My 12-Books-a-Year Challenge and How It's Going

At the end of 2025 which was a great year by any measure and especially compared to what 2026 so far has been, I decided my commitment to myself was lacking in one additional area, reading. I was never the avid reader I wished I was. I developed a reading habit very late into my childhood and like many other habits it was easy for me to shake. I'm always amazed by the people, like those in the reading club at work, who can pick up a book, any book, and read it cover-to-cover. And here I am, struggling to get through the most mainstream of titles. Will I ever get to a point where I don't have to coerce myself into reading a book? Only time will tell.

But I decided to not back down from this challenge. I'd had a great time sticking to a plan created by a machine with Runna, and decided to apply it to reading. Goodreads was the obvious choice and I love an app that neatly presents my achievements for me to look at during those daily minutes of self-appreciation. I joined the challenge and dragged the slider to 12. And there I was, in a race against time. Half a year (or a little more) later, I'm 2 books ahead of schedule, and even though no closer to the reading-junkie I aspire to be, I feel I am one step closer.

I risked it all by starting with a history book, because that is how I roll. William Dalrymple's 'The Golden Road' was my first target, and I wasn't left wanting. I then moved to fiction, traversed the unfamiliar genres of cosmic horror and Orwellian dystopian (all words I learned in the last 2 months), had some fun with Prof. G.C. Challenger, the lesser-known protagonist from Dr Arthur Conan Doyle who left me pining for a Holmes mystery to cleanse my palette, and have finally landed on the much talked-about Sapiens by Y.N. Harari. Apart from H.P. Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness which I was looking forward to reading, every other book lived up to its fame.

Looking forward to dipping my toe into core gothic horror with Salem's Lot and explore some WWII trauma with Anne Frank's diary next. If you've got suggestions, do drop them into my mailbox at hello[at]vivekwarrier.com. Cheers!