It’s officially the final quarter of 2025! I kind of can’t believe the year is already almost over. After the disaster that was my complete failure of last month’s TBR, I’ve decided to be a bit more strategic with this month’s TBR.
I’ve made myself a bit of a personal curriculum (I probably won’t be sharing this time around as it’s a bit of a trial run, but probably will in the future!) and this TBR is very much based off that, so technically I should have time to finish everything on this TBR. As a result it is slightly shorter and definitely lighter on the ‘fun’ books than some of my other TBRs but I hope you’ll find it interesting regardless!
Without further ado, let’s go!
Books to finish
We’ll start with the books that are unrelated to my degree, and with the ones that I actually plan to finish this month in particular.
- The Second Death of Locke by V L Bovalino
- Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody
- An Apology for Idlers by Robert Louis Stevenson
Books to progress
As always, there are also a couple of books that I want to make progress in but have no intention of completing this month. (I wonder – does anyone else have these kinds of books, or is it just me?)
- 이상한 나라의 스물셋 [The Strange World of 23] – 4 hours reading/2 stories
- 魔幻時刻 [Magical Moments] – 2 hours reading worth
- The Master and Margarita – 4 hours reading worth
Books for my master’s
Finally, the thing about doing a master’s degree is that you definitely have to read quite a bit. I’m still not entirely sure what dissertation readings I need to do this month, but it’s unlikely to be full books at this stage. Instead, I’ve got quite a bit of reading to do for my 20th Century Chinese Literature class – including a couple of collections by certain authors for various assessments, as well as a range of individual short stories for our weekly seminars.
- Bird Talk and Other Stories – Xu Xu
- The August Sleepwalker by Bei Dao
- A Very Short Introduction to Chinese Literature
In addition to these three books, I also have a selection of short stories to read for my week 4, 5, and 7 seminars. Although these aren’t on my official TBR, since they’re just individual stories, I will still log them in my reading spreadsheet for the year and on my Storygraph as well, so I thought I’d include them here too for reference.
- “Miss Sophia’s Diary” by Ding Ling
- “Sealed Off” by Zhang Ailing [Eileen Chang]
- “Shop of the Lin Family” by Mao Dun
- “Marriage of Young Blacky” by Zhao Shuli
- “The Warmth of Spring” by Ru Zhijuan
- “Maple” by Zheng Shuyi
- “Love Must Not Be Forgotten” by Zhang Jie
- The Chess Master by A Cheng (this one is over 60 pages!)
What books are you planning on reading this month?
Keira x
![[Review] If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light](https://keirasbookmark.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/screenshot-2026-05-05-at-17.31.20.png?w=600&h=450&crop=1)
Keira's Bookmark 