Some people put a lot of stock into their first read of the year, selecting it as a reflection of the coming year’s goals, like other people choose a word (or words) to represent the year ahead.
Partly because I’m a moody reader, with an unwieldly stack including many in-progress reads, this habit never took for me. But the books I’ve read so far, in 2025, speak to how I hope my reading plays out through the rest of this year.


First, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry, a pocket-sized version of an essay originally published in Emergence (hear it here). If you’ve been reading BIP for awhile, you’ll know reading Indigenous authors is a well-established habit (Kimmerer is Potawatomi, from the other side of The Great Lakes). But last year I aimed to choose more non-fiction by Indigenous authors, like this book, and I am craving more of that.
Mark Anthony Jarman’s reflections on travelling in Ireland (a 2002 memoir, read in conjunction with his recent short story collection The Burn Man) speaks to exploring backlists. Often on a first visit to a restaurant, I locate the item I would instinctively order and then the item I would avoid—and choose it instead. (This led me to the Borscht at Futures on Bloor in Toronto, proving this a winning strategy. We make borscht at home, so I guess I thought it wouldn’t be very interesting, but everyone’s version of a classic dish is a little different.) Normally I would choose fiction first, but the memoir was great.
adrienne maree brown hosts the Octavia’s Parables podcast with Toshi Reagon, so I borrowed emergent strategy to explore more. More often, I have duedates in mind, and the idea of “what’s next” has me “reading towards” when I truly love “reading around” (and I don’t circle back as often as I hope). So I want to read responsively (which will, hopefully, include more seasonal reading too).
In The Serviceberry, Kimmerer writes about baking Juneberry muffins, about how she distributes an abundance of berries when they are in season. In Métis writer Lorri Neilsen Glenn’s the old moon in her arms (2024), she tells a similar story about carrots. One of Bookish Beck’s moments of bookish synchronicity! After reading Glenn, I had planned to read another memoir, by a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) writer, but set it aside (because one pitch landed and the other did not).

Sometimes I get so focussed on the next Juneberry muffin, on how delicious the next bite will taste, that I forget to make room for the carrot cake, and forget to savour the present. (This is not at all the point these wise women are making about the gift economy and reciprocity: I urge you to read them for yourself.)
My reading goals have changed over the years. Once upon a time, I set a goal to read more books by Indigenous writers and now their work effortlessly comprises about 10-15% of my reading and I’m getting particular about including more non-fiction. Now, it feels like that underlying habit “just happened” but, in the beginning, I had to think about it every time I chose a book (and every time I didn’t choose a book) to change another habit. At some point, earlier yet, I made a choice to read more often than I chose to watch TV or chat or game, so that it became natural to read a lot of books each year. Those early changes in habits are nearly forgotten now.
It’s like that Annie Dillard quote (reading Annie Dillard was a reading goal back in 2000-ish) about how the way you spend your days is the way you spend your life. The reading we do each year assembles our reading lives. At every year-end there is a lot of chatter about reading goals and how useless and fruitful, annoying and exciting it is to track and list the books you read. It’s all of those things for me, in various instances; but over time, setting intentions reveals patterns that I find interesting and, when they dissatisfy, it’s an incentive to change.
It also helps me narrow the gap between how I aim to live and what I actually do—more of a life goal there, than a reading goal, but that’s a blurry line because I spend a lot of time in my life reading.

What most intrigues me is this idea of reading along a different trajectory, introducing unpredictable elements, not simply following a line of deadlines and duedates. It’s fairly simple to determine how many Indigenous-authored books one reads in a year. How does one track whimsy? Is it an impossible variation on the plan-to-be-more-spontaneous theme? Maybe I would prefer a goal with a check-list. (More translations? Here. More African writers? Here. Thanks to Paula for including these links in one of her weekly wind-ups.)
So, I hope at the end of 2025 to see that I’ve followed these general ideas in my reading choices: more Indigenous-authored non-fiction than fiction, a reinvigorated curiosity about backlists, and a more engaged approach to the next read. (I’ve got Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller in my stack right now, rereading in double-digit negative temperatures with a gorgeous snowscape outside my window.)
But I do have one measurable 2025 goal as well, and I’ll share that under separate cover.
Anyway, what do you think? Is it the goal that’s important or the thinking about it? Is it more about the trying or the achieving? And have either of those things changed over time for you?
Or would you rather not think about any of that…and simply read?!
Great plans. More non-fiction, congrats on that, I’m really bad at reading non-fiction.
As you know, I have reading plans but I always keep room for whims and I don’t put pressure on myself to keep the deadlines or the list of books I picked.
Still, it helps me read books that have been on the shelves for years, reminding me that if I bought them (or received them as gift) I should read them at some point.
I also like to participate to reading events because they bring our blogging community together around events. It keeps the community alive and the sense of knowing each other and visiting others’ literary salons.
