It’s Crunch Time on Reading Goals
Here’s what looms larger for me than the holidays: my 2026 Reading Challenge. I’ve seen some of you share your finished lineups on social media and…I’m happy for you, really. But I’ve got 10 books to go, and with eight weeks left in the year, I’m strategizing how to cross the finish line. Below is what I’m trying, and how Margins is helping. If you’re behind too, I hope these ideas inspire a fruitful push. I’m cheering for you! Take care, Mia @ Margins
STEP 1: DO THE MATH
We may all have different reading goals, but our time left in the year is the same: eight weeks. I need to complete 10 books to hit my goal of 30, and the books I read average about 350 pages, so that’s 3,500 pages, or about 63 pages a day. I learned from my Stats in Margins that my pace is 25 pages a day, which gets me to four books between now and the end of December. The gap is about 38 pages a day, or roughly six books.
Your turn: multiply the books you have left by your average book length, divide by 56 days, and compare it to your pace in Stats. The difference is your gap.
STEP 2: CHOOSE YOUR PATH
Now that you have an idea of the reading road ahead, you have three options:
A. Close the gap. If it feels doable, go for it. My gap works out to roughly an extra hour of reading every day. That’s a lot, but I’m going to try, and I’ll mix in some shorter books (option B) to make it easier. I’m keeping my goal of 30 books this year.
B. Alter your strategy. A quick read, fast listen, or a book of poetry counts the same toward your goal as a doorstopper. I’ve curated a list of shortish books further down in this newsletter just for this purpose.
C. Reduce the goal. If neither option A nor B feels right, change your goal in Margins. It’s OK! Reading should be stress-free. To adjust your challenge, go to Settings > 2026 Goal and select a new number.
STEP 3: FIND TIME TO READ
The gap only closes if you actually read, and that won’t be easy with the demands of the season. Here are ways to carve out those minutes:
Bring a book everywhere (aka be a BABE). This one came from our reading hacks issue with Book Talk With Lauren. Prolific readers always have a book within reach at home or on the go.
Listen in the in-between. Driving, cooking, walking, exercising, waiting...pockets of time add up. Keep an audiobook going for the moments your hands are busy. Try 1.5x speed if you dare.
Stack or swap it. Read a few pages with your coffee, trade scrolling for reading, or skip TV in favor of a chapter. Small habits add up too. Bonus: use our reading timer to block distracting apps while you read.
STEP 4: SHARE YOUR WINS
It’ll be our turn to shine soon. When you’re ready, go to Stats and scroll to your Reading Challenge. Tap the share icon, pick your color and orientation, and let ’er loose on the world. You did it!
Meet Some Short Books
It’s not cheating to pick books that’ll help you achieve your yearly goal. All of these are about 230 pages or less. Click on a link to track the book on Margins.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (70 pages). A traveling salesman wakes up as an insect.
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (105). A pilot stranded in the desert meets a boy from another planet in this fable about love and loss.
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector (106). A metafictional novella about an impoverished young woman in Rio.
Bluets by Maggie Nelson (112). A lyrical meditation on the color blue, love, and grief.
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (112). Set in a bleak Irish winter, this novella follows a coal merchant who discovers a dark secret at a local convent.
The Stranger by Albert Camus (115). An existentialist classic about a detached man who commits a senseless killing in French Algeria.
The Carrying by Ada Limón (116). A poetry collection on fertility, grief, and the natural world from a former U.S. Poet Laureate.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (118). Two migrant workers dream of a farm of their own.
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (128). A young man leaves his home in search of enlightenment in ancient India.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote (157). A classic novella about Holly Golightly, a glamorous New York socialite.
Coraline by Neil Gaiman (176). A girl finds a door to a mirror-world home with an “other mother” who has button eyes.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (190). A shepherd boy travels to Egypt in search of treasure and his personal destiny.
The Vegetarian by Han Kang (192). A woman’s decision to stop eating meat unravels her family.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (200). A proud Igbo leader’s world is upended by colonial rule.
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (206). An American in Paris is caught between a fiancée and a love he can’t admit.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (233). A shy freshman conveys what it’s like to go through high school.
Meet a Reader
Mat is a cognitive scientist in Northeast England who studies how bidialectals and bilinguals process language. After drifting away from reading, he recently recommitted to it. He loves books “that play with reality, subvert your expectations, or have you saying ‘WTF?!’,” and he’s not immune to a good queer love story. He leans toward science fiction and horror and reads on his commute and before bed to “calm and clear my mind of the rat-race that is adult life.” Follow Mat on Margins!
Also, welcome and thank you to new members: Ben, NM Rose, Emma, Geline, Butchie, Krystina, Cath, Moonpie, Cassandra, Gautham, and more. Margins is free to use, but a paid membership unlocks extra perks and helps to support our small team.
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