Hello and a very warm welcome to damppebbles. It’s Tuesday which means it’s time for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday post. I’ve decided to take part in That Artsy Reader Girl’s Top Ten Tuesday meme to mix things up a little here at damppebbles. Add a little bit of variety to our bookish weeks.

The meme was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish but has lived with Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl since January 2018. It was created to encompass a love of books, of lists and to bring readers together. If you would also like to take part then you’re very welcome: the more, the merrier. Just make sure you link back to Jana’s post every week. If you don’t have a blog, then no problem, just add your list to the comments below.

This week’s theme is Goals for 2026 (bookish or not! Share your reading goals, personal goals, etc.). I will share my bookish goals for this year shortly but first, I thought it would be fun to look back at the goals I set myself this time last year. Did I complete them? Did I completely forget I’d even set myself a goal to read outside of my normal genre? (Yes, yes I did!). After we’ve had a look at last year’s goals I’ll share my bookish goals for this year. But be prepared, they might feel fairly familiar….

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1. Goodreads Challenge
I take part in the Goodreads Challenge every year with varying degrees of success. My target for the last couple of years has been 92 (which according to my dodgy maths means one book every four days). I have failed each and every year though so, when my blogging/reading hiatus hit in the middle of last year, I dropped my challenge target to 52 books (which at the time seemed a loooooong way off!). One book per week. Thankfully, I was successful – otherwise I think my confidence would have taken a bit of a hit! But I didn’t beat it by much.

This year I’m going to take the pressure off from the get-go and go with 52 books. If I hit my goal part way through the year I’ll increase it. But I think I need an easy target this year to take the pressure off a little.

Are you taking part in the Goodreads Challenge? Let me know in the comments how many books you plan to read this year.

So. I ended up changing my Goodreads Challenge goal part way through the year. I read a number of short stories and novellas and (yes, I’m weird) I refuse to count shorter books in my Goodreads Challenge total 🤷‍♀️. My total ended up being 60 books and my final count was 93 books. Woohoo!
Goal one – ☑️

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2. 20 Books of Summer
The fabulous Cathy at 746 Books has been organising this challenge for a while now. After 10 years of hosting the challenge and cheering us all on, Cathy decided in 2024 to step down as host. However, this challenge feels like a mainstay of damppebbles. I don’t take part in many challenges but this one is definitely my favourite. So, I’m going to do the challenge anyway (if anyone knows who has taken it on then please do drop me a message with their contact details). What’s it all about? Read twenty books over the course of three months (1st June to 1st September although dates do change each year). If twenty books sounds too many for you then you can pledge to read fifteen or ten instead. (I may do this this year, reduce my target. It’s all about taking the pressure off in 2025 it seems!) Look out for my list of 20, 15 or 10 books (depending on how confident I’m feeling!) sometime in May. Huge thanks to Cathy for organising us over the years. What a legend ❤️

Thank goodness for Annabel at AnnaBookBel and Emma at Words and Peace who expertly took the reins from the fabulous Cathy at 746 Books and ran the 20 Books Challenge over the Summer. It was only the second year I managed to complete the challenge. You can find out more about the books I chose HERE. I did end up swapping one out after I struggled with it but I have it reserved as an audiobook at the library so looking forward to trying again.
Goal two – ☑️

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3. Read a Popular Crime Series
I am a crime fiction blogger. However, there are many great crime writers I haven’t, as yet, read. For example. Ian Rankin, Sue Grafton, Stuart MacBride, Ann Cleeves and Anthony Horowitz. I have never read one of Agatha Christie’s Poirot novels (I normally go for her Miss Marple books). I would like to change this in 2025. It’s just deciding which series to read.

Which crime series do you recommend I read this year? I would like to start at book one and work my way through the series so it would need to be readily available and longer than a trilogy.

I’m not sure whether you’ll agree with me on this one but I read all of The Thursday Murder Club books (I’d already read one so I had three, plus the latest instalment to read. Does it count? I’m not even sure, to be fair. I also fell behind with the DCI Matilda Darke series and managed to catch up with that ready for the next book in the autumn. Again, not sure this counts.
Goal three – 😬

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4. Read Outside My Normal Genre
I am a specific genre reader. I only tend to read crime fiction, mysteries, thrillers and horror. All the dark stuff in other words. Last year I read The Lifeline by Libby Page. It was the first book I’ve read in a long time that wasn’t all doom and gloom. I rather enjoyed it.