Well, so far, I have done rather poorly on that, in the context of Indigenous writing, although I have just started to read a memoir, so that’s something. (Overall, outside the context of Indigilit, I seem to naturally fall at around 25% being NF.)
The attention you pay to previous purchases, too-long-neglected, is a great idea. I have been really enjoying that this year so far, but it’s only been in response to the fact that the snow/ice has kept me out of the library. Once spring arrives, I might not be so attentive to my own shelves. Uh oh.
I really enjoyed reading the Fannie Flagg with you last year and I hope something overlaps for us in 2025. I had been thinking of the Attica Locke (in my local library brnach) but #ShelfofMexico has hold of my attention now.
I liked Braiding Sweetgrass particularly the legend of Sky Woman in the opening chapter but I thought the writing got a bit leaden towards the end, particularly the overuse of the word ‘reciprocity’. I may give The Serviceberry a go, though. Some very interesting posts on your blog, by the way.
Even though The Serviceberry is a very short book, I bet ‘reciprocity’ is the word that appears most (next to ‘berry’!) so if that really bothered you it might yet. It’s a concept that I wish was more represented in the world we live in, so maybe some “overuse” will help. /crossesfingers Thank you!
As you know I do make small “intentions” for the year, and then there are the unwritten intentions but they are in my mind. For example, the intention to try and read the first five books on my Goodreads TBR list every year (been there the longest – since 2018 currently.) I don’t always do that, but I do usually make progress towards that. I’ve read two of them so far this year and have procured copies of the other three! That feels like something to me.
So interesting to me to read that if you didn’t make plans you wouldn’t read as much. I don’t have other hobbies, besides gardening, which is only part of the year, and baking muffins, ha ha! So reading is the default setting. Unless I’m under great stress, in which case I tend to watch too much TV or scroll too much.
I don’t know how I missed this comment, Laila! I share your appreciation of unwritten intentions that are kinda goals but also just kinda thoughts. In theory, I have a shelf on GoodReads for books that I’ve been saying I would read for more than twenty years, but I wonder whether I’ve ever read five of them in one year. Probably not! That’s a good number though, not too many to be overwhelming, not too few so you could overlook your progress. So far this year, I’ve read one: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (one of my most determined shelf-sitters, dating to childhood). Your continued focus on your TBR is inspiring…maybe I’ll read four more Tom Sawyers after all.
I bought The Serviceberry as a gift for someone, and then I bought myself another copy to read – haven’t gotten to it yet, but I plan to!
I have given up making reading goals (aside from a random number i choose on Goodreads) simply because so much of my reading is directed by external factors; the books I receive for review, and what I need to have read for my CBC segment. I don’t have time for much else HOWEVER I have just started taking audiobooks from the Libby app instead of listening to podcasts and I’m enjoying that so far. I only take out non-fiction however, because I don’t think I can focus enough to listen to fiction. So far I’ve listened to Britney Spears memoir and I’m about half way through a book about a woman who went on a shopping ban for a year). So, I may be able to listen to many more books than I read, we will see…
It’s so fun buying a book for a friend that you can read too. You could have a mini-bookclub-for-two!
If I don’t make a reading goal, I don’t read. (Well, other than for work, that is.) There are so many other activities I also enjoy that compete for that time, and none of them fit with reading either which doesn’t help. I wish I enjoyed watching golf, or something like that, so I could do more than one thing at a time. I hope you enjoy your audiobooks, and that you find it’s inspiring to read/hear more non-fiction…books you wouldn’t pick up otherwise.
The Serviceberry sounds like a great start to the year! And I can definitely recommend If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, so it should continue well. I’m not a planner at all – I’ve tried it in the past, signing up for all kinds of challenges and readalongs, and I found myself feeling constricted and not enjoying reading so much. So now I just leave myself free to read whatever takes my fancy.
It is challenging to combine certain reading with one’s writing. Although I don’t hold with the idea that writers shouldn’t read (out of influence or other “concerns”), it does take focus to try to manage both reading and writing projects, and sometimes they conflict, which only makes both hardER. #relate Looking foward to seeing where your fancy takes you in 2025!
Your year has begun well/ I love If on a Winter’s Night, such a fun book! Glad you enjoyed The Serviceberry!
I still hold her book on moss as my favourite, but I definitely enjoyed it. Sometimes that element of nostalgia clings to the moment where you first felt a connection to an author’s work, and no matter how good later books are, that sticks fast.
Have we chatted about Ross Gay before? (I believe it was Laila who got me onto his stuff, but it could be that you recommended him too?) His “delights” have been just what I need at the end of each of these long days recently.
Not sure if we’ve chatted about Ross Gay, but I have read a number of his books. I’m so glad you are finding his delights so delightful! I sent him an email last year to let him know what a delight he is. He didn’t reply, but I hope he saw the email 🙂
One way or another I’m so grateful to have him in my stacks now. I have just loved his gentleness, his ease, his way of relating with the world. I copied the list of books he recommends at the end of (More) Delights with great hope.
