8 Books I Have to Read in 2025

 

For the past two years, I've published a post called 'Big Books I Want to Read' and although I did the odd little check-ins I never did a proper update on last year's list nor did I do very well with it haha. Today I'll give a summary of how 2024's BIG books went as well as a bit of a refresh on the idea for the following year.

10 BIG Books I Want to Read in 2023
8 BIG Books I Want to Read in 2024


Starting off with the books I wanted to get to last year...

2024 List

The Book of Dust Vol.2 by Philip Pullman (from last year's list) - 720 pages UNREAD
The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton (from last year's list) - 586 pages UNREAD
Dracul by Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker (from last year's list) - 563 pages READ
Murtagh by Christopher Paolini - 665 pages READ
Reynard the Fox by Anne Louise Avery - 424 pages UNREAD
Inkspell by Cornelia Funke - 675 pages READ
Mossflower by Brian Jacques - 427 pages UNREAD

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow Book by Natasha Pulley - 482 pages UNREAD

You'll see that although I did tick off 3 books (2 of which admittedly were audiobooks), over 60% went unread yet again! This system obviously isn't working and so I'm switching it up a little for this year. Rather than having a list of BIG scary books that I keep avoiding, I'm going to have a list of 8 books, of any size, that I'm looking forward to and want to make time for in 2025. I have so many books on my TBR bookcase that I'm excited to get to but there are so many books, and so little time! This way I hope that most months I can look at this list and try to fit one into my monthly reads. 

2025 List

The Book of Dust Vol.2 by Philip Pullman 
The Legend of Podkin One-Ear by Kieran Larwood

The Explorer by Katherine Rundell

Dreamstalkers: The Night Train by Sarah Driver

The Lion Above the Door by Onjali Q. Raúf

While the Storm Rages by Phil Earle

On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Forget Me Not by Sophie Pavelle

Unintentionally, it still works out that many of these are on the longer side but let's not think about that! This is the first time I've also included some Non-Fiction picks. I have found such a love of non-fiction in the past couple of years, especially nature and wildlife-related books and I always want to read more. 
I'm feeling optimistic and hope that I can make a huge dent in this stack throughout this year. If I read what I read last year (80 books) then this is really only 10% of that...easy! ....?

 

8 BIG Books I Want to Read in 2024

 

This time last year I published a post called '10 BIG Books I Want to Read in 2023' and although I did the odd little check-in within my quarterly reading round-ups, I never did a proper update. Today I'm going to give updates on that list as well as talk about what I plan on reading in 2024.

2023 List
The Book of Dust Vol.2 by Philip Pullman - Unread
Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - Unhauled
The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton - Unread
The Primrose Railway Children by Jacqueline Wilson - Read
Sepulchre by Kate Mosse - Unhauled
A Clock of Stars: The Shadow Moth by Francesca Gibbons - Read
The Garden of Lost and Found by Harriet Evans - Unhauled
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke - Read
Dracul by Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker - Unread
The Wizards of Once: Twice Magic by Cressida Cowell - Read

Read - 4
Unread - 3
Unhauled - 3

So I've, as of last year, decided that if I keep putting off a book to read I'm probably not going to read it and those three books that I've unhauled had been on my shelves for many years. Before I donated them I did look into them a little more online and realized they weren't for me after all. 

As for the 4 I did read, I had mixed feelings...
- The Primrose Railway Children by Jacqueline Wilson I rated a mere 1 star and I was so disappointed with it. I don't want to clog up this post with my ranting but if you're interested to know why I hated it so much I did talk more about it in my previous quarterly reading round-up here > What I Read Last Quarter // October - December. 
- A Clock of Stars: The Shadow Moth by Francesca Gibbons I gave 4 stars. It's been about 7 months since I read this so I can't pinpoint anything in particular that I liked but it was an enjoyable premise and I look forward to reading the second book at some point.
- Inkheart by Cornelia Funke got a 3-star rating from me. If I hadn't seen the movie before reading this I'd maybe have enjoyed it more, but the pacing seemed a bit off and I feel some chunks could have been missed out completely and it would still have been a perfectly fine book.

