If you’re reading this, we both made it to the end of 2025—well done to us! The blog did too, which feels like a small miracle.
Will I be back in 2026?
Absolutely.
Will I be posting more in 2026?
That I’m not so sure about—but I do plan on reading more.
What’s with the downbeat opening to this post?
2025 has been a funny old year for me as GavReads. It started with reader’s block and burnout, which I finally shook off in April thanks to a re-read of The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch. And my first post in 2025 didn’t appear until June, a post about The Lightspeed Trilogy, which I’d stopped myself from posting despite having started it in June 2025.
I have written a few things I’m proud of, but it’s been a trickle, not a flood:
In the post I updated as I finished sections, I tried to form thoughts and conclusions based solely on what I’d just read and on what I’d read up to that point. I enjoyed doing it, and thanks, Dan, for the challenge.
Speaking of challenges, I set myself two and was completely successful with one and partly successful with the other.
Let’s start with the positive, the British Fantasy Awards 2025 shortlist for Best Anthology:
I had planned to read them all except one, In the Shadow of Their Dying, by Michael F. Fletcher and Anna Smith Spark, at some point. And I enjoyed comparing them all, and I was really surprised how much I loved Yoke of Stars by R. B. Lemberg, despite, or because of, how much it made me work.
I wasn’t so sucessful in my attempt to read all the works in the World Fantasy Awards 2025 shortlist for Best Novella. I finished and reviewed:
- Nova Scotia Vol 2 edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J Wilson [2024]
- I Want That Twink OBLITERATED! edited by Berg, McCartney & Galey (Proud Geek Bookshop’s bestselling book of 2025)
- Fight Like A Girl 2 edited by Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall
Each one contained some excellent stories.
I didn’t manage to complete:
- Heartwood: A Mythago Wood Anthology, edited by Dan Coxon- PS Publishing
- The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction (2023), edited by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Chinaza Eziaghighala – Caezik SF & Fantasy
Or even start:
Bury Your Gays – An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror, edited Sofia Ajram – Ghoulish Books
I burned out while reading Heartwood, mostly from the pressure of having to review it by the deadline. By its nature, it’s very samey. The stories I’ve read are excellent, but I didn’t want to read them so quickly, and I think I just froze.
I may have also realised that I am out of practice and have less physical and mental capacity for both reading and reviewing.
What’s the ‘but’? I feel there is a ‘but’ coming on.
I think I have some triggers around stress… It’s not about a lack of motivation; it’s a mental short-circuit when I force myself to do something I don’t want to do or when I worry about what the review might be like.
I can confirm that meeting ‘on-demand’ deadlines is no longer for me, if it ever was.
Which then raised the question of relevance, why I haven’t spent time reviewing things, and what I do in the future?
As I won’t be reviewing with an aim to post around the publication date, that is, unless I manage to read some of my 2025 hardbacks and schedule a post for the paperback release, what is the best time to review a book?
What makes me a good reviewer is ‘building’ the book in my head; what makes me a bad reviewer, and sometimes not so speedy reader, is also ‘building’ the book in my head, which is probably where the burnout comes from. And that probably explains why I have to switch genres and can’t keep reading the same things.
Anyway, in the past, the best way to get a book out of my head was to write down my thoughts about it, which is why I posted my thoughts on The Lightspeed Trilogy a year after I first had them.
It’s also why I think about post looking at The Last Hour Between Worlds (The Echo Archives #1) by Melissa Caruso, alongside The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis, and, potentially, The Incandescent by Emily Tesh.
I’d also like to reread both Lake of Darkness by Adam Roberts and Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead as they both deal with the future of humanity in fascinating ways.
And when are you going to post your reviews?
Probably, when I’ve just finished it, and with myself as the audience in mind. This means that unless I buy and review
Are you feeling better now that’s all out of your system?
Actually, yes.
So what is the plan for 2026?
This year I’ve read thirty-four books, up from 2023’s twenty-two, but down from last year’s forty. However, if I’d read at the same pace over the other 3 months, I think I could have hit 45 this year.
The plan for 2026 is to avoid burnout, probably by continuing to embrace the philosophy of DNF’ing more when needed. Though for some stories, like The Devils and The Incandescent, that would have been the wrong thing to do, I think, even if I really did want to at certain points.
Are you setting yourself an actual measurable goal?
I am going to set 3:
- Read every day—even if it’s a page. I have a 103-day streak on The StoryGraph that I really don’t want to break.
- Read at least 33 books.
- Read at least 15,000 pages.
Well, that’s the reading ones, what about the blog?
I have enjoyed doing the Sunday Summary posts that I started doing in September, and I did enjoy the reading with a goal in mind, so how about:
- Aim to post a Sunday Summary every week.
- Do at least 2 reading challenges
Oh, and what will you be reading?
Now that’s a question for the next post, but as a preview, the ratio has to be low, 2026 purchased and high, whatever I have on the shelves, which may have hit over 500 after I went a bit overboard with acquisitions this year, including 3 from Paris.
These are some of my thoughts and feelings as a ‘social media’ reader, as we leave 2025 and enter 2026.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you! What were your standout reads of 2025? And what’s on your list for 2026?
Gav Reads 