A Change in Perspective on Reading
According to Goodreads, I’ve read fifty-eight books this year, which is a roughly 60% increase on my 2024 total. Impressed? You shouldn’t be, as one of my main lessons of 2025 (at least when it comes to reading, although it’s arguably just as applicable in other areas of life) is that more does not always equal better.
I recently came across the substack of Sam Rinko, a self-proclaimed autodidact who writes rather eloquently on the topic of education, or to be more specific, the education one can provide for oneself once you leave formal education (meaning school, college or university). I’ve hyperlinked his blog if you want to read more about his autodidactism in your own time, but the reason I mention Rinko is to reference a specific piece he wrote a few weeks ago: How This Popular Annual Reading Goal Made Me Learn Less. His piece came at just the right time for me, as it neatly captured a train of thought that has been developing in my subconscious throughout the past year or so – namely, that setting a goal to read X number of books in a year actually removes the joy/satisfaction of reading and turns it into yet another mechanised, soulless process based on data and unnecessary optimisation.
Ok, maybe that is a bit dramatic, but it definitely takes the fun out of it and puts unnecessary pressure on what should be an enjoyable and rewarding pastime. I will admit that I have sometimes chosen to read shorter books over longer ones this year, purely because they will get me to my goal quicker, which I’ve now ended up far exceeding anyway. When I did hit my goal a few months ago, I felt more relief than pride or achievement, which merely serves to reinforce the general point that it takes the joy away. I already measure the number of calories I burn daily, the amount of sleep I get, the money I spend, the time I spend on my phone, and so on and so forth – in short, reading should be fulfilling and enlightening, not just another measurable data point.
I have therefore decided not to set a numeric goal for 2026. Instead, I will be setting a high-level and somewhat vague target – to deepen my understanding of the Western philosophical tradition that started with Socrates (I am currently reading The Socratic Method by Ward Farnsworth to try and get a head start). I will still read fiction, probably for a more relaxed and easy type of pleasure, but the main pleasure I hope to get from reading in 2026 will be the delayed gratification of actually learning things and expanding my knowledge of a topic I thoroughly enjoy, as opposed to reading as quickly as I can to hit some arbitrary and entirely irrelevant target.
To that end, I have also begun reading one of the books Rinko recommends on his blog for beginner autodidacts, How To Read A Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, which is, quite literally, a guide on how to properly read a book. I’ll be honest, it is quite heavy reading, but the authors repeatedly make the extremely valid point that you will only expand your knowledge by reading books that challenge you, which sounds rather obvious but has still given me a completely new outlook on the way I approach difficult texts. Despite being written in the 1970s, I can’t help but feel it would be an incredibly useful addition to the education curriculum in schools today, considering the widely publicised and quite rapid decline in the reading rates of children and young adults.
Anyway, to summarise, I suppose my point is that 2026 will hopefully be the year I fall back in love with reading and learn to truly love and appreciate everything it has to offer, as both a method of light relaxation and a serious tool for self-improvement.
My 2025 List
The first thing I’d like to do is review the target list I set for 2025, as I’ll be honest, my success in this area has been quite limited.
- Freedom by Angela Merkel (2024)
I really tried to read this. Honestly, I literally got about 150 pages in (it’s almost 1000 pages long), and I tried my damned hardest to persevere, but ultimately, Merkel was just too boring. Even by the standards of a German woman who grew up under Communism, her prose was painfully dull and matter-of-factual, describing the ongoings of her childhood and adolescence with classic German precision and efficiency but saying almost nothing about what she actually thought about it, or how it actually made her feel. It was almost like reading a Wikipedia page written in first person – in fact, I think I’ll probably find her Wikipedia page both more useful and more enjoyable. Merkel is, undoubtedly, one of the most consequential and influential European leaders in history, but she is not, I’m afraid, a very good writer.
- Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Dame Judi Dench (2023)
I might as well just say it – I didn’t finish this one either. I read the first few chapters, and the way the book was set out, in a sort of interviewesque fashion, was quite charming, as was Dame Judi herself (along with masterful, witty, and a million other positive adjectives that you could ascribe to one of the greatest British actors to ever live), but my lack of Shakespearean knowledge left me unable to fully appreciate the what Dame Judi had to say, and I therefore decided it would be better to enjoy her in a way I can properly understand – in a James Bond movie.
- Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England’s Greatest Warrior King by Dan Jones (2024)
I haven’t yet attempted this one, and probably won’t for a while with my new focus on philosophy.
- Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe by Sathnam Sanghera (2024)
Quelle surprise – I didn’t finish this one. It is a very important topic and Sanghera writes well, but, to be quite blunt, I just didn’t find it very interesting. Perhaps I shall return to it in time.
- Lords of the Desert: Britain’s Struggle with America to Dominate the Middle East by James Barr (2018)
Oh my god, I didn’t finish this one either. I think what we’ve established here is that I was probably picking books I thought I should read, rather than books I actually wanted to read. I shall try my hardest not to make that mistake again this year.
- Stoner by John Williams (1965)
I didn’t finish this one either. I got a fair way through, but it was just too dry. Sorry John.
- The Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer (2024)
Of course I finished Bob. In fact, if it is any recompense for my earlier litany of failures, I also read his 2025 novel The Long Shoe. The Hotel Avocado was just as charming and funny as his first novel, The Satsuma Complex, and my admiration for Bob continues to grow. I’d love to take him for a pint.
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
I did read something by Dostoevsky this year, but it wasn’t this (more on that later). The problem with this novel is that it’s so big that it actually scares me (that’s what he said). However, I have recently come across some bloggers on Substack promoting the novel idea of a ‘read along’ – essentially, they pick a book, announce the time period in which they will be reading it, and invite their subscribers to read it with them. They then set dates at which they will convene to discuss the book. Henry Eliot has announced The Brothers Karamazov as his 2026 read along, and since the novel is made up of twelve books, it works out at roughly one per month, which I think is a nice pace. I shall therefore be joining his read along in the hope that knowing there is an online community undertaking the same task might provide me with the motivation I need to finally tackle a true classic.
- What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama (2020)
A charming book that I thoroughly enjoyed. As I have mentioned countless times before to anyone who will listen, I simply adore Japanese literature, and this book didn’t fail to further embellish the allure of Japanese culture. I loved the structure of the book – five short stories about people linked by a small library, where a mystical librarian recommended books that seem almost randomly chosen, yet prove to be exactly what each person needed. I’m something of a sucker for any novel that extols the power books hold.
- Lie with Me by Philippe Besson (2017)
I completely forgot about this book – consider it rolled over to 2026.
My favourite books of 2025
- Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1864)
I am not going to review this book myself – I am simply going to provide an excerpt from another review, and then allow you to judge for yourself as to why this is the best book I read in the past twelve months:
An unnamed, retired civil servant in St Petersburg addresses the reader directly. He is bitter, hyper-self-conscious, intelligent, and paralysed by overthinking. He attacks the idea that human beings act rationally or in their own best interests, arguing instead that people deliberately choose suffering simply to assert free will. He despises social norms, progress, and utopian thinking, while simultaneously craving recognition and connection.
Any ideas?
- How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell (2010)
Since reading this book, I have become borderline obsessed with Michel de Montaigne, a 16th century French philosopher known for his Essais, which was arguably the first time in history someone had explored the essay as a serious form of intellectual inquiry. Montaigne’s life is, quite possibly, the most idyllic life I’ve ever encountered – he was educated from the age of three to speak Latin as his mother tongue (apparently the first to ever do it) and brought up with humanist ideals, he inherited a wine-producing estate from his Father and was a member of the local aristocracy, he served in the Parlement of Bordeaux and was later elected as Mayor of the city, in later life he travelled through France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy over several years to ‘broaden his horizons’, he was a close friend of the King of France and, amongst all of that, he found the time to write a 1000+ page book of essays that has become one of the most influential philosophical texts in history. In short, he lived my dream.
Bakewell uses Montaigne’s life to explore the question of how we should live, and she does an exemplary job. Montaigne’s own personal philosophy seems to have been, in short, to explore the way you think through your own experiences without taking things too seriously, and Bakewell does a fantastic job of drawing this out. I would highly recommend it.
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
“Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New World speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.”
