This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about bookish discoveries made in 2025! I don’t have any general things like bookshops or book clubs to share, so I’ll go with new-to-me authors in 2025, though it’s heavy on authors where I only know a single work/series (and sometimes they don’t have others).

1. Uketsu. I really enjoyed both Strange Pictures and Strange Houses, especially the latter, and I’m looking forward to the upcoming Strange Buildings. They’re such weird stories, and if you want to piece together the mysteries for yourself you have to really stare at the included images. (This is perhaps why I liked Strange Houses most: I found it easier to come up with my own theories and spot what I was meant to see, so I got to participate a bit more.)
2. Xue Shan Fei Hu. Me and my wife both got super into The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish at the same time, which was fun — reading the books at the same pace, chatting about plot developments, etc. It’s a silly story (though it does include some political intrigue) and very cute, and I’m sure I’ll reread it. I’d give other books by this author a shot too.
3. Mary Fitt. I didn’t know anything about this queer Wales-based classic mystery writer, but in 2025 I came across The Banquet Ceases and loved it. I later read Clues to Christabel as well, which I found compelling but somewhat less enjoyable. I’m definitely eager to read more of her work, and there’s a lot of it (if not all?) on Kobo Plus, which is convenient.
4. Sarah Caudwell. I started seeing people talk about Thus Was Adonis Murdered a lot and gave way to curiosity, ending up fully on the bandwagon despite not being sure whether the humour would suit me, or whether a crime novel based around a bunch of lawyers would be fun. I haven’t read the fourth book, which I’ve been warned isn’t as fun, but I really loved the first three. They’re witty and clever and full of character, and I’m sure I’ll reread them at some point.
5. Sally Smith. Another legal-based mystery, in the same year?! Shockingly, yes. I was initially put off by the main character, Gabriel Ward, who seems to be kind of stuffy — but it didn’t take long before I was won over. I loved both A Case of Mice and Murder and A Case of Life and Limb (which I requested to review because I’d unexpectedly loved the first book so much), and I’m so impatient for book three.
6. Yatsuki Wakatsu. This is the author of The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter, which I read in both the original light novel format and (as far as it exists) the manga adaptation. I’d definitely give more books by this author a shot; the light novels kept me chirpy and fascinated during a high-stress, high-anxiety time as my final exams approached, we were moving house, etc, etc. I’ve actually been rereading the manga due to the new volume coming out, and it confirmed to me how much fun the series is.
7. Rinteku. I don’t know if Rinteku’s written any other manga, but I came across Love in the Palm of His Hand and really fell in love with how it tries to portray the multiple ways the deaf protagonist communicates. It was really interesting to see how Rinteku chose to represent sign language in a static medium (showing several hand positions in the same frame, for instance). It’s also a really sweet story, even if I don’t 100% love the art. I’d definitely try something else by them.
8. Itaru Kinoshita. I absolutely fell for Dinosaur Sanctuary last year, and though I haven’t got through my backlog of written-but-not-yet-posted reviews to start posting the reviews yet, I can’t wait to share them. It’s basically “what if we found living dinosaurs, put them in zoos, and really had to take care of them?” The dinosaurs are studied, given medical care, encouraged to breed, need enrichment — and the public needs to be engaged with too. I really loved how rooted it is in what we know about dinosaurs and some interesting but plausible extrapolations. The series has a research consultant so it can be as accurate as possible! It’s wholesome and fun, and I also learned new things.
9. Chugong. That’s the author of the original Solo Leveling light novels! I actually read the manhwa first, which I loved, but I’m knee-deep in the light novels now as well and really loving it. I find it weirdly relaxing that though the stakes are ultimately really high (the survival of all humans), the main character is so ridiculously overpowered (and so rarely at a loss) that you know somehow everything is going to be fine.
10. singNsong. This has really been a year of me reading a lot more media from Japan, China and Korea, as you can tell from the rest of this list! So it’s only fitting to end with Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, which filtered slowly into my awareness through an online friend loving it and a few mentions in the game Tiny Bookshop, where it’s one of the books you can recommend to the bookshop patrons. I’m enjoying both the light novels and the manhwa, and can’t wait for more.

I was actually surprised by the dominance of Japanese, Chinese and Korean works here, but that’s a fairly accurate picture of my reading, to be fair. There are a few runners-up whose books I enjoyed, like Molly O’Neill’s Greenteeth, Rachel Harrison’s Cackle, Julie Leong’s The Teller of Small Fortunes, Chelliace’s Tied to You… so it wasn’t easy to choose just ten to discuss. It was a good year for reading!

Definitely eager to see everyone else’s picks.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about goals for 2026 — bookish or not. I’ll keep things mostly bookish (that’s what you’re all here for, after all, and I have so many bookish goals, always!)… so without further ado, let’s take a look.

