I have a habit of collecting books much faster than I can read them. I get them from everywhere; I occasionally buy one new, I'm given them often and I pick them up in thrift stores all the time. Thrift stores are the best places to buy books! I think a lot of people - like me - read most books once, so once you're finished, you pass the book on.
I've moved a lot of the books I've read and enjoyed to The House of Goodwill, so guests can find something good to read. And if they take them, no big deal - as long as they enjoy it!
Some thrift stores have as much variety as any bookstore I've ever seen.
Last week I finished reading "The Last Battle" by C.S. Lewis, the last book in The Chronicles of Narnia series. They were my favorite books as a girl; I read the series nine times.
I've been reading one a year for the last seven years. I just finished - and WOW!
Turns out I love them just as much as an adult!
Since I have shelves and shelves of books, I began a practice four years ago at the end of the year of choosing 20 books to read in the next year. I did this in part because some books I've had sitting on my shelf over twenty years - I wanted to read them but never did. Sometimes it's because they're the "harder" books to read, in other words, the books that aren't as fun. Books that teach you something. Philosophy books or theology books or history or political books. Interesting maybe, but not fun to read. Maybe something I want to learn more about, but not fun to read. Sometimes the books are still sitting there twenty years after I bought them because I just never got around to them, or they were sad stories and I wasn't in the mood. (Then or later, apparently.)
So I partly choose my books for the year in advance to force myself to read diversely. Whenever I finish a book, I have to choose a new one from the stack. I only make an exception (sometimes) if I'm going on vacation and just want something light and fun.
I'd never read the Harry Potter series, so I started a few years ago and read one every year.
These are always easy to find at Goodwill. Fun to read, too!
Anyway, I chose twenty books so I could leave a little room to add a few I might come across during the year and want to read immediately, or to fit in the book someone will always give me or loan me and tell me "I have to read."
Most years I end up reading at least twenty-five.
It's not nearly as many as many of my reading friends read, but I usually do have some long, hard reads in the pile, and I try every year to read one book in Spanish. The Spanish book I read with my translator, and I stop and translate every single word or phrase that is new. So while it's interesting, and I definitely learn a lot, reading the Spanish book is a tedious process. The one I read last year ("Vacaciones in St. Tropez" by Danielle Steel) wasn't that long, but it took me six or seven weeks to read, reading two hours a day, four days a week.
I try to intentionally be diverse, so I try to choose at least one political book, one business success story, one historical book, one animal story, one biography/autobiography, one childhood favorite re-read, one finance book, one theology book, several classics, my book in Spanish and a few just for fun. The rest I fill in with "other."
Well, that was a lot about books. Here's a photo of the pile of my 2025 books:
There are twenty-two books in this pile; I actually read twenty-six.
I also read the Bible.
Some of my favorites from this stack: The trilogy of holiday stories by Truman Capote (he's a beautiful writer), "The Last Battle" by C.S. Lewis (of course), "Look Homeward Angel" by Thomas Wolfe was interesting (this was a birthday present after we visited his childhood home in Asheville on vacation), "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot was a fascinating true story and had all kinds of interesting biology in it, "The Phenomenon of Obedience" by Messianic Jew Michael Esses was wonderful and "Birds and Blooms 2023" (not pictured - a compilation of issues of the magazine) was everything I'm interested in. 🙂
Ok, so this is a book my dad gave me one year for Christmas when I was a child.
So I'm not kidding, this has sat on my shelf for over thirty years.
Why did I never read it? I have no idea, since I love reading.
Well, guess what?
Turns out it's still an amazing read at 48! I LOVED this book.
Another thing I love about this version of "The Arabian Nights" it's just a beautiful book, literally.
The pages are gilded, the illustrations are amazing - everything about this book is just beautiful.
It was a pleasure to read, and not just because of the incredible stories.
I may be a little late, but thanks Dad! 💗
And finally, one more favorite childhood re-read:
I LOVED the classic Nancy Drew series as a kid and read them all. I've had fun re-collecting them as an adult (I mostly borrowed them from the library as a child). Whenever I see one in good condition at a thrift store I pick it up, and I almost have them all. I re-read one or two of them every summer and enjoy them just as much as I did the first time. There's something that feels so pure and sweet about vintage Nancy Drew - she pauses her mysteries to occasionally attend church, is often running after criminals in a dress, and has "luncheon" every day with someone.
And lastly (not pictured) I just finished "Little House on the Prairie" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I've been re-reading those childhood favorites - one a year - also. And they are just as fantastic the second time.
Fun fact: I told my eighty-two-year-old mother I just re-read it and she told me her elementary school teacher read some of that same book to her class at the end of each day "if they were good."
I just collected my new reading pile for 2026. More on that soon!
