📝 Read Dreaming of writing your novel this year? Rip up all the rules! (The Guardian)

This is full of some of the most inspiring writing advice I’ve seen in a long time.

Finished reading: Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie 📚

As always, Austin Kleon’s 100 Things That Made My Year post is a testament to his ability to find the magic in the quotidian. I want to follow his example more.

Begin As You Mean to Go On: journaling with The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad

One of the units the first and second grade classes teach at our school is about pollinators, so last year I started keeping an eye out for books to support this unit. Call the Bee Doctor. How Science Is Saving Honey Bees caught my eye and I requested a review copy on NetGalley.

This is a short non-fiction book appropriate for middle grade readers. At school, I would recommend this as something for teachers to read aloud to students over multiple sittings in first or second grade.

Sandra Markle wrote The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees, published in 2013. After the book’s publication, she learned about the efforts of some scientists to help honeybee populations recover. She researched a variety of approaches apiologists were taking and shares what she learned in this book.

Markle discusses multiple reasons for the depletion of bee populations: pesticides, poor nutrition, parasites, and pathogens. She then explains approaches to managing these causes including vaccinated queen bees, providing food supplements to improve nutrition, and genetic modification. She concludes by discussing the impact of climate change on honeybees and providing recommendations for actions readers can take for helping honeybees.

Vibrant photos and clear diagrams illustrate the book. Markle provides a glossary, a list of her research sources, and books and websites readers can explore to learn more.

I would recommend this book as a purchase for elementary and middle school libraries as well as public libraries.

Book: Call the Bee Doctor! How Science Is Saving Honey Bees Author: Sandra Markle Publisher: Millbrook Press Publication Date: October 1, 2024 Pages: 48 Age Range: Middle Grade Source of Book: ARC via NetGalley, Public library

Finished reading: Call the Bee Doctor! by Sandra Markle 📚

Here are the books I finished reading in 2025.

Finished reading: Match Me If You Can by Susan Elizabeth Phillips 📚

Internet buddies, tell me about your read later workflow.

I like using Instapaper to read on my Kobo but I don’t know if that will be conducive to getting my highlights back out. Micro.blog can’t archive bookmarks from behind a paywall.

Hello, friends! It’s time to talk about my favorite thing to talk about: books! There are some glitchy issues with the way Micro.blog is tracking which books I read which year, so the numbers on my list are probably inflated, but I definitely read over 100 books this year. Fewer than 10 of those were children’s books. 86 were romance or romance-adjacent (like Sarah MacLean’s These Summer Storms). I track my romance reading at Pagebound as well as at Micro.blog.

2025 Reading Goals

My main reading goal for the year was to always be reading one more book than I’ve already read. I love this target because it’s achievable right up until December 31st. At some point I decide that’s it, I’ve met the goal and I’m not increasing it by one. I’m currently reading Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Match Me If You Can and I’ll probably call the reading year done after that.

I had some stretch goals for the year, too. Let’s see how I did!

Read one nonfiction book a month.

I read six or seven adult nonfiction books this year, so I missed this target. But I have a couple nonfiction books on the go. I did shift my habits so my default while taking my meds and eating breakfast is to read nonfiction. The books I’m in the middle of are Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal by Mark Bittman and The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen. I look forward to continuing reading these in the new year.

Stop requesting books from NetGalley that I don’t know anything about except what is on NetGalley.

I did this one!

Stop requesting books from NetGalley based on marketing emails they send me.

I did this one, too!

And as a bonus, I even have reviewed some of my older NetGalley requests. I’m trying to improve my feedback ratio and the easiest way to do that is to give feedback on books I’ve requested in the past.

Keep up with new releases from authors I love.

I’m going to say I did this. Here are some new releases from authors I love that I read this year:

• All of Us Murderers by KJ Charles
• Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One by Kristen Arnett
• A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke by Adriana Herrera
• These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean
• A Curse Carved in Bone by Danielle L. Jensen
• After Hours at Dooryard Books by Cat Sebastian

Any time I’m in a city with a romance-only bookstore, visit it.

CloseI I visited Peach Basket Books, which opened up in my city, and Friends to Lovers in Alexandria, Virginia. I didn’t make it to Bright Side Books and Wine, which is in a city near mine.

Other Notable Things in My 2025 Reading

Here are some things worth noting about my reading this year.

• I read several books Sarah MacLean recommended for learners in her class, Start Your Romance Novel Today.
• I read all the extant titles in Disney’s Meant to Be romance series. These books are written by popular romance authors and reimagine Disney version of fairytales as contemporary romance. My favorite is Kiss the Girl by Zoraida Cordova but they’re all fun.
• I read big chunks of Lorraine Heath’s, Julie Ann Long’s, and Lisa Kleypas’s backlists.

Looking Ahead to 2026

So, what do I want my reading to look like in 2026? I’m not even calling these goals. They’re just things I’m thinking about.

• More memoirs and diaries
• More children’s books
• More of my old NetGalley requests

How has your reading year been?