This New Year, I’m trying something new to reinvigorate my writing practice: I’m starting 2025 with a plan for reading rather than a list of writing goals.
I was talking with my mother-in-law, author Trisha Day, about how most successful authors are avid readers who have discovered the only thing that compares with the pleasure found in reading is the pleasure they find expressing themselves in writing.
So I figured, why not combine the two? As I work out my reading plan, I’m already discovering ways it’s informing my as-of-yet unwritten writing plan. Planning how to go about choosing books to read this year feels a bit like an invocation for calling not just one but multiple muses.
And the plan I’m developing is more than just a list of books I want to read. Trisha and I have been discussing her comprehensive approach to reading. It’s an approach that honors what she loves about the written word as well as how reading enriches her life overall—which dovetails nicely with her own interests and goals as a writer.
Want to create a reading plan of your own? One that best fits your creative vision and celebrates the joy you take in the written word? Trisha’s sharing her reading plan with us and you’re welcome to borrow elements you love, too.
Here is Trisha Day on how she plans to be “well read” in 2025:
Every January instead of making New Year’s Resolutions only to end up breaking them anyway, I start the year by putting together a yearly reading plan. It appeals to the list-maker in me and helps me deal with the fact that there’s never enough time for all the books I’d love to read. A reading plan helps me narrow things down a little.
It also helps me keep track of what I’ve read over the years in case I want to go back and check a title or author I want to read again. And it’s fun deciding what to include each year – a bit like it used to be putting together a Christmas wish list for Santa Claus. Only now I don’t have to worry about not getting what I asked for.
The list always includes a few classics (Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald) as well as books I’ve read before (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen). But I also add books that have been published within the last few years (James, Percival Everett) and others that have won previous Pulitzer, Booker or other awards (The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro.)
My plan covers a wide range of genres from Science Fiction/ Fantasy (Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury); historical fiction (The Little Red Chairs, Edna O’Brien); biography (King: A Life, Jonathan Eig) and memoir (Piano Lessons, Noah Adams) to poetry (Delights and Shadows, Ted Kooser ); non fiction (On Vanishing, Lynn Casteel Harper); history (How the Word is Passed, Clint Smith); short stories (Normal Rules Don’t Apply, Kate Atkinson); mysteries (Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers); nature writing (Landmarks, Robert MacFarlane) and spirituality (My Bright Abyss, Christian Wiman.)
I like to include a few books that were published the year I was born (Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh); books that are set in other countries (The End of Drum Time, Hanna Pylvainen) and books that take place in different regions of the U.S. (The Heart is Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers).
I always include one or two titles that have been recommended by friends or found on reading websites or blogs. Finally, I add a few books from the previous year that I never did get around to reading after all. That’s because I have two rules I stick to all throughout my reading year: 1) It’s okay not to read everything on the list. And 2) it’s also okay to keep adding to it. Because when it comes to reading, enough is never enough and no matter how many books I read I’ll always want more.