I’ve gotten into the habit of building a reading list at the beginning of the year. It’s a good way to document my reading goals for the year, track my reading, see progress year-over-year, and collect any suggestions or recommendations based on the types of books that I like to read. This is the 13th edition of my annual reading list(s).

As I’ve done in recent years, I keep two lists. One is the for the fun reads, which lean heavily toward fictional reads from the science fiction genre. While I read these books primarily for entertainment purposes, there are reasons why the list leans towards science fiction that I’ve documented here. The second list is my morning reads that I use for learning and self-improvement. The guidelines I use to comprise each list are included at the bottom of this post.

At the end of 2025, my ‘Want to Read’ list on Goodreads had 213 books on it, which is a bit more than the 205 I had on it at the start of 2025. Since I read about 30 books on average each year, I need to be somewhat selective about the books I add to my list. I expect to be even more selective in the coming year to keep the list from growing too large.

Here are the lists for this year.

The fun reads

1. The Fountains of Paradise – Arthur C. Clarke
2. The Genius Plague – David Walton
3. Antarctica Station – A.G. Riddle
4. The Balloon Hunter – Hugh Howey
5. Just One Damned Thing After Another – Jodi Taylor
6. Slick – Daniel Price
7. Mr. Whisper – Andrew Mayne
8. The Measure – Niki Erlick
9. Startup – Doree Shafrif
10. The Warehouse – Rob Hart
11. The Fury – Alex Michaelides
12. The Premonition: A Pandemic Story – Michael Lewis
13. Providence – Max Barry
14. The Immortality Code – Douglas E. Richards
15. vN -Madeline Ashby
16. Mickey 7 – Edward Ashton
17. The Big Disruption – Jessica Powell
18. The Titan Strain – Virginia Soenksen
19. Returning to Zero – Alan B. Johnston
20. Machinehood – S.B. Divya
21. Firebreak – Nicole Kornher-Stace
22. Pillar to the Sky – William R. Forstchen
23. The Object – Joshua T. Calvery
24. Wild Dark Shore – Charlotte McConaghy
25. The Third Rule of Time Travel – Philip Fracassi
26. Gene Mapper – Taiyo Fujii
27. The Price of Time – Tim Tigner
28. Station Break – Andrew Mayne
29. Die Again Tomorrow – Kira Peokoff
30. Becoming Monday – G.W. Constable

The morning reads

1. Thinner This Year – Chris Crowley
2. Neurofitness – Rahul Jandial
3. Greenlights – Matthew McConaughey
4. Cholesterol Clarity – Jimmy Moore
5. What is Real – Adam Becker
6. A Burning in My Bones – Winn Collier
7. Die with Zero – Bill Perkins
8. The Brain – David Eagleman
9. More Everything Forever – Adam Becker
10. Debt: The First 5,000 Years – David Graeber
11. Wrong – Dannagal Goldthwaite Young
12. Unreasonable Hospitality – Will Guidara
13. The Ride of a Lifetime – Robert Iger
14. Running Out of Saturdays – Peter Allan Brewer
15. The Hacking of the American Mind – Robert H. Lustig

The revisit list

Each year, there are a couple of titles that I like to try and revisit. It’s a good way to reinforce the key concepts I took away the first (or last) time I read it. It’s been a year or two since I’ve revisited a book, so I’d like to make it a point to revisit at least one (or two) off this list in 2026.

1. Ego Is the Enemy – Ryan Holiday
2. Mastery – George Leonard
3. The Power of Positive Thinking – Dr. Norman Vincent Peale

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Even though I spend considerable effort arranging my reading list, there’s always room for suggestions and recommendations. It seems like a few books find a way to jump the queue every year. Feel free to leave recommendations in the comments.

If you’re interested in the lists from years past, you can find them here.

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The reading list guidelines

To make the curation process a little easier, I’ve come up with a set of guidelines that help me build the reading list.

• I read multiple books at once. I have a couple of daily readers/devotionals, a non-fiction book about personal development, business, or health that I read in the morning, and a recreational book that I like to read in the evening. Therefore, my first task is to split the list into two, my fun reads and my morning reads.
• I keep a third, short list of personal development books to reread. The goal is to revisit and reinforce concepts that I want to incorporate into my day-to-day living.
• Recommendations from trusted sources get highest priority.
• Books from authors I like receive preferential treatment. A few of my current favorites are Blake Crouch, A.G. Riddle, Eliot Peper, Daniel Suarez, Matt Haig and Ryan Holiday.
• If I’ve already purchased a book, I make an effort to prioritize it.
• I like to include a few books by new authors. It’s fun reading books by authors I’m not familiar with and discovering up-and coming talents.
• Books still on the 2025 list got moved to the 2026 list. If it was on last year’s list, it belongs on this year’s list. I do my best to put higher priority on books from the prior year’s list.
• My fictional preference is primarily science fiction, but I will venture outside of this genre if provided with a good recommendation. My science fiction books tend more towards books that explore hard science fiction or plausible ideas such as artificial intelligence, human augmentation, or robotics. I’m not one for space operas, although I will dabble here and there if the first book in a series looks interesting.
• I always save room on my list for “classic” science fiction. It fascinates me how authors have foreshadowed or predicted the future in their books, some of which were written well over 50 years ago.
• My non-fiction reads center around self-learning, business learning, founder/company stories, neuroscience, and health and nutrition. I do my best to include books from each of these categories every year to stay current on the latest findings.