I was wondering what kind of post to write as my first post on this blog and I was thinking of doing some kind of newbie tag (even if I technically used to have a book blog way back when…) but wasn’t finding anything particularly inspiring. Then I realised it was the beginning of the second half of 2025 — how time flies — so I thought I could maybe introduce some of my 2025 reading goals and do some reflecting on my reading for the first half of the year.
But first — me! Who am I?
Introduction
Hi! My name is Keira, I’m 23-years-old and from the UK. I work as a Korean-English translator and I’m starting my master’s degree in East Asian Studies (focus: history/philosophy/literature) in September! I moved around a lot growing up and so far that hasn’t changed as an adult either — so far, I’ve lived in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, South Korea and Taiwan!
Perhaps because of all that moving around, and a fortuitous love of K-Dramas in secondary school that lead to me self-studying my first language, language learning is a major passion of mine, and both an academic and leisure pursuit (read: hobby).
My first love, however, is definitely reading. There’s a picture of me aged about two? three? dressed in a fluffy dressing gown with the messiest hair picking a book off the bookshelf — not my bookshelf, my mum’s bookshelf. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the picture to show you 😢
Now, I don’t claim to be some genius who could read complicated novels as a toddler, but I was very determined that I was going to enter the literary world as soon as possible.
I did this a couple years later thanks to the amazing Rainbow Fairy books (I think most British girls around my age probably read these….).
My taste (and reading ability!) has grown a bit since then, but the passion certainly hasn’t faded. I ran a book blog when I was a teenager but abandoned it a bit when university and work became more serious. Apart from my busy life, my reading tastes has also changed and the old blog just didn’t feel like a good fit. But I’ve taken a couple of years off now and I’m ready for a fresh start!
My plan for this blog is to mostly post quite personal book and language-learning related things, including my reading and language learning plans and progress, book reviews, listicles and other more lighter topics.
I also have a Substack called Keira’s Encyclopaedia where I will be posting more long-form content such as discussion posts, advice on how to learn a language, and maybe even some posts about East Asian history or literature to incorporate my academic interests as well.
Finally, I have a studygram account on Instagram (@keiralangs) where I post mostly language-learning related content.
If either of those things sound interesting, feel free to follow me there as well! Otherwise, please read on and drop me a follow or subscribe via email if you’re interested by what you see!
Without further ado though, let’s get into my 2025 goals and midway reflection.
2025 Goals + Progress Update
First let’s talk a bit about my 2025 goals.
I did read quite a bit in 2024, less than I used to as a teenager but far more than the previous year (and more importantly, more books that I enjoyed) but I didn’t feel like it was quite consistent enough for my liking — I would read tons one month and then nothing for a couple months, and then repeat. I love reading but I wasn’t making time for it on a regular basis and that made me sad.
It also didn’t help that my book purchasing habits didn’t show the same trends and stayed pretty consistent regardless of how much I was reading… the size of my TBR is probably a topic best saved for another time though.
So a lot of my goals for reading this year were about increasing my consistency with reading whilst also ensuring that I was reading broadly enough and within certain genres or categories that I know I enjoy or find intellectually stimulating but which I sometimes neglect in favour of quick dopamine hits (not to say I was abandoning such books entirely — certainly not — but I felt some balance was needed). I also wanted to work through the books I owned and slow down my purchasing a bit.
As any good goal-setting planner (me!) knows, though, such vague goals get you nowhere and (more importantly) are far less fun to try and keep track of in a cute-sticker-and-washi-tape decorated notebook with lots of pages and checkboxes to cross out.
I also have an overly-engineered spreadsheet, the formulas of which you only half understand and which definitely shouldn’t still work after the havoc you have wreaked on them. (The amount of statistics I generate on my reading is enough to put someone in a coma – either from shock horror or awe.)
So of course I made specific goals, with even more specific sub-goals and pretty tracking pages to check my progress on all of them. I’m not going to go super in-depth on every single element of said goal tracking system or this would take hours to read, but I thought I’d briefly give you an overview of the 10 main goals as well as some of my priority reads for the year.
Also, a quick note on notation — where I have given a title in a different language, I will always include an English translation. If the translation is in square brackets [] this means I have translated the title as no official translation exists. If it is in regular parentheses () that means an official English translation of the book is available!
10 Goals for 2025 (+ Midway Check)
(Would 25 in 25 sound more interesting? Yes. It would also be a lot of goals. Maybe I should have gone for 12, but really the number isn’t what’s important here!)
1. Read 52 books, 15k pages
52 books a year is a nice consistent book a week — not hard for me to achieve (less than what I read in 2024, although considerably more than what I read for a few years before that), but also not something I can do without thinking about it or in a single month when I realise I haven’t been reading all year. The page number goal is just to make sure I don’t end up filling the 52 books with 6-page short stories and children’s picture books.
This goal is going particularly well ✨✨✨ — I’ve passed the 75% mark for both goals.
