2026 Reading Plan

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The plan for this year’s reading continues to grow and evolve. But I’m going to start at the same place as last year and try to read the most borrowed books from the Hennepin County Library. No surprise there is some overlap from last year, but not as much overlap between the print and e-book list as last year! I’ve already read 10 of the 20 total, though The Women was on there 3x’s!

Here is the list:

  1. The Women by Kristin Hannah
  2. James: A Novel by Percival Everett
  3. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
  4. Spirit crossing: A Novel by William Kent Krueger
  5. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
  6. Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez
  7. The River We Remember: A Novel by William Kent Krueger
  8. The Wedding People by Alison Espach
  9. Funny Story by Emily Henry
  10. The Mighty Red: A Novel by Louise Erdrich

Ebooks

  1. Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter (eAudiobook)
  2. The Women by Kristin Hannah (ebook)
  3. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (eAudiobook)
  4. Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer (eAudiobook)
  5. The Things We Leave Unfinished by Rebecca Yarros (eAudiobook)
  6. Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose (eAudiobook)
  7. The Women by Kristin Hannah (eAudiobook)
  8. Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry (eAudiobook)
  9. The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens (eAudiobook)
  10. 1984 by George Orwell (eAudiobook)

How did you do on this list?

2025 Reading in Review – Stats

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Time for some stats! I read 76 books in 2025! For total of 25,000 pages! That was a lot of pages turned. Most of my reading was paperback, so truly pages turned.

The most popular book I read was It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. 7 million people have it shelved on Goodreads.

The least shelved book was Risk: A Life Saved By the River by Susan Norman. Only 57 people have shelved it. I actually really enjoyed it, and I would recommend it. I heard about from The Ready State podcast. It is a true story of Susan (Sue )’s life and how rivers kayaking was a huge part of her life success and grounding.

comfort crisis book cover

2025 Reading in Review – First 75 Days

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At the beginning of 2025, I completed the 75 Hard Challenge, which required reading at least 10 pages of a non-fiction book each day. This wasn’t a challenge for me as sometimes I read my 10 pages (really a chapter or two) and then read a book for pleasure. And honestly, I read a fair amount of non-fiction so it was more about being intentional during the 75 days. I read a total of 16 books 7 of which were non-fiction. The books I read included:

  1. HWPO: Hard Work Pays Off: A Strength Training Book by Mat Fraer
  2. A Runner’s High: My Life in Motion by Dean Karnazes
  3. Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger
  4. The Heart is the Strongest Muscle by Tia Toomey
  5. Chasing Excellence: A Story About Building the World’s Fittest Athletes by Ben Bergeron
  6. Resilient: The Untold Story of CrossFit’s Greatest Comeback by Brooke Wells
  7. Adrift: Seventy Six Days Lost at Sea by Steven Callahan
  8. The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter (finished the day after 75 Hard ended)

I also started the year off reading Along Came a Spider. This is the first novel in James Patterson’s Alex Cross series. I don’t know how it took this long to learn about Alex Cross, but my sister recommended the show Cross on Amazon Prime and that got me hooked! I made it through the first 10 books of the soon to be 37 books in the series. They are relatively quick reads and I enjoy them even if they aren’t high literature!

Salvage the Bones is a book you’ve probably not heard of but I’d recommend. The story is set over 2 weeks as a hurricane approaches and the realities of coming of age in a high poverty area of Mississippi. A variety of twists and turns will leave you feeling all the different emotions.

Of the non-fiction books I read during 75 Hard I would highly recommend The Comfort Crisis.

The River We Remember Cover

2025 Reading in Review – Library Challenge

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I read a lot of books this year. Not as many as some people, but I’ve read 76 books so far this year (with 3 days left). Fortunately, most of them came from the library. I actually checked out 69 books from the library, but a few were books for work (elementary-aged books), and several were cookbooks.

Randomly, at the start of the year, I saw a blog post from the Hennepin County Library of their most checked out books of 2024. I decided I wanted to read all of them!! The list was Top 10 books and Top 10 e-book so there was some overlap, resulting in only needing to read 14 books. I really enjoyed reading outside some of my typical genres, and surprisingly, I hadn’t read any of them yet, though we did have some at home. This project also required doing some pre-reading because you can’t just randomly jump into a series!

  1. The River We Remember: A Novel by William Kent Krueger (also #5 ebook)
  2. The Women by Kristin Hannah (also #1 ebook)
  3. Tom Lake: A Novel by Ann Patchett (also #3 ebook)
  4. Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel by Bonnie Garmus (also #9 ebook)
  5. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
  6. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
  7. Demon Copperhead: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
  8. The Exchange: After the Firm by John Grisham (also #10 ebook)
  9. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow: A Novel by Gabrielle Zevin
  10. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (also #6 ebook)
  11. Don’t Believe It by Charlie Donlea
  12. It Starts With Us: A Novel by Colleen Hoover
  13. Funny Story by Emily Henry
  14. Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

It is hard to recommend only one of these since they were all so good!! I was surprised that I got into Fourth Wing (read the whole series and anxiously awaiting the next book). Demon Copperhead was powerful in how relatable it is and also the fact that Kingsolver donated proceeds to support the community she wrote about. Okay, fine I’ll go with Lessons in Chemistry with its slightly meta format and engaging story about feminism.

More bookish thoughts to come!

75 Hard – Water

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1 gallon of water a day. That’s not too bad, right? For some reason I thought it was 64 ounces, not 129! When I got to 64 I was surprised at how easy it was. Then I looked at the app I was using and realized I wasn’t even half way yet! Oops!

It takes some focus to get to the gallon and a lot of time in the bathroom!  The main water bottle I used was 25 ounces. So a little more than 5 of them! I usually wake up and drink a 16 ounce glass of water. Then I’d drink another 16 ounces with an Amino mix (not counting towards water intake). I’d usually drink another 20 ounces during my workout. And then a 24 ounce protein shake after (not counting towards my water). So all of that before work meant I went to the bathroom a lot in the morning!!

I tried to at least finish a bottle of water during work and then the second shortly after work.  So that’d be about 86 ounces of the 129. And then just try to finish the rest. Obviously the earlier I finished the better so that I wouldn’t wake up and need to go in the middle of the night.  But that maybe happened a quarter to a third of the time. 

I pretty much eliminated any other liquids from my routine (morning tea, kombucha or sparkling water). Because honestly who had room for any more! The few times we went out I’d have a non-alcoholic drink but I also just drank water out. Those were sometimes hard to estimate a quantity on. So I drank extra just to be safe!  I would sometimes throw some LMNT into the water and counted that towards my gallon.

Besides the constant need to urinate I liked drinking that much water.