Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

Thanksgiving 2025 is nearly upon us and I can’t wait to start my cooking and baking tomorrow! But, I am equally busy trying to complete my reading goal for 2025: as of today, I’ve read 64, halfway through my 65th, and have 10 more to read to meet my annual goal for this year of 75. Will I make it? I hope so!

I track my reading each year using Goodreads (an app created in late 2006), which is a curse and a blessing.

As the old saying goes, when it works, it is great. But just like computers, microwaves, cars, and so many other modern conveniences, when it doesn’t work, it is extremely frustrating.

In 2013, Amazon purchased Goodreads from its creators, Otis Chandler and Elizabeth Khuri Chandler (who later married), and it is beyond me why Mr. Bezos and his horde of tech geniuses can’t fix the glitches in Goodreads! (Not to worry, the Chandlers did alright in selling their baby; it is estimated that they collected $150 million dollars! And, perhaps lifetime Amazon Prime Membership? JK!)

For the last few years, I (consciously) let NetGalley guide my reading lists. I frequently browse their website and request soon-to-be published books that look interesting to me, or as is the case often, are unpublished books by favorite authors of mine. I am approved sometime, and not approved other times, mostly because I haven’t reached the magic ratio of books requested to books read and reviewed. I’ve earned three badges so far from NetGalley, which is great, but it hasn’t raised my percentage to 80%, lol!

Once you hit the magic ratio of 80%, you are most likely to be approved for the books you request. I sit solidly at 73% and can’t seem to nudge it much higher because as I am approved for a book I requested, my percentage drops until I’ve read and reviewed it. Sometimes life gets in the way (or shiny more appealing books appear on my Libby app or on my t/b/r bookshelf) and I don’t get around to reading and reviewing a book until its been archived. C’est la vie!

This past weekend the Washington Post’s Book World rolled out its Best Books of 2025 and it was interesting to see what I’ve read from that list as well as what is on my t/b/r list and what books I missed altogether.

After going page by page through this great list, I decided to map out my 2026 reading (LOL, see mention above of shiny new books taking over my t/b/r list). So, here, mostly from the WashPost list and some from my existing t/b/r list, are the books I hope to read in 2026 (in no particular order but organized by genre, roughly). Maybe you’ll see something you want to read next year, too!

Nonfiction

• Memorial Days: A Memoir by Geraldine Brooks
• The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century by Tim Weiner
• A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst
• The Earl and the Pharaoh by The Countess of Carnarvon
• The Irish in the Resistance: The Untold Stories of the Ordinary Heroes Who Resisted Hitler by Clodagh Finn (I recently met the author and can’t wait to read this!)

Cookbooks

• Something from Nothing by Alison Roman
• Good Times by Samin Nosrat

Graphic Novel

• Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me by Mimi Pond
• Miss Ruki by Fumiko Takano

Fiction

• The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (to be published May 5, 2026)
• Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
• The Original by Nell Stevens
• Palaver by Bryan Washington
• Playworld by Adam Ross
• The Satisfaction Cafe by Kathy Wang
• Six Weeks by the Sea by Paula Byrne
• Quichotte by Salmon Rushdie
• Evensong by Stewart O’Nan
• Wreck by Catherine Newman
• Maggie; or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar by Katie Yee

Mystery (but no thrillers)

• The Black Wolf by Louise Penny
• The Dentist by Tim Sullivan
• Detective Aunty by Uzma Jalaluddin
• The Game is Afoot by Elise Bryant
• Guilty by Detention by Susie Dent
• Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman
• The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter
• The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts by Robert Thorogood (to be published 1/15/26)

So, let me get back to my current book, Murder Will Out by Jennifer K. Breedlove, via NetGalley, to be published by Minotaur Books 2/17/2026. Book review to follow!

Happy Reading, and Happy Thanksgiving!