Reading Without Limits or Expectations

At the beginning of 2025, I set an intention for my year: Reading A Lot, But Differently. Now that the year has ended, I want to assess how I did. I certainly accomplished the first part of it — I read 121 books last year, the most since I've been keeping records — but did I do the second part, the "differently" part? No, I didn't.If anything, I stuck more closely than ever to the genres and styles that usually comfort me. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this as an approach to reading. It just didn't feel good to me this year. At certain points I had the sensation of being constricted, frustrated even, that I didn't seem to be able to break out of my habits. I wanted to read longer books, or books I've previously pegged as "challenging", or books in languages and styles that are new to me. Yet I didn't. The desire was there, but I still didn't do it. More on how I'm going to try and remedy that in a moment.One aspect of my reading this year that did really work for me in 2025 is this space here, this blog/newsletter. Recording the books I read satiates my appetite for gradually accumulating data. Reviewing each title allowed me to flex a critical muscle I don't use much these days, now that I rarely write reviews for traditional media outlets. Discussing matters arising with readers and receiving recommendations was wonderful. Nothing to change there. I will make some tweaks to my process, though, so that I don't end up with a huge backlog of reviews to post as I did in 2025.I was also conscious of feeling a little aimless with my reading this year. Outside of the books I needed to read for my podcast, I had no project or principle to what I read. I added titles that looked interesting to my Storygraph's "to read" feature diligently and then barely read any of them. I did a lot of scrolling on library apps and placing holds that I then never used. I think there's definitely a place for "mood reading"; just following your nose to whatever will satisfy in those particular circumstances. I did a little too much of it, perhaps. I am someone who responds very well to structure and I have plans to add a little more in 2026.I certainly curbed my book-buying habits (as noted last year, I have already far exceeded SABLE status, or "Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy"). I didn't make a noticeably larger dent in the books I already own, though. Rather, I got hooked on the ease of ebook loans from the library rather than browsing my own shelves. That's something else I'd like to work on.Now, let's move on to:My reading stats for the year: genre, format, and so forthRecommendations for the ten best books I readMy aims for 2026My new reading projectAll the books I read in 2025.2025 in ReviewI read 121 books in 2025. See them all here. My goal was 120, or ten a month, and I just hit it. I reviewed every single book in my monthly reading roundups, so you can get more detail on any one title by browsing those here.115 were fiction and 6 non-fiction, despite my intentions to achieve a more even balance.My most-read genre was (as it probably always will be) mystery/crime. The second was historical, followed by romance. These are the Storygraph's genres and I don't entirely agree with them — it put "classics" fourth, but it considers most of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers to fit into that category so... Who knows.My five most-read authors were:Georgette Heyer, 16 booksAgatha Christie, 13 booksBen Aaronovitch, 9 books (interesting; with the exception of one graphic novel, his books were all consumed as audiobooks)Mary Westmacott, 6 books (this is Christie under another name, so I suppose technically she was my most read author)Dorothy L. Sayers, 4 booksApproximately 44 per cent of my reading was done with physical books, 44 per cent via ebooks, and 12 per cent through audiobooks. This is a substantial change from last year (when my print/ebook split was 65/25). I attribute this to me replacing other scrolling on my phone with reading via the library apps, which is not necessarily a bad thing.The Best Books I Read in 2025My ten favourite titles break down like this:all fictionnine originally in English, one translated from Germanof the ten, there arethree genuine "golden age" detective novels (published during the interwar period or very close to it)two other novels from the interwar period by crime writers that don't quite fit the mould as "crime"two works of literary fiction from the middle of the twentieth centurya really good new second chance romancean accomplished Arthurian retelling from 2024and a collection of crime short stories from the turn of the nineteenth century in the Austro-Hungarian empireThe Conjure-Man Dies by Rudolph FisherI must thank the Shedunnit Book Club (the book club that runs alongside my podcast) for this one, because they chose it as their book to read in February 2025. I had owned the recent Collins reissue of this 1932 for several years and never got round to reading it, so the push to do so was welcome. It's an accomplished detective novel set in the Harlem neighbourhood of New York City, concerning the apparently impossible murder of a local "conjure man" who tells fortunes for a fee. As tradition dictates, everyone