As you know, I’m not very goal-oriented. What I want to read changes as quickly as laying my eyes on the next book. For me, my next read often comes down to mood and timing. So, I guess that means I think it’s the journey that counts rather than the achievement. On the other hand, achieving a reading goal feels good! I wish it happened to me more often. Lol
The Serviceberry was one of my first audiobooks this year and I thought it was beautiful. Now I’m looking forward to Glenn’s book which is in one of my stacks.
My way of handling being a moody reader is different: my stack becomes so unwieldly that I occasionally have to tidy it up the way that normal people tidy up their kitchen counters! But overall I am a journey-over-destination gal too. You’ll love Glenn’s book: I thought of you a few times while I was reading it!
I have a running goal of keeping my White author percentage below the percentage of White inhabitants of the UK, so I’m keeping diverse, and I also like to be half and half fiction and nonfiction. I will be doing my usual challenges through the year but only from my TBR and I hope to clear my TBR up to the end of 2023 by the end of this June …
That’s an interesting way of looking at it and you certainly find some fascinating reads in the U.K. and have been consistently expanding your reach (you even read from Indigenous writers from this land, and most Canadian readers don’t do that). I had intended to have my stacks mimic the global population, but I think white people comprise less than 10%, so I would have to shift from 60 to 90 percent to reach that goal. One hundred percentage of my selections for my Toronto Public Library reading challenge last year would have fit though, so obviously 90% is possible. But perhaps not sustainable? #ThinkingOutLoud
I’m pretty bad about plans. I do OK on something for a couple of weeks–I’m in the middle of one that should culminate in The Empusium–but for a whole year? I get distracted by something new and shiny.
I’ve never tried the borscht at Future Cafe. I’ll have to check it out!
If I don’t have plans, I’m pretty bad about reading. LOL
Tell me if you try it: I will be able to imagine having a bowlful vicariously while freezing off my butt in Sudbury!
I’m keen to read The Serviceberry. I’d also be interested to try adrienne maree brown. (It was a weird collision of worlds when I saw her name in the liner notes as a backup singer on Sufjan Stevens’s most recent album.) Your 60% BIPOC statistic for last year seems impossible to me, what with mine languishing down at 18.4%, but you explain here how it has to start at a basic, each-book-chosen level before it becomes engrained. I’d be happy with getting the figure closer to a quarter or a third of my reads. And I’m sure, like you said about your high percentage of female writers, that it’s about redressing the balance from earlier in life. Lit in translation is another arena where I’d like to do better — it was a measly 6% of my reading last year.
Maybe there’s a transcipt via Emergence article. It reminded me of that Sy Montgomery Hummingbird book reprinted from Birdology, an opportunity to Gift Book. I hovered at the 25% mark for a long time, if that’s helpful to know. There were certain authors I read so habitually (and had done for so many years) and I couldn’t seem to see that they would not be any less favourites if I missed a few–and that I would find other new-to-me favourites (whose work I had been missing all along). Not intending to be prescriptive, just saying that is true for me. My translation is 8%: I can relate. It would be much higher if the Indigenous authors I read were published in their original languages (but they’re almost exclusively English-language works, from what I can access outside that community anyhow, and I understand that politically many want to keep their stories in their own languages too) but I share your yearning to read more translations.
My plans are as vague as ever – apart from the events or challenges I’ll host or drop into, it’s whatever takes my fancy!
You typically read far more from your own shelves than I do, so in that sense this year’s reading for me will be more similar to your usual reading habits than has been true in the past (but I’m not sure that will translate into any more overlap than usual…we’ll see).
Do I have plans? I have up till now had projects so I guess that’s a yes. 2025 is meant to be a (my) rest year, but let’s say my ‘plan’ for the year is that the tenor of my reading will tend anti-colonial. Though I still have half a dozen Australian -white settler colonial – men to deal with following my Australian Men’s Week.
Did I start as I mean to go on? Probably: 1 C19th Australian man; 1 contemporary, ‘experimental’ Aust’n man; an essay on early Aust’n poets; Toni Morrison; Murakami; Okorafor; 2 N American First Nations women; and 3 or 4 dross from the library (sorry, Kate Atkinson).
Lawson has taken me to some other white Australian writers this year, too, directly after these initial lines in my log. And I’ve just had a small pile of books arrive via ILL, by a Canadian-by-way-of-Guyana poet/short story writer, which takes me off the track entirely (for work).
That brief description of your recent/current stack does seem to suit you. I appreciate that all of your reading “projects” seem to have had a lasting impact on your reading habits. That’s how I’m thinking of my focus this year on Mexican/Spanish-language writers too.
Atkinson, dross?! hah Say it isn’t so. (I’m way behind with my Brodies and I still need to finish the companion to Life after Life.)