1. Remember the classics
I like to read widely but find it can be very easy to get caught in readerly cul-de-sacs that align with my interests if I don’t consciously make an effort to take a sidestep with my reading on a regular basis. Reading is often a chance to escape at the end of a work day, and so it can be a pleasure to slip into the kind of reading that delivers expected pleasures. When I think about the works that we call “classics” now, I think about works that, in spite of the time they have been with us, still deliver surprises. Those surprises arrive across centuries (sometime across millennia) and across cultures.
In 2026 I want to tackle The Iliad in Emily Wilson’s translation. A new translation is a way to re-find what is resonant in a book in today’s world. In previous years I’ve picked other doorstop works like Moby-Dick, Middlemarch and Bleak House—all of which have become touchstones for me, as have contemporary works like Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book.
2. Travel the world (on the page)
I love reading to explore different ways of seeing. I especially appreciate the way that reading the fiction and poetry of other places can make me see entirely new possibilities. It’s one thing to read for information about current circumstances of, say, contemporary Nigeria; it’s another to pick up the works of writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Wol Soyinka to see how they evoke the Nigerian outlook, whether of a writer of the diaspora or a writer on the ground. (Nobel prize winner Soyinka’s latest novel is Chronicles form the land of the Happiest People on Earth ; Adichie’s latest novel is Dream Count). When reading, I try to make sure that every few books I seek out something different—a book translated from another language, written in another country or written by an author with different life experiences from my own. I have often used the Nobel prize as an entry point to find authors—e.g. recent winners Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai, South Korean author Han Kang, Norwegian writer Jon Fosse, French novelist and memoirist Annie Ernaux, or Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah are all available in the YPRL collection. Often one author leads me to another (I love to read interviews with authors and find out about books that inspire them) and allows me a window into the literature of a culture I don’t already know.
3. Get inspired!
I love to practice a number of arts and crafts, and am at very different stages of the development with each of them. I like to look at books that give me the skills I need right now, as well as looking at books that tell me what’s possible. As a new knitter, I worked my way through a stitch dictionary like 400 Knitting Stitches and beginner’s projects like those in Everyday Knitting: the Complete Beginner’s Guide all while poring over works like Knit like a Latvian and The Nordic Knitting Primer that enabled me to see the larger field of knitting traditions. I’m still getting better at knitting, while also exploring other elements of textile like embroidery, weaving and quilting. The YPRL collection feeds me plenty of inspiration.
In 2026 I’m also hoping to start guitar lessons. To keep me until inspired the teacher I’ve selected starts up lessons again for the year I’ve been turning to biographies. I recently read and loved Kathleen Hanna’s Rebel Girl : as the singer of Riot Grrl band Bikini Kill, Hanna has a lot of great stories to tell in this book. Next on my pile is singer-songwriter Neko Case’s memoir The Harder I Fight the More I love you.
4. Never feel guilty for what you enjoy!
While I read plenty of literary fiction, I don’t limit myself. There’s no genre or style that I won’t try if I think there’s a good story to suck me in, and I also love revisiting works that I loved previously to see what drew me to them before.
One particular feature of a book that intrigues me is a boarding school setting. What’s fascinating is the wide array of books that find a way to make their home in a boarding school. If I’m feeling glum, I might reach back to Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers or listen to The Twins at St Clare’s as a simple way to cheer myself up (how can one stay glum when there's a midnight feast afoot?). For an easy afternoon at the beach I might pick up a breezy Jenny Colgan novel, following Maggie, starting with Welcome to the School by the Sea , or tuck in for the evening with something more salacious like The St Ambrose School for Girls which promises scandal and twists.
When I’m reading for pleasure follow my impulses and never feel guilty for enjoying a book and neither should you.
What reading resolutions to do you hope to making for 2026?