- The Wizards of Once: Twice Magic by Cressida Cowell was another 4-star-er for me. It was read way back in February '23 so it's even harder to remember but I do know that I enjoyed it more than its predecessor.

Technically there should be 5 read books, as originally I had The Book of Dust Vol.1 on that list. However, I read it in January before I published the blog post so thought I couldn't count it. I wish I had counted it though because I never got around to it and like the other unread books it has been brought forward into my 2024 list, as seen below!

2024 List

The Book of Dust Vol.2 by Philip Pullman (from last year's list) - 720 pages
The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton (from last year's list) - 586 pages
Dracul by Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker (from last year's list) - 563 pages
Murtagh by Christopher Paolini - 665 pages 
Reynard the Fox by Anne Louise Avery - 424 pages
Inkspell by Cornelia Funke - 675 pages
Mossflower by Brian Jacques - 427 pages

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow Book by Natasha Pulley - 482 pages

As I probably said in last year's post, I know that a 'Big' book with be different to everyone. The majority of the books I read are usually between 200-300 pages so for me 400-800 pages is pretty long! I look forward to getting around to (hopefully) all of these books this year and have my fingers crossed for some more 4 and 5-star books in 2024!!

10 BIG Books I Want to Read in 2023

 

Recently I was looking at both Mr H and I's Goodread's Year in Books. Though I read 55 books and he read 38, my annual page total was only 14,326 compared to his 16,372 with my average book length being 260 pages and his 430.
Now, of course, it is no competition and I only mention it because Mr H works full time, has way less free time to read, and still managed a fantastic number of pages. I have a few larger books on my shelves that I put off and put off, intimidated to pick them up...but why?! Therefore this year I've been inspired by Mr H and set my reading goal much lower in the hopes I can get through at least half of the list below.
Everyone will class a book 'big' at different lengths, so for the purpose of this I am listing books of 450 pages or more seeing as my average read last year was only 260! For quite a while now I have also not been making monthly TBR's and instead reading completely what I feel like when I feel like it so we'll see when I make myself pick any of these up haha!
 

The Book of Dust Vol.2 by Philip Pullman
I've actually already ticked Vol.1 off my list in January and I read it much quicker than expected.
I look forward to getting around to volume 2.

Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
This has sat on my shelf for years and if I don't read it this year, I will be donating it. 

I am interested in things set around Carnivals/Circuses etc and thought the blurb sounded good.

The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton
I picked this up at a used bookstore purely because I liked the cover (don't tell me you have never done the same!).
I did read the first chapter so hope to get around to this book soon.

The Primrose Railway Children by Jacqueline Wilson

I haven't read Jacqueline Wilson since I was a child, however, I am a huge E. Nesbit fan and I'm intrigued to read something inspired by such a classic.

Sepulchre by Kate Mosse
It was back in 2019 when I read Labyrinth and have wanted to read the next in this series since.
It really isn't my usual genre but I '3-starred' the first book so as I own the following two, I do want to at least try them.

A Clock of Stars: The Shadow Moth by Francesca Gibbons

Probably the most recent publication on my list and another I'm really excited to get around to!
I read the sentence ''...with all the magic of Narnia and the humour of Mary Poppins...'' and was immediately invested!

The Garden of Lost and Found by Harriet Evans
Another I chose purely by title and cover haha.
A charity shop find and I didn't really know what it was about until putting together this post. 

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
This series is another I have owned for far too many years.
I had actually already planned to read it this year and then, like many others, we watched the movie on Netflix in December so now I need to prioritize it and the sequels.

Dracul by Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker
A long-standing 'joke' with Mr H surrounds this book because I went on and on about it and needed to buy it straight away,
yet it has sat on the shelf since it came out and the sun has even bleached the red from the spine to pink ha.

The Wizards of Once: Twice Magic
My current read after reading the first book at the end of 2020. 
It isn't 460 pages of just writing either and is full of wonderful illustrations and the like breaking it up.

-----

So that's my list of bigger books from my shelves that I hope to work through this year. I'll perhaps do a check-in later in the year with how I'm getting on but as I've started off the year quite well, I am hopeful! 

Until next time...