1. Read (or not!) according to my whim. It’s easy to get caught up in reading for a reading challenge, or because I have a review copy, or because a book’s due back at the library. And sometimes that’s fine and fun, but whenever it’s not fun, I stop. Or try to: I can’t say I’m perfect yet at this!
2. There’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. It’s kinda sad when I see people talking about “guilty pleasures”, or deriding their reading as “trashy” (though sometimes I think people mean “trashy” in a fun, positive way, I think that’s often still caught up in popular disdain for certain genres or tropes). If it’s fun for me, then it’s worthwhile. It doesn’t need to be any deeper than that.
3. There’s no such thing as cheating. Reading novellas, reading manga, reading children’s books, rereading a favourite, all of it is valid toward stuff like reading goals, most challenges as long as it meets any prompts, etc.
4. I won’t do book-buying bans (or book-borrowing bans, or bans on requesting ARCs, etc). I have limits (discussed below) to help ensure that I’m not just stacking up books I don’t plan to read… but if I really want some new books, I’m not going to make that a guilty feeling. It’s a joy to support authors, to have good stuff to read, to get a nice stack of books and devour them. Provided I have the budget, I’ll make it work.
5. I won’t buy from Amazon if at all possible. In general, but especially books: that’s what indie bookshops and Bookshop.org are for. Sometimes they don’t have something in stock, and there can be relatively few places to turn in that case, but for the majority of what I read there are plentiful options to avoid supporting Amazon.
6. I want to have no more than 20 books at a time bought in 2026 that I haven’t started. This sometimes results in me having a few books on the go at once that I turn out not to be in the mood for, but broadly speaking it’s been really great at helping me read review books on time, start books when I feel like it instead of waiting for “the right time”, etc. I worried I would find it overly restrictive, but I did this last year and really liked the nudge to read books while they’re relevant/exciting/exactly what I’m interested in, because I just got them.
7. I want to start all the books I bought in 2025. As mentioned above, I had the same rule last year (a limit of 20 books not started), but at Christmas the total rocketed up, ahaha. So I currently have 32 books from 2025 that I haven’t started yet. I’m hoping to get them all started (at least) by June, always provided that’s the way my whim takes me.
8. I want to read at least 100 books from my backlog (counting 2025’s books). I did great last year at weeding out my backlog — sometimes by just recognising I didn’t want to read something after all, but also by reading 100 books that had been on my backlog since the end of 2024 or longer. I’d built up quite a backlog for a bunch of reasons, and it was great to explore my shelves more and push myself to poke around in the depths of my Kobo, get to books I meant to review when they came out, etc. I’d like to keep going!
9. I want to read 400 books again this year… or even more? I managed to read 400 books last year and the year before, while still studying on top of full-time work. I don’t have any new course or class lined up, so maybe I have more time for reading? Maybe not, if other priorities crop up, but I still figure that 400 books is a reasonable goal to start with.
10. Any goal can be changed if it’s doing more harm than good. I set reading goals as a way to remind myself that I want reading to be a priority, because reading makes me happy, because talking about books on my blog makes me happy, etc, but if it’s not making me happy then it needs to change. There was a point last year when I dropped my goal to 300, gradually increased it back to 350… and then I eventually ended on 400 exactly. Flexibility is important.

And that’s it! The main goal, of course, is to keep on having fun with it. If I’m not, then for me there’s no point.

How about you?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is about the books we’re looking forward to in the first half of 2026. I’m not always great at keeping an eye on this kind of thing, but it turns out I do have some books I really, really want.

1. Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter, by Heather Fawcett. I actually have an ARC of this one, so I have to get round to it as soon as possible! I’ve enjoyed Fawcett’s other books, though this one basically had me at “mystical cat shelter”, to be fair.
2. Nightshade & Oak, by Molly O’Neill. I really liked Greenteeth, so I’m quite hopeful about this one too, especially since it sounds like it has similar roots. I just got a copy of this from Hachette yesterday morning, so I’m going to dig in soon!
3. Strange Buildings, by Uketsu. I enjoyed Strange Pictures and especially Strange Houses, so I expect to have fun with this one as well. Maybe I’d better see if I can wishlist it at the library, because Strange Houses was in high demand when it came out.
4. Charlotte Brontë’s Life Through Clothes, by Eleanor Houghton. I’m not interested in fashion or clothes per se, but more in what clothes and fashion can tell us about the people who wore them, the times when they were fashionable, etc. I like some of the Brontës’ work, and especially Jane Eyre, so I’m interested both as someone mildly interested in the Brontës and as someone interested in the history of clothes.
5. Star Shipped, by Cat Sebastian. I love Sebastian’s work (and feel it seems to keep on getting better), and I’m very amused by the setting of the two characters being stars in a sci-fi show. Looking forward to this!
6. Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die, by Greer Stothers. I know comparatively little about this one, but it sounds like a fun romance.
7. The Lost Book of Lancelot, by John Glynn. It was high time someone played with ‘The Book of Galehaut’ (there was a retelling that was almost a translation, which I don’t count), because Lancelot and Galehaut’s relationship in the Vulgate Cycle is heckin’ intense, and it’s quite the addition to the Arthurian legends… but sadly ignored. I’m not sure how close a retelling this is going to be, but I look forward to seeing what the author does with it, all the same.
8. Solo Leveling (manhwa), vol 14, by Dubu etc. This contains side stories for Solo Leveling, so I’m verryyyyy curious. As people on my blog know, I’ve got very into both the manhwa and the novels, though I’m close to finished with the novels, so it’s nice to have something new to look forward to from the manhwa.
9. After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine, vol 1, by Li Gou Hua. This danmei isn’t from one of the authors I’ve read before, so I don’t know a lot about what to expect, but I like the idea of the premise (professor ends up transmigrating to the past and discovering that a weird thesis he read is true, and he’s living it). It’s a familiar sort of theme for light novels and I’m enjoying the many permutations of it immensely.
10. Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (novel), vol 3, by singNsong. I’m reading both the manhwa and the novel, and I am very excited to dig in and get to the next bit in the novel. By that time I think I’ll have read just past it in the manhwa, but it’s always interesting to see how manhwa adapts the stories and sometimes places slightly different emphases. And of course, sometimes there are slightly different translations or notes on translations too.

Quite a weird mix, I’m sure, and also no doubt I’ve missed loads of stuff I’d be interested in. Looking forward to seeing everyone’s lists!