A book written almost 100 years ago that almost perfectly describes the reality we are beginning to face. Brave New World is often described as the alternate of 1984 by George Owell – in the latter, the population is controlled with fear, whereas in the former, they are subdued into submission with endless comfort. Without trying to be cliche, the parallels with our current situation (social media algorithms, ultra-processed food, artificial intelligence etc) are stark, and this book serves as a warning as to what we might be on the cusp of unintentionally giving up forever – culture, critical thinking, freedom, emotions, and so on.
- Art as Therapy by Alain de Botton (2013)
I love art, I love therapy, and I love Alain de Botton – what’s not to like?
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (1946)
Frankl writes harrowingly well of his time in German concentration camps during the Second World War. What I found utterly incredible about this book is that he never once railed against the injustice of the atrocities that were committed against the Jewish people, as obviously unjust and inhumane as they were, but instead focused entirely on how, considering that individual suffering in some form is almost always inevitable, we can learn to find meaning and purpose in the darkest of times. An absolute masterpiece.
For completeness, here is every book I read in 2025:
- What You Are Looking for Is in the Library – Michiko Aoyama
- Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
- At the Existentialist Café – Sarah Bakewell
- How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer – Sarah Bakewell
- Humanly Possible – Sarah Bakewell
- Four Seasons in Japan – Nick Bradley
- Strong Female Character – Fern Brady
- The Outsider – Albert Camus
- Swimming – Roger Deakin
- Art as Therapy – Alain de Botton
- How Proust Can Change Your Life – Alain de Botton
- On Seeing and Noticing – Alain de Botton
- The Architecture of Happiness – Alain de Botton
- The Art of Travel – Alain de Botton
- The Consolations of Philosophy – Alain de Botton
- The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work – Alain de Botton
- Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Wizard of the Kremlin – Giuliano da Empoli
- Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World – David Epstein
- And How Does That Make You Feel? – Joshua Fletcher
- Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor E. Frankl
- Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life – Hector Garcia Puigcerver
- Therapy – Stephen Grosz
- The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
- Magic Pill – Johann Hari
- Can We Be Great Again? Why a Dangerous World Needs Britain – Jeremy Hunt
- Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
- A Single Man – Christopher Isherwood
- I May Be Wrong – Björn Natthiko Lindeblad
- Convenience Store Woman – Sayaka Murata
- A Wild Sheep Chase – Haruki Murakami
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage – Haruki Murakami
- The Hotel Avocado – Bob Mortimer
- The Long Shoe – Bob Mortimer
- The Impossible Fortune – Richard Osman
- The Age of Diagnosis – Suzanne O’Sullivan
- Tom Lake – Ann Patchett
- The DOSE Effect – TJ Power
- Why We Remember – Charan Ranganath
- Dear Committee Members – Julie Schumacher
- Exhausted: An A-Z for the Weary – Anna Katharina Schaffner
- On the Shortness of Life – Seneca
- Out – Tim Shipman
- Solitude: A Return to the Self – Anthony Storr
- Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness – William Styron
- The Challenges of Democracy and the Rule of Law – Jonathan Sumption
- The Art of War – Sun Tzu
- Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again – Jake Tapper
- The Secrets of Successful Friendships – The School of Life
- The Secrets of Successful Relationships – The School of Life
- Mini Philosophy – Jonny Thomson
- The Secret Painter – Joe Tucker
- A Little History of Philosophy – Nigel Warburton
- This Is Water – David Foster Wallace
- The Mountain Is You – Brianna Wiest
- Careless People – Sarah Wynn-Williams
- Days at the Torunka Café – Satoshi Yagisawa
- More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop – Satoshi Yagisawa
My 2026 Reading List
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
As discussed above.
- The History of Philosophy by A.C. Grayling (2019)
According to Goodreads, this is the “first authoritative and accessible single-volume history of philosophy for decades”, so it seems like a good place to start as I begin my quest to understand the history of the Western philosophical tradition. As a bit of a side story, I first came across A.C Grayling on twitter during my adolescent years, when he became an almost rabid remainer in the Brexit-induced social media wars of the mid 2010’s. I had no idea until relatively recently that he’s actually a philosopher – funny how the two topics overlap so effortlessly. Anyway, he seems to be something of an authority in the philosophy world, so I’m sure this book will be just what I need.
I’m not going to set any more than that, as I don’t want to box myself in – I hope you can understand, darling. With that, I wish you a wonderful 2026, filled with wonderful books that expand your knowledge, tug your heartstrings and make you smile.
