My 2026 Goal, and Three Reading Challenges

My goal for this year is a big one: to spend no money on books.  

This is huge for me, and I know it's going to be hard, but I have a huge backlog of Kindle books to read and quite a few nonfiction paper books, and I need to focus on whittling down all these unread treasures.  With the 1000 or so unread e-books, plus access to a good library system, I'm not going to run out of reading material.  

I may have to adjust my goal in regards to audiobooks later in the year, depending on how quickly I run through what I own.  We'll see how that goes.

Since I own so many, I have forgotten a lot of what I have.  To help me out, I made a Lucky Dip TBR jar.  I typed out and cut into strips over 150 authors/titles of Kindle books.  When I need a bit of help deciding what to read next, I'll just pull one out and see what I get.

Another way I'm going to help myself read what I own is to participate in a these three challenges.  I'll probably not be able keep up with them all but it's fun to have a little prompt when I'm thinking about what to read next.  I'll come back to this post and add the books I read for the prompt.

2026 Key Word Reading Challenge by Chapter Adventure

The point of this one is to read a book with a certain word in the title.  The graphic below shows the monthly choices.

Potential Books:

-January: Keep Me Close by Clare Francis

or The Earl Next Door by Ashton Newbold

or Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

-February: The Blind Barber by John Dickson Carr

-March: Call Mr. Fortune by H.C. Bailey

or The Broken Halo by Florence L. Barclay

-April: Mirrors of Ice by Celeste Baxendell

or Written on the Mist by Naomi Rawlings

-May: Night of the Letter by Dorothy Eden 

or The Eye of Osiris by R. Austen Freemean

-June: One Bad Apple by Rachel Kovaciny 

or Castle D'or by Daphne du Maurier

-July: The Virgin of the Sun by H. Rider Haggard

or The Retired Assassin's Guide to Country Gardening by Naomi Kuttner

-August: Mr. Zero by Patricia Wentworth 

or The Lightness of Water by Toni Cabell

-September: Allan Quatermain and the Ice Gods by J. Rider Haggard

-October: Wolf in Man's Clothing by Mignon Eberhart

-November: Seven Dead by J. Jefferson Farjeon 

-December: Touch Not the Cat by Mary Stewart

Calendar of Crime by My Reader's Block

This challenge is for mystery books only.  This spreadsheet shows the ten topics to pick from for each month.  I've got an enormous amount of Golden Age mysteries to read, so this might be a fun way to narrow them down.

Potential Books:

-January: Death Comes as Epiphany by Sharon Newman  (published January 1993)

or The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill (born January 1864)

or Death on the Agenda by Patricia Moyes (born January 1923)

-February: Fair Warning by Mignon Eberhart (love triangle)

-March: Meet the Tiger by Leslie Charteris (Year of the Tiger) 

-April: A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters (Church/religion has a major role)

-May: The Daffodil Mystery by Edgar Wallace (daffodils on the cover)

-June: Eight Faces at Three by Craig Rice (born June 1908)

-July: The Adventures of Ellery Queen by Ellery Queen (takes place in the U.S.) 

or A Pint of Murder by Charlotte MacLeod (takes place in Canada)

-August: Death Goes to School by Q. Patrick (academic setting)

or Hanged for a Sheep by Frances and Richard Lockhart (Year of the Sheep)

-September: Any reread of Agatha Christie (born September 1890)

-October: The Bishop Murder Case by S.S. Van Dine (born October 1888) 

-November: Home Sweet Homicide by Craig Rice (family relationships play a large role)

-December: The Luck Runs Out by Charlotte MacLeod (Year of the Pig)

or The Case of the Headless Jesuit by George Bellairs (takes place in December)

Mount TBR by My Reader's Block

This challenge is just to encourage reading books already owned.  I'll be working toward the Mt. Ararat level.

Challenge Levels: 

Pike's Peak: Read 12 books from your TBR pile/s 

Mount Blanc: Read 24 books from your TBR pile/s 

Mt. Vancouver: Read 36 books from your TBR pile/s 

Mt. Ararat: Read 48 books from your TBR pile/s 

Mt. Kilimanjaro: Read 60 books from your TBR pile/s 

El Toro*: Read 75 books from your TBR pile/s (*aka Cerro El Toro in South America) 

Mt. Everest: Read 100 books from your TBR pile/s 

Mount Olympus (Mars): Read 150+ books from your TBR pile/s