This year, I must have read less than at any point in the last 20 years. I haven’t even counted properly, but it must have been only around ten books. Last year I read about 60, and the year before that it might have even been close to 80.

There’s a giant stash of unread books on my shelf. I also didn’t make enough use of Kindle Unlimited to justify paying €12 a month. Even when it comes to comics, I didn’t read as much as I wanted to.

So one of my main projects for 2026 will be to read and review one book per week again. I did this years ago on Medium, on X, and on a German site I used to own. It motivated me to read even on busy days. And since next year is going to be busy, I’ll need that motivation.

Fifty-two books in fifty-two weeks is a nice challenge. I’ve seen it on many websites, and it’s always enjoyable to read about. Ideally, this will be a project that improves both my life and my blog.

Books I need to finish

• The James Bond novels (I must be about halfway through Fleming’s originals. Goldfinger is next on my list.)
• Harry Potter (I haven’t started yet, but I already own the books.)
• Reacher, Miss Marple, and Poirot (I used to read one book per year from each of these series.)
• Chuck Palahniuk (There are still a few works left before I’ve completed his entire bibliography.)
• Philip K. Dick (I have a massive short-story collection of his that I need to finish.)
• Robert A. Heinlein (Along with Dick, he’s one of my favorite authors. Unfortunately, his earlier works are hard to find in German.)
• Bible Reading (I’ve been working on that for years. I’m still not through as a lot of books in the bible are just painfully boring.)

New reads to try

• I’m open to exploring indie authors. If you’re an indie writer and you’re reading this, leave a comment and tell me what you write. I might check it out.
• I enjoyed The Walking Dead comics. The same author also wrote Invincible, which I want to try this year.
• Mystery reads: One idea I have is to look for books on Kindle Unlimited with bad covers and no reviews, and give one a chance each month. Maybe I’ll find some hidden gems.

BookTuber books

Something that could also help my own book marketing is reading books by people with an existing reach—whether through a big blog, YouTube, or X—and then writing a review. Afterward, I’ll send them a tweet letting them know I wrote about their book. Maybe they’ll check out my work or at least retweet the link to my review.

Yes, that’s marketing—but I don’t want this project to be only about marketing. I won’t write glowing reviews for bad books just to get a retweet. Still, I need to find ways to get some attention for my work, and this feels like a fair approach.

Your recommendations

Finally, I didn’t create this website only to find readers—I also want to find great books. Let me know in the comments what you’re reading. Maybe I’ll discover an amazing author I’ve never heard of before.