2. Read consistently throughout the year
I also set a goal of reading 2/3 of the days I the year (244, to be precise) and also reading at least 30 minutes once a day, four times per week. The idea is to not have months where I don’t read anything at all.
I’m a little bit below my 50% mark and there are definitely some weeks where I haven’t met the goal.But I would say that the average number of days I go without reading is much shorter — a success in spirit if not in the numbers.
3. Reduce my TBR and read purchases
This one is kind of self-explanatory…
I’m trying to read some of my backburner (which I’m counting as any books acquired before this year, although bonus points if they were acquired before 2024), and I’m also limiting my book purchasing. With some fairly major exceptions for language books, books for research etc. etc. I’m working on a 3-out 1-in system — I have to read three books (rereads not included!) before I’m allowed to buy one new one.
I went on a trip to Korea 🇰🇷 for a month (with a work exchange in the countryside!) and put this rule on pause for the duration… apart from that, though, I’m doing pretty well at sticking to this rule and my book purchases are down significantly from 2024.
4. Be intentional and aware of new releases
I felt like I was never aware of new and interesting books coming out — including, horrifically, sequels to series I was in the middle of — and it was bugging me, so I decided to do some research every season on new releases coming up that I might be interested in and especially to pick one priority release that I need to read this year (preferably within that quarter, but we can be a bit flexible).
I picked Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao as the Winter priority release and The Incandescent by Emily Tesh for the Spring priority. Summer is still pending!
I read Water Moon in February and also read John Green’s Everything is Tuberculosis in April, shortly after it released at the end of March. I’m currently reading The Incandescent and thoroughly enjoying it.
5. Revisit beloved authors and series
I identified a couple of authors that I have previously enjoyed and wanted to continue reading, and my goal was to read at least one book by each of them.
The authors I picked were:
- Becky Chambers — I had previously read the Monk and Robot series and loved it.
- Cho Namjoo — Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (82년생 김지영) was the first novel I read in Korean and I liked her short story collection Miss Kim Knows as well!
- Kazuo Ishiguro — I really enjoyed An Artist of the Floating World and I liked the book of lyrics that he wrote for jazz singer Stacey Kent as well (The Summer We Crossed Europe in the Rain)!
- George Orwell — Surprisingly, I still haven’t read 1984 (although I did read Animal Farm when I was twelve or so), but I really enjoyed Orwell’s essays (which I read for sixth form English Literature… and then continued to read for my own enjoyment).
So far I’ve read Saha by Cho Namjoo (which I unfortunately didn’t enjoy) and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (which was good, but not quite as good as I remember Artist of the Floating World being).
I also wanted to make an effort to actually continue with some of the series I had sort of forgotten about or hadn’t caught up with. I didn’t have a specific list that absolutely had to be done but some of the series I was part way through included:
- The War Arts Saga by Wesley Chu — I read the first book in 2024 but didn’t get around to book 2.
- Before We Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi — I had read books 1-4 but hadn’t yet read the most recent book to be translated into English.
- Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee — I read book 1 in early 2024 and was really excited to get book 2 but then didn’t get to read it before moving to Taiwan and leaving all my books behind 😞
- Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie — Another one that I started in 2024 but only read book 1. That being said, this is probably the one I’m most excited to continue.
Because I’ve been abroad with little access to my books and the sequels were unfortunately not available from any of my libraries with the exception of the next Kawaguchi book, that is the only I’ve read so far. But! I’m back in the UK now so I can start work on some of the others too.
6. Participate in community reading events
For this one I just wanted to participate in a couple of readathons and also do some buddy reads with real-life bookish friends. Now that I’m doing this blog though, hopefully there will be even more opportunities to get involved!
When it comes to readathons, I completed the April round of the Magical Readathon, so I’m looking forward to the Autumn Equinox.
As for buddy reads, I buddy read The Ministry of Time in January (and although I wasn’t a fan, it was a fun experience). I’m currently planning another buddy read with two friends, so we’ll see how that develops. Our current options are Legends and Lattes or The Master and Margarita… which are…. different options, to the say the least.
7. Read books that develop my skills and interests
I like reading non-fiction as well as fiction, but I often end up reading things that are either specifically for my research or completely unrelated to my typical interests and hobbies.
In particular I was thinking about creative writing books when I thought of this goal, but I would count books about other passions too — like tea! Or books about work etcetera etcetera.
(I’m a massivetea person — I probably own over fifty different types of tea and have a significant collection of teaware as well.)
No progress here yet… I did buy some books about tea though, so hopefully soon!
8. Read more globally and diversely
If you define “global” and “diverse” as “more than just white Anglo-American authors”, then I actually do this pretty well already. For example, White authors made up less than 45% of my reading in 2024 and books published in the Anglosphere (which includes book from ethnic minorities as well) only 38%.
The issue is that nearly all the rest of my reading is of East Asian authors published in East Asia (perhaps unsurprising given my job and academic field).
