Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Bookish Goals for 2026

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2025

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is our bookish goals for 2026. Check out the other posts on Jana’s blog. I’m really interested to see other people’s posts.

I feel like I’ve posted some really intense goals for the last several years, and I’m not sorry. It helps me to focus and read books in areas I might otherwise neglect. But it also means I fill my reading calendar to overflowing in the rush to check off books on my reading list.

This year, I’m wondering if I can find a gentler approach that leaves me some flexibility while also giving my reading life a bit of structure. Here are the goals I came up with.

1. Read a poem every day.

I started this last year after reading Why We Read by Shannon Reed. She struggled to read poetry and felt bad about it, but discovered that one poem per day was a really sustainable pace for her. I tried this in 2025, and though I took a bit of a break this fall, it was very successful for me. Absolutely worth repeating this year. I got a few poetry books for myself this Christmas, so I’m armed and ready for this.

2. Connect with Other Bloggers/Reviewers

In 2025, I connected with some KidLit book bloggers who meet once per month for a Zoom chat and post on the Marvelous Middle Grade Monday, and It’s Monday, What Are You Reading weekly memes. It’s been so much fun to talk to other reviewers and bloggers about kidlit. We even have a quarterly book club meeting, so I get to talk to actual humans about a book we’ve all read. It’s heavenly. I’m excited to continue in 2026.

3. Finish Some Book Series

In 2024, I started using a Reading Tracker spreadsheet that I really like, so I now have a record of the series I’ve started and intend to finish. I’d love to pick a few from this list and prioritize catching up or finishing the whole series.

4. Journal Regularly

When my oldest daughter was little, we started a Mommy & Me Journal and wrote letters back and forth to one another. I still have the journal, and over the years, I’ve periodically written to her again in its pages. I think I’d like to keep doing that more deliberately this year and start writing to my littlest. I like the idea of leaving behind a record of memories and encouraging words for them to read someday.

5. Visit My Library

Over the summer last year, my daughter and I visited the library about once per week. It was a great way to get us out of the house and give us new books to read. When school started, we dropped back to visiting about once every two or three weeks, and I’d like to continue doing that.

6. Create a Bookish Workspace for Myself

For the last 10 years, I have worked at the dining room table using my laptop. Every evening, I have to pile up whatever I was working on and put it all away so we can use the table for dinner. (There are six of us in our house, so we need the whole table!) Over the summer, my partner and I crafted a plan to create a permanent workspace in the front room of our home. Some work/health/family hoopla tabled the project, but I’m excited to get started this year.

7. Preorder 12 Books in 2026

Preorder sales really help authors. While I want to be careful to read more of the books I actually own, I want to choose one book coming out each month this year and preorder it as a gift to my future self.

This is kind of a cheat goal since I preordered seven books on January first, to add to the two I’d already preordered for this year. Here’s what I have on preorder so far:

8. Read Books I Own

In previous years, I have used two reading challenges (Book Riot’s Read Harder and Austine Decker’s Beat the Backlist) to motivate myself to read books I already have on my shelves. The first year I did this, it really energized me to read books on my TBR. Last year, my approach to the challenges was more of an afterthought.

This year, I am going to try something different. I might try to jump into a couple of weekend readathons, or pick a small project for the month, like reading a certain author’s backlist or finishing a series.

9. Continue to Self-educate Through Reading

I don’t have a firm plan for this yet. It might be nice to feature one nonfiction book for each celebratory month (Black History Month, National Native American Heritage Month, Disability Awareness Month, PRIDE Month, etc.). That’s not the only time of year to read these books, but it might help me to have specific targets.

10. Notice What Excites Me About Reading

I like the idea of leaning into whatever is exciting me about reading. I read a wide range of genres, so this could take me all over the map. If I can pay attention to what’s energizing me as a reader, I think setting shorter-term goals, like reading a particular series I’m excited about or catching up on an author’s backlist, will be really fun.

What are your bookish goals for 2026?

I’d love to hear about your reading plans for this year. Are any of my goals similar to the ones on your list?

If goals are too structured or anxiety-inducing, leave a comment and let me know what bookish event (book release, conference, author event, book you want to read, etc.) you’re most looking forward to this year.