A New Year’s Reboot: A Reading List for 2025 and the (Tentative) Publishing Schedule

Note: All the pictures in this post are my work, taken of books from my collection. Any cover images are the property of their respective publishers, especially any pertaining to J. R. R. Tolkien. The written content is 100% human generated without the aid of any AI or robot to help me compose.

I took last year to focus on Vindico and its sister novels. There were massive structural issues in Vindico itself—some of which are still being worked out—and I needed some time to get a new client for my virtual assistant business in a good rhythm. Then fatigue—so much fatigue. I’m in that stage of life where my energy levels are far more variable and I had to manage my workload accordingly.

It was a year of exploring my writing style, of piecing together my philosophy of writing, if you will. Exploring your own philosophy alone is exhausting; doing so while trying to answer the lack in present-day literature (and the previous 100 years) is another.

I missed the blog, and it’s an essential part of getting published these days, so restarting it was a priority for the coming year. But, I realized, I needed to scale it back from what I was doing.

An Instagram Post Helped

I won’t name the account, but I came across a post that claimed to have 52 books to read for 2025.

52.

52?

Now, a well-balanced reading list can very well get up to 52 for a year. There are people who are able to read that many–or more.

But this was not a balanced reading list by a long shot. There was no fiction outside of Camus or Dostoyevsky. The only “poetry” was Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. The rest of the books were one of three kinds: Stoic philosophy (and it’s Eastern siblings), “business” books, and serious books which have gone viral, like The Alchemist or Atomic Habits.

The Alchemist excepted, a lot of these books were on the heavy side. Good, many of them, but far too many for an average modern worker to get through in one year without resorting to skimming everything.

Reading philosophy is a great thing, don’t get me wrong, it’s just you don’t generally consume 10+ in a single year unless that’s either your special interest, or it’s part of your job. But for the busy mom who has her kid’s schedules and a side hustle that isn’t a Bookstagram or BookTok account, this isn’t feasible.

Nor is it feasible for the majority of working professionals out there. You need reading time that’s strictly for relaxation–and I’m sorry but a surfeit of Stoic philosophy and Modernist fiction isn’t relaxing.

So, I did a post on how to pick your own reading list and then thought about what I would do if I were to release. reading list of my own.

So, I have a reading list for this year which I will go through on the blog, month by month. Instead of 52 books, I only did 12. This gives you approximately 1 book a month to get through–a worthy enough endeavor for anyone, especially when it’s classics we’re talking about.

Classic novels require a slower reading pace because there is a language barrier there and a time barrier. You can’t just rip through it and expect to get something out of it via osmosis. It requires more thought, more mindfulness, even. Reading 52 books a year with most of the books being at that level? Absolutely not. We don’t live in a world and society that gives us that much leisure time.

What I did instead was offer up suggestions for additional reading that went with the book of the month. Sometimes there’s even a movie suggestion, or a music suggestion. This is not to make you read them, but just to make you aware of how many other ways these books connect to each other, and to other books out there.

Now, most of these books are not pushover novels. Some of them aren’t even novels, technically. But that is one of the reasons why I did this list. Most of Bookstagram is focused only on novels or non-fiction books. Few consider books which are neither. I have four which are neither. Three are national epic poems, one is a collection of poetry.

That being said, I tried to pick books which would have universal appeal, such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and a few which I doubt anyone has heard of before.

Publication Schedule

My goal is to have one post per month, at the least. My stretch goal is to have two: one to explain the suggested reading on the list, the other to go over the book itself.

The posts should come out by the end of the month–that will give both me, and anyone else, a chance to read through or mostly read through. Like I mentioned before, IU tried to stick to books which were more approachable overall, but that doesn’t mean I expect you to finish all the books within the time allotted.

The Tale of Genji, for instance, is probably not going to be read all in May. It’s a big book!

So, I’m taking a more relaxed view on publishing the blog. I’ve had to between the virtual assistant business and getting my own novels written. But, it occurred to me after seeing that post with the 52 book suggestions that perhaps a more relaxed take was needed out there!

I mean, 52 books in a year that are all heavy reading? Sorry, I still can’t get over that. Some commenters on that post, by the way, made the same observations I did. “Ain’t nobody got time for that” was the consensus!

I’m not going to put down anyone who does want to read all those books–in fact if you can and can actually get something out of it, more power to you! I’m still going to retreat to my corner with my own list.

You can also connect through Instagram. I have the first post for the reading list below! Make sure you give me a follow if you like my content!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kathleen Middleton Ball (@kbmiddleton_writer)

Happy Reading!

Have suggestions? Questions about the list? Drop me a line below and ask away! I’ll try to answer as best I can.

Please make sure you are minding your manners, and observing the rules of etiquette. I’m happy to share what I know, but I don’t tolerate rudeness.