That means I have very little diversity outside of that — very few South and South East asians, very few Black authors, very few South American authors etc. etc. So I wanted to change that this year!
To help prompt me, I made a couple of sub-goals:
- read one book published on each (inhabited) continent — Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America
- read three books from the Global South
- read five books by people of colour who aren’t East Asian (note that this is because I already read a lot of East Asian fiction for work and study)
If I can do this without doubling up that would be excellent, but if I do double up that’s fine too (for this year anyway).
If we don’t count any doubling up, then I’ve completed 3/5 continents, 2 Global South books, and one book by a person of colour who isn’t East Asian. If you double up though, this increases to three.
Books that count for some of these goals include, for example:
– Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao (Filipina)
– The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng (Malaysian Chinese)
– The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Cambodian Khmer x White British)
– At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop (Senegalese x French)
I’m also tentatively participating in the Storygraph Reads the World challenge (although I have low hopes of completing it). This is a reading challenge hosted every year by The Storygraph where they pick ten countries and you try and read a book from each country. The countries this year are: Australia, Egypt, Malaysia, Mexico, Iceland, China, the Philippines, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
I’m not doing as well on this one — but The Garden of Evening Mists counts for the Malaysia prompt. (It was really good too.)
9. Read more in languages other than English
My love for languages and my love for reading don’t exist separately from each other — I (want to) read a lot in other languages, and being able to read for pleasure is a major goal and motivator for me in most of the languages I learn.
Currently there are three non-English languages that I wanted to actively try and read in this year: Korean, German and Mandarin Chinese. If you’re interested in my language learning journey, feel free to check out my Substack where I talked all about it!
Specifically this year I decided I wanted to:
- read at least 11 books in a foreign language
- read at least 2 books in each of the aforementioned languages (Korean/German/Chinese)
- read 24 short stories in Korean (ideally 2 per month, but the distribution is not that important)
I’ve read six books not in English, including six in Korean, so we’re very much on track there. We’re also on track with Chinese reading as I have read one out of the minimum two so far.
I have been working my way slowly through a German book but haven’t finished it yet. I’m not too worried about this one though because I can read German quite quickly, plus I’m going to visit my dad in Switzerland soon so I should be able to find something good to read whilst I’m there!
More concerning is the Korean short story goal… I’ve only finished four short stories so far so I really need to step up my game a bit if I want to catch up 🙀
10. 80/20
Goals are fun (for me, at least), as is planning, but you’ve got to be realistic and at least somewhat forgiving with yourself. That’s why my final goal is the 80/20 goal: I want to complete 80% of my goals 80% of the way. What that means is I only need to complete 8 of my goals 80% in order to consider this year a resounding success!
12 in 2025
I may not have done twelve (or 25) goals for 2025, but I did pick twelve books that I particularly wanted to read this year.
So far I’ve only read two, but I’m part way through another and a lot were unavailable from my library, so I should be able to get to them now I’m back in the UK. There’s a way to go, but I’m still holding out hope for this goal!
- 이상한 나라의 스물셋 [The Strange Land of Twenty-Three] — A short story collection by Korean authors about the strange world of your early-mid twenties.
- Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi — Book 5 in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series.
- The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley — A sci-fi literary romance novel that was a super anticipated release of 2024.
- On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong — The renowned poet’s first novel.
- Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie — The second book in the Imperial Radch sci-fi series. I loved book one (Ancillary Justice).
- 소년이 온다 (Human Acts) by Han Kang — An extremely important book about a student uprising in South Korea, now even more important since she won the Nobel Prize and Korea had a bit of a democracy crisis.
- Green Island by Shawna Yang Ryan — A book set in Taiwan — perfect since I spent six months of the year living there.
- Women Who Fly by Serenity Young — A quite academic non-fiction book about winged women in folklore and religion.
- The Will of the Many by James Islington — I’m looking to start some new fantasy series and this one comes highly recommended.
- Return to the Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee — I really liked book one, but one of my friends didn’t and her points do also have merit, so we’ll see how I feel about book two.
- Teachers of the Inner Chambers by Dorothy Ko — An important book for my master’s research but also an interesting book about the role of Chinese women in premodern education.
- Selected Essays by Michel de Montaigne — I really enjoyed the small collection of Montaigne essays in the Little Black Classics editions, so I decided to read more!
Question Time!
I know setting goals — especially goals as detailed and numerous as this — can be a polarising topic.
What about you — do you enjoy setting goals or not? And perhaps more interestingly, do you stick to your goals? Do you even try?
Or do you just set them and let life take you where it pleases, the goals merely something interesting to reflect on the hopes of your past self.
Let me know in the comments below!
If you’re interested in what books I think are the best I’ve read so far this year, be sure to follow so you can find out in an upcoming post!
And check out my Substack and Studygram as well. I posted an introduction to my language learning journey on Substack if you’re interested!
Keira x
Keira's Bookmark 