in the waiting room at the time is a suspect and Fisher gives his own profession, that of medical doctor, to his police detective's "Watson". While it's a decent mystery, what really made this book stand out to me was its portrayal of Harlem and its inhabitants in the early 1930s. I always love learning about social history through fiction and this was a great example of that. In Fisher's rendering, Harlem is a small town where everyone knows each other — something that can be both good and bad when you're caught up in a murder investigation. I haven't independently verified this, but The Conjure-Man Dies is said to be the first work of detective fiction with a black detective and a full cast of black characters. Fisher was apparently keen to make it the first of a series and had planned out several sequels, but unfortunately died only two years after the book was published.The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth BowenAnother book that came my way because of the podcast: this time when I was researching an episode about Agatha Christie's Taste in Crime Fiction. Christie was a fan of Elizabeth Bowen, a Dublin-born novelist who spent time on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group in London and published her first novel in 1923. The Heat of the Day from 1949 is set in wartime London and concerns a love triangle that becomes an espionage triangle. The specificity of its WW2 scenes and the well-calibrated pacing of the book did remind me of the best detective fiction, but its strong emotional currents and intensely interior style makes it literary fiction, I think. A clever and unsettling read.The Bright Sword by Lev GrossmanI have thought about this book a lot since I finished it in April. It's a 600+ page work that weaves something new and surprising through the Arthurian legends retold ad nauseam by Mallory et al. It's told from the point of view of a new young knight called Collum, who overcomes great hardship to get himself to Camelot only to learn that King Arthur has been killed in battle two weeks before. He joins up with the few remaining knights of the round table for a quest to salvage the moral ideal of Arthur's united kingdom before it is too late. On one level, it's a rollicking fantasy adventure read. What I found most arresting, though, was the way in which Grossman had successfully internalised the structural oddities of the old chivalric "romance", with successive quests and side-quests taking the reader on a meandering journey that seems to have no purpose until it finally does. I imagine that writing something that feels both aimless and, at the end, very focused, is really difficult to do and I am full of admiration that he chose to do this rather than staying in the safe zone of his highly successful Magicians fantasy trilogy.In Muffled Night by Dorothy Erskine MuirI'm always really intrigued by crime writers who just write one or a small handful of good novels and then disappear off to do something else. Dorothy Erskine Muir was one such. In Muffled Night from 1933 was the first and best of her trio of detective novels, each of which was based partially on a real-life crime. I love this one for its moody, Victorian time capsule of a house and the contrast of this interior's perfection with the shocking crime that takes place within. It's a mystery that is clever both practically and psychologically, too. I made a podcast episode about this writer back in April.The Feast by Margaret KennedyAnother Shedunnit Book Club selection. I think the member who originally proposed this book thought it was a crime novel in the manner of And Then There Were None. That was an entirely reasonable inference, given that Faber have republished it with a very crime-coded cover and a blurb about a group of people isolated in a remote Cornwall hotel before deaths occur. However, The Feast is not a conventional crime novel, with a detective or clues or a murderer revealed at the end. We learn from the prologue that in a week's time the hotel and anyone in it is going to be buried under a landslide. Then Kennedy takes us back seven days and shows us the sins of all the guests, all leading up to a tense finale right before the cliff cracks... It's a marvellous work of literature and I'm so glad it was put my way.Death on the Down Beat by Sebastian FarrI fully recognise that this might not be for everyone. I'm a classical music nerd so an epistolary detective novel set among an orchestra that includes extracts from the score as part of the material was odds-on to delight me. And so it did.Let's Make a Scene by Laura WoodThe only novel published in 2025 to make my top ten. A gloriously well-written and plotted second-chance romance between two British actors. It has a dual timeline: one occurs when they are young and filming a romantic period drama film that will go on to become a cult classic, with the second covering the time thirteen years later when they have to reunite to make the sequel. The first time the leads hate each other, then they... don't.Penhallow by Georgette HeyerI read 16 Heyer novels this year (all twelve of her crime ones and four historical romances) but only one makes this list. It's the least stereotypically "Heyer" novel of all, being a dark, Gothic-tinged thriller about