It was another great reading year for me! I had a lot of fun, took things a little slower and tried to conquer some of my big book fear. It was nice to finally get around to some books that have been on my shelf for a while and to let go of trying to read a high quantity of books. Thank you to Spotify audiobooks for helping me get through some of the big chunkers – the 15-hour monthly limit has been good for accepting that some books will take me a few months to get through.
Choosing what to read was dictated a fair bit by book clubs and the rest by fun ideas like judging books by their covers, testing the ‘Read Your Color’ types, joining the Books Unbound Mashed Potato May challenge (which got me a shout out on their podcast!) and reading on theme; sport books for the summer, spooky books in the autumn and reading authors of the countries I’m visiting. As well as sports and thrillers, this year involved a lot more classics and some niche non-fiction books, like the ethics of art and the history of eyeliner. There were a few reads that had my mind racing to write my thoughts down. In The Kitchen had me thinking about community making and love through food, which resulted in an essay of my own and starting a monthly Sunday dinner with my friends. Some videos online also have me thinking a lot about pairing books together – more on this coming soon…
Putting aside the reread of my favourite book Circe, my favourite reads of 2025 were I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, In the Kitchen: Essays on Food and Life collected by Daunt Books, Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (surprisingly for the first time as I was prime for it when it came out originally), Monsters by Claire Dederer and The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.
This has also been my second year of having a bookstagram, and I’m still loving sharing my thoughts on the books I’ve been reading and all the bookish things I get up to. If you’d like more regular book updates than my blog, please do follow me @whatkatiereadnxt.
Reading could be a pretty solitary hobby, but I feel very lucky to have many ways to make it a collective joy with some of my favourite people. I’ve loved browsing bookshops, markets and libraries, having reading dates with the lovely Hope, making bookmarks with Ethan, doing bookish jigsaw puzzles and book-binding workshops with Kit. In the summer, I made the most of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, seeing my writer friends speak about their books and interviewing authors, and attending a gorgeous cookbook lunch.
This year was the first proper season of Theatre Book Club events that I run at work, and we had some great discussions before seeing some brilliant shows. I very much look forward to more in the coming year. And the book club I have with my friends continues to go strong, and I’m so grateful for that. Each month or so, we get together, share life updates and food and debrief on whatever wonderful or wild book we’ve been reading together. This year’s book club picks brought me a new fave book and some of the worst things I’ve ever read lol. Also this year, Hazel treated us to a special Easter scavenger hunt based on the books we’d read previously, which was so cute. I always come away from our hangs with a glowing heart, and I’m so glad that we keep doing them.
Finally, some statistics! Some fun facts first: I’m quite happy to report that the majority of books I read this year were borrowed (library, friends, Spotify, Libby) and, not that I’m trying to, but 88% of my reading was written by women (+17% on the year before).
Here’s a wrap up from the Storygraph:
What Katie Did Next 