================
Vladimir Sorokin - Ice trilogy (tr. Jamey Gambrell)
Vladimir Sorokin - Day of the oprichnik (tr. Jamey Gambrell) (reread)
Vladimir Sorokin - The sugar Kremlin (tr. Max Lawton)
Vladimir Sorokin - The blizzard (tr. Jamey Gambrell)
Vladimir Sorokin - Telluria (tr. Max Lawton)
Vladimir Sorokin - The Queue (tr. Sally Laird)
Vladimir Sorokin - Dispatches from the District Committe (tr. Max Lawton)
Vladimir Sorokin - Red pyramid: selected stories (tr. Max Lawton)
Miloš Urban - The seven churches, or the heptecclesion: a Gothic novel of Prague (tr. Robert Russell)
Miloš Urban - Lord Mord (tr. Gerald Turner)
Jon Fosse - Boathouse (tr. May-Brit Akerholt)
Jon Fosse - Melancholy I-II (tr. Damion Searls & Grethe Kvernes)
Jon Fosse - Morning & Evening (tr. Damion Searls)
Jon Fosse - Aliss at the fire (tr. Damion Searls)
Jon Fosse - Trilogy (tr. Cecilie Seiness)
Jon Fosse - A shining (tr. Damion Searls)
Jon Fosse - Scenes from a childhood (tr. Damion Searls)
Mark Danielewski - Tom's Crossing

2025 list

[HLS]

Goal is the same every year. 50 books or 21,000 pages

[magiun]

I'm also in, hopefully better than last year .

Goal - 10 books -
Pages - 3500 -

January: 0 books - 30 pages

Spoiler:

1. Chapterhouse Dune - 640 pgs -


Caption:

Spoiler:

5 - Awesome (I would read it again)
4 - Good (I can recommend it)
3 - Ordinary (but I finished it)
2 - Boring (I barely finished it)
1 - Awful (will never come back, didn't finish it)