an unhappy family trapped in their remote Cornish estate by their cantankerous patriarch. There's something a bit Du Maurier about it. I found it extremely compelling and quite disturbing at the end.Absent in the Spring by Mary WestmacottI've gone on at length elsewhere about how good I think this book is so I won't repeat it all again. Suffice to say, this is a psychological thriller by Agatha Christie that, had she published it under her own name, I think would be considered up there with some of her best work. There's no Poirot or Marple or clues revealed in the drawing room after tea, just a woman marooned by travel plans gone awry who must finally confront the truth about herself and her life. It's a pageturner, I promise.The Adventures of Dagobert Trostler by Balduin GrollerDo you remember back in 2023 when everyone started talking about their "Roman Empire", ie the historical era or topic that they thought about a lot? Since I was about 15, mine has been the Hapsburgs and Austria-Hungary. Imagine my delight, therefore, when I learned this year that there was a series of short stories from Austria published in the late nineteenth century about the "Sherlock Holmes of Vienna", one Dagobert Trostler. Beyond the fact that both inhabit great cities and pursue criminal cases in an amateur capacity, there aren't really many similarities between Holmes and Trostler, though. This Viennese detective isn't interested in footprints or types of cigarette ash, nor does he have a Watson, or even much of a desire to see criminals punished for their crimes. He is a creature of Viennese high society, who would always rather effect the solution that hushes things up and leaves everyone's public reputations unbesmirched. He's good at deduction and observation, yes, but puts these talents to quite a different purpose. Fascinating. I wish someone would translate more of the stories into English.Changes for 2026No Reading GoalI was about two thirds of the way through 2025 before I realised that having a set number of books I was aiming to read in the year was changing my behaviour, mostly for the worse. I noticed that I was starting and then abandoning lengthy audiobooks or novels that required me to read more slowly because they would stop me from reaching the ten books a month needed to hit the goal. Now that I seem to have fully recovered from my Covid-induced inability to finish books, I don't need the numerical incentive to keep reading. In fact, I'd be pleased if I manage to read fewer books overall this year, focusing instead on a wider variety of lengths and types.Read The Books In My HouseThere are so many incredible-looking unread books in my house (and in my storage unit, eek). I want to read some of them this year, instead of haunting Netgalley and the library apps. Subsidiary goal: finally read the massive hardback copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell that I own. Many of you have told me it is just the kind of thing I will like and I want to agree (even though I have abandoned it thirty pages in about three times, probably because of the reading goal problem detailed above).Seek Greater VarietyI'm repeating this goal from last year in the hope that I do it this time. I'd like to try reading more non-fiction, more poetry, more translations, more books of all kinds, really. Not aiming to hit a certain number of books in a year, removing limits and expectations generally, and mostly "shopping" for books in my own house will help, I think.Read Short Stories At BedtimeSince I quit social media, I've done a pretty good job of staying off my phone in the evenings. However, I quite frequently get into bed at a reasonable hour (say 10pm) and am then still up past midnight because I keep promising myself "just one more chapter" of whatever book I'm reading. I'm going to try instead to keep a book of short stories by the bed and read just one each night before lights out. Hopefully reading something short that has inbuilt closure will encourage me to go to sleep on time, and it will have the added benefit of creating a routine around reading something other than novels.Write Reviews As I GoI'm going to try writing and publishing individual reviews of books as I finish them rather than holding everything for an end-of-month round up (here's one I did a few days ago as a test). I'll do them as blog-only posts so I'm not cluttering your inboxes, and then still send a digest at the end of the month with some reflections and links to everything I've reviewed. If you do want to get each individual review delivered to your inbox, you can click here and opt into receive "all posts".Have A ProjectI'm going to attempt to read and write about a whole sequence of books by a single writer this year (don't worry, it's not a big departure — it's someone you've already heard me talk about a lot!). I want to read this body of work as research for something else I'm doing and I would like to talk to other people who enjoy this stuff, so posting about it seems like the best way to find them.All will be revealed tomorrow when the first post goes out...Thanks for reading along with me this year.If you purchase a book from one of the links above, I may receive a small commission that supports my writing. The price remains the same for you.