Well, hello! I can’t believe I’m putting together two blog posts in one week – it feels like forever since that’s happened. How has this week been for you? It has been downright frigid here in New Hampshire but I do my best to not complain about the cold. I save my complaining for the summer! So we’ve been bundling up, braving the cold, and baking at every opportunity. It helps in so many ways. Today we made a spice cake with brown butter frosting and homemade pizza – the house smelled incredible.
Today’s post is something of a placeholder. I’m outlining my reading goals for 2026 and hope to update them each quarter. A lot of them will seem familiar – several are extensions of my 2025 goals. But I have pretty new graphics and I’m ready to start filling them in!
❒ 12 Female Prize Winners
Like 2025, I’m aiming to read 12 female prize winners in 2026. Six from the Women’s Prize for Fiction and six female Booker Prize winners. I’m over halfway through both prize lists and should be able to finish in 2027 if I follow through this year, which is a very big deal for me.
❒ 12 Translated Titles
This is also a repeat from 2025. I love making sure I read at least one translated title a month!
❒ Finish the International Booker Prize Winners
10 books have won the International Booker Prize (as of this writing) and I’ve already read 5 of them. These are the last 5 on the list and I hope to get to them this year — as well as the book that wins in 2026.
❒ Quarterly Author Reading
I wanted to reread all of the Toni Morrison in 2026 but felt overwhelmed with that idea. I compromised with myself and decided to read one each quarter. And I’ve always struggled with Virginia Woolf, so I’d like to get some practice with her writing this year as well.
❒ Read 54,000 Pages
I was short on this goal in both 2024 and 2025. My goal is to read 150 pages a day for 360 days in 2026 (not 365 days because I want to be realistic about holidays, getting sick, etc.). 150×360=54,000. Maybe 2026 will finally be my year for this one?
Slow & Steady Titles
One of my favorite things to do is pick out books that seem like a challenge and assign it my slow and steady read for the moment. I aim to read 10-20 pages a day until its done, however long it takes. That’s sort of how I designed my personal curriculum last year — except then I had 4 slow and steadies going at the same time, which made the whole process a lot slower (and much more rewarding)! Here are the books I have sitting beside my desk, waiting for me to start:
- The Odyssey – Emily Wilson translation
- Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy (currently reading)
- Swann’s Way – Marcel Proust
- The Origins of Totalitarianism – Hannah Arendt
- Prequel – Rachel Maddow
- Black Moses – Caleb Gayle
- You Don’t Know Us Negroes – Zora Neale Hurston
- Jim crow: Voices from a Century of Struggle – Tyina Steptoe
- Paradise Lost – John Milton (currently reading 1 section a month)
If you made it this far, thank you for being here! I’d love it if you were interested in reading along with me. Let me know if you have any similar reading plans this year. And if you have totally different plans, what are they? I’d love to know.
I’m planning to fall asleep tonight to Best in Show, in honor of Catherine O’Hara. Her death is a tragedy!
I hope you’re able to have a good weekend and find time to do things that recharge your battery despite how awful things are right now. Take good care.
The Cozy Burrow 
I’m always tempted to red Virgina Woolf again. Did so in college and found it very difficult and rewarding. I think I might have to be locked away with NO other distractions to do it again. What I recall is how opaque it all was at the start, then it was like a door opened and her writing made the richest of sense. May that door open for you in 2026!
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Jordy, I hope you’re right! I listened to Orlando in January and really enjoyed it. Maybe I just need to listen to her books instead of try to read them on paper? I’m looking forward to reading another in a couple of months!
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These are some really incredible goals, Katie! I always feel so inspired and challenged by your reading goals! (and perhaps for a first time, I have read one of the Booker International books… Flights which I remember as being one heck of a challenging read!) I applaud you for laying this out so beautifully for yourself!
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I have found all of Olga T’s books to be challenging! But my Thriftbooks order of Flights arrived today so I’m hoping to give it a try in the next couple of weeks. Wish me luck!
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Great reading goals! And love the idea of the “slow and steady” picks – maybe that’s what I need to do for Count of Monte Cristo …
I picked up Anna Karenina on a whim one summer during college (why that seemed like good summer reading, I still have no idea, LoL!), and loved it. I’ve been contemplating a reread … I feel like I haven’t read (or reread) enough “classics” in recent years, and after working my way through 5/6 Jane Austen novels last year {that last reread will happen soon}, I miss the elegance of the writing in classics. Hopefully 2026 will find me reading more 🙂
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Yes! I think The Count of Monte Cristo is a great candidate for a slow and steady read. Those difficult classics are much more manageable for me when I take them in small chunks.
I have been reading Anna Karenina since mid-January and am almost halfway finished with it. I am loving it! I think it’s probably a good read in any season because the story spans such a long period of time! There are great scenes with characters working in the fields and horse racing – great for summertime reading!
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I always find your goals so inspiring! I’m already reading Anna Karenina with you, and I’d like to add The Odyssey to that list (have we talked about how Emily Wilson was my Greek professor in college?). I read a number of works in translation last year, with mixed results. I would like to focus more on female winners of the Booker Prize and reading past winners of the Women’s Prize. So we may have more overlap!
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NO! I don’t think we have discussed the fact that you had Emily Wilson as a professor – wow!! That must have been an amazing class! Was it an actual Greek language class? Or a Greek History class? I have become fascinated by Greek and now want to be a Greek and Latin Scholar, haha.
I was planning to start Swann’s Way after Anna Karenina, but think The Odyssey is probably a better choice so that I’m ready for the movie when it comes out this summer. Would you be interested in that transition? And how is AK going for you? (I am behind on blog posts but am headed to your blog once I finish responding to these comments, so maybe I’ll see the answer there). I am loving it so much! I have a lot to say about it but will not put it all in this email because it would just take too long. But I need to find a way to share what I’m thinking about it.
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You have inspirational reading goals Katie. I enjoyed reading Woolf’s work, a little at a time. I often needed to read some literary criticism or comments about the particular work first. Stay warm and safe. And yes to baking on cold days.
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Jane, it’s so good to hear from you! Thank you for the tip about the literary criticism to help bolster my understanding of Woolf’s work – you are so right! I’m trying to remind myself that it’s okay to read something badly — to not really understand it but to continue moving forward. But that can be discouraging sometimes!
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I had a Virginia Woolf phase in my 20’s, although I didn’t make it to The Waves. Good luck with your goals!
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