Ceri Louise Reads

I don’t know about you, but I started 2025 full of hope. And it’s not that it’s been a bad year so far, there have been some really good times, but it has been busy and stressful and at times just plain hard.

You may have noticed that this is my first post in a while, my social media has been quieter than usual, and if you’ve paid close attention to my reading stats on Goodreads or StoryGraph, my reading pace has dropped significantly this year.

As I said, I started the year full of hope. For the last six years I’ve set my yearly reading goal at 52 books, one per week, but actually read over a hundred books. My goal in my head was still a hundred, but if I hit one per week I was happy. But this year I’d thought if I was actually aiming for a hundred, why didn’t I just make that the goal? So I did.

And then life happened. Fatigue meant that I couldn’t concentrate on reading for very long, and some days I didn’t pick up a book at all (although I still dipped into craft magazines). And then when I did finish a book and checked my stats, I’d just be reminded of how far behind I was. Instead of feeling joy and achievement from reading, I was just feeling more and more pressure. I wasn’t picking up books necessarily because I wanted to, but because I thought I could get through them quickly and try to get back on track.

Don’t get me wrong, I have mostly quite enjoyed what I have been reading, with only one book getting less than three stars and the majority at four, with a few fives. I’ve reread a couple of things too, now that I’m not obsessing over decreasing my tbr pile. But there’s been this thought in the back of my head all the time that I’m not reading enough, and it started to feel like a chore not a joy.

So this morning I pressed the reset button. I changed my goal on Goodreads and StoryGraph back to 52. And felt immediate relief.

Seeing the text change from “7 books behind” to “11 books ahead!” has boosted my mood so much when I’ve been feeling really down recently. It takes the pressure off, meaning I can pick up longer or slower paced books again.

Ultimately it doesn’t really matter how many books I read each year, so long as I’m enjoying reading. Having a goal that feels achievable rather than too aspirational is more fun though.

In other news, my reading blanket has also been making slow progress but I’m happy with how it’s turning out so far! I’ve read 30 books but only finished 11 squares at the moment. I’ve designed a few more but haven’t had a chance to knit them yet. I set these out to block this morning but I can’t decide whether to start sewing them or not. The problem is not knowing how many books I’m going to read means I don’t know how many squares I’ll end up with, or how many I’ll need in each row or column. I guess the real reading challenge will be finishing a number of books that divides easily into a squarish shape…!

How do you choose how many books to set for your reading goal each year?