The 2025 Book Stack (Q1!) – chunk it down

Take 1 million and…action!

I do this every year: I set reading resolutions to drill down my endless piles of books and then…I achieve them usually don’t. The last time I wrote about my book stack here was in January 2023 and I intended to read 26 books. 

Guess how many I actually read? 10! L O L! (I guess it’s better than zero?!)

The good news is that in 2024, I read 30 books. Redemption!

Lessons my stacks have taught me

One learning I took away from 2023 was that, when under stress, I tend to avoid non-fiction. It’s too much for my brain! I have come to appreciate the value of fiction and memoir to bridge the gap between wanting to read, but not wanting too much information. 

And, I think it’s important to not overcommit to books – I am forever learning this lesson. I make ambitious plans, don’t achieve them, and then feel like garbage. What makes this worse is that it devalues the work I did do! Setting reasonable goals was a huge takeway from my first marathon experience, which I should probably write about at one point…essentially, if you set the goal as “finish a marathon” you cannot be disappointed with your time, because the goal was to finish, not to finish at a certain time. See? So, if I set my reading goal at a number that is realistic, it’s more likely I’ll hit it. (I can always bump up the goal later!

Something else I practiced in 2023 (and continue to work on) is not finishing a book if I’m not into it. 🤯  As a recovering good girl who completes her homework, this is hard for me. But, it’s been liberating. (Of the books I had listed in that 2023 post, half of them I DNF!)

*DNF = Did Not Finish, a running phrase

The loved and loathed TBR stack

Ahhh, the TBR pile. Pardon me, TBR is bookworm parlance for ‘To Be Read’ and if you scroll on social media for any length of time, you will no doubt come across several memes about it. It’s the pile us book nerds love to love and love to loathe, I think. 

The TBR pile is what makes us feel guilty when we buy new books, while the existing books languish in a heap, collecting dust. No doubt many of us have books on our TBR stack that have been there for…years. >.<

So of course, it makes sense that when January rolls around and everybody is all gung ho about resolutions, we resolve to finally tackle that pile. This will be the year we get through it!

One year, I even made a spreadsheet with a month-by-month plan of when I would read down my TBR stack. Shocker: I did not stick to it. (I also think I set myself up for failure by being too rigid…it started to feel like a homework assignment!)

But I would like to actually take this seriously this year.

This is why (against my better judgement) I’m writing this post, memorializing the first stack (of several) that I’d like to tackle in this first quarter: January through March. There’s something about thinking in quarters that is interesting and new to me. It’s a large-ish chunk of time, but it’s not so large that it feels overwhelming. And, I’m not assigning which books to read when so the pile feels doable. However, library books usually take priority, given their finite timelines. 

So for the millionth time, here is my book stack, part I.

Tackling the 2025 book stack (Q1)

This pile was developed from my Goodreads ‘Currently reading’ shelf. Basically, I’m tired of seeing the same titles linger there! I want to clear the proverbial shelf and make room for all the other books on my TBR stack. So this first quarter is dedicated to tying up loose ends.

I also have a few library books in this pile, holds that I requested months ago and that, predictably, all came in at once when I had the least amount of time (why, library, why? I love you, but why?). Some, as you’ll see, I’ve had to let go of prematurely, one without even reading it. I know, blasphemy!

• How to Break Up with Your Phone by Catherine Anne Price
• A Wind In the Door by Madeleine L’Engle (Part II of the Wrinkle In Time series)
• Celiac Disease (a Hidden Epidemic) by Peter H. R. Green, M.D. and Rory Jones, M.S.
• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
• The Dance of Anger: A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships by Harrier Lerner, PhD
• The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
• Wherever You Go, There You Are by John Kabat-Zinn
• Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller
• When the Body Says No by Gabor Maté
• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff (a heavy lift!) 

On library reads

‘How to Break Up with Your Phone,’ ‘Attached,’ and ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,’ are all library books. I’m on my second read of the phone breakup book, and it was due back at the library this week, so after jotting down the 30-day breakup/makeup plan in my calendar, I felt OK about marking this as ‘read’ and giving it back. 

‘Attached’ was a title I was really looking forward to after learning about attachment theory in ‘Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make – and Keep – Friends.’ But, I received the book just before the new year and was not in the right headspace to dive into it. It’s also due back this week, with several holds on it…so no extensions for me. I let this one go, completely unread!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’ has no holds on it so I was able to extend the return deadline into February. Why did I need to do that? Well…

On travel reads

I have some travels coming up this month and I’m petrified of bringing library books with me, for fear of messing them up and/or losing them. No way! Plus, ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’ is not exactly “light reading.”

Instead, I’ll bring along ‘A Wind In the Door,’ ‘The Alchemist,’ and ‘The Artist’s Way’ – all three are slim titles and interesting reads. 

I commandeered my set of Madeleine L’Engle books while visiting my parents last October and am loving diving back into the series (one of my favourites from my teenage years). I first read The Alchemist in 2012 at a pivotal time in my life and have since read it again. This will be my third go with it! And, as someone who has historically undervalued her creativity (particularly with visual arts but also with this blog – you must have noticed how inconsistent I am with it!), I’m excited about the potential of ‘The Artist’s Way.’ The book is structured around a 12-week course geared towards helping recover a sense of creativity. Wee!

Q1 reading goals and beyond

After that, the order is somewhat up in the air but I’m over halfway through ‘When the Body Says No’ (blowing my mind with each page) and I’m super curious about ‘The Dance of Anger’ (a borrowed copy), so I will probably burn through those in February. And of course, ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’ is due back on February 10. (Although if there continue to be no holds on it, I may push the return date… 🙃) Given the state of the world, ‘The Shock Doctrine’ should be an interesting exploration…I will probably need the musings of John Kabat-Zinn to keep me from getting all doom-y.

I just did a quick count of my current TBR pile – 33 titles! Currently, my 2025 Goodreads goal is set at 31, so if I read every book on my TBR pile, I’ll have a new PB*!

*(another running phrase, Personal Best)

I think I can do it, but one thing I know for certain is that I’ll need more fiction sprinkled in to help me get there. Apparently, ‘ACOTAR’ is something I must read. 😉

Do you set reading goals for yourself? Even if you don’t, I’d love to know what you’re reading these days!