Let me know in the comments of your non-crimey recommendations. I’m thinking maybe a romance or a fantasy (not sure I’m ready for sci-fi yet!).

Well, this was a big fat FAIL. Everything I read last year was crime/mystery/horror/psychological thrillers or suspense. My usuals. I do now have a couple of romance books on my TBR so perhaps this is the year to give them a go.
Goal four – ❌

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5. Read Daily
Not sure this one needs any explaining. Even if it’s for only a few minutes, read every day. No matter what else is going on. Make sure I find the time to read at least a page a day.

I haven’t managed to do this. I had the best intentions but I had days last year when reading just felt like a chore. We all lose our reading mojo every now and then. When I set this goal I was determined to make sure I didn’t go through a month-long reading slump like I did in 2024. The good news is, I didn’t. I managed to avoid a large slump. I just had days here and there where I had too much on, other stuff happening and finding the time to read was near impossible. So despite not achieving this goal, I feel I did in some way…? 
Goal five – ❌

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6. Keep My NetGalley Shelf to Five Books or Under
I used to have thirty to forty books on my NetGalley shelf, going back to 2016 when I first started the blog. Then, thanks to a 20 Books of Summer challenge, I managed to reduce it to three or four. I managed to keep my shelf under five until the start of last year when all of a sudden, I was requesting EVERYTHING again. At the time of writing I have nine books to read with fifteen books waiting for a review 🙈 How quickly these things spiral! My aim this year is to get that back to under five and keep it there. Which should also ensure my ratio stays about where it is and doesn’t dip below the dreaded 80% mark!

There were weeks where I absolutely had this in the bag! They were few and far between but that’s not the point! My NetGalley ratio is great (currently 96%) but I do at the time of writing have eight books on my shelf waiting to be read.
Goal six – 😬

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7. Write Reviews as Soon as Possible
I used to write my reviews the day after I finished a book. Then I stopped doing that and left it longer and longer until I had a ton of reviews to write and quite a few scary, impending deadlines! Going back to my ‘2025 is going to be pressure free’, I hope to return to writing reviews soon after finishing a book (which I also hope will lead to me being at least a month or two ahead in my reading and blogging – always a nice feeling when you know you’ve got content lined up for a few weeks!!).

Yeeeeeaaaah. Not happening. Terrible at this.
Goal seven – ❌

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8. Write a Monthly Wrap-Up Post
Historically, I have always been terrible at writing a monthly wrap-up post. You can see how terrible by clicking HERE. I call my wrap-up post CASE CLOSED and I really do have the best intentions but they never seem to last very long. 2025 is my year to get on top of CASE CLOSED. Twelve months, twelve posts. Surely it can’t be that hard, right?

At last, something I’ve actually managed to do!! I wrote a CASE CLOSED post at the end of every month during 2025. It kind of morphed and changed as I went along. Becoming something a lot shorter, more succinct. But I feel it works a lot better now it’s a quicker read.
Goal eight – ☑️

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9. Beat 2022’s Blog Stats
Before I go any further I want to say that I’m not really all that bothered about stats. I know my stats are a drop in the ocean to many other bloggers and that’s absolutely fine. Since it’s inception in 2016 my blog stats have been growing in the right direction, which is marvellous and I am so grateful to everyone who regularly visits damppebbles. But I did have a bit of a spike in 2022 (no clue, no idea why that happened there) and I would like to match or beat 2022’s figures.

I had an amazing year on the blog with my stats soaring above 2022 which I am extremely grateful for. Thank you to everyone who visited damppebbles.com in 2025 ❤️
Goal nine – ☑️

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10. Read One or More of My Backlist Every Month
I have shelves and shelves of books at home. I also have a Kindle which has an unknown number of books on it. I need to spend more time in 2025 reading my own books and accepting fewer review copies. I think a large proportion of bloggers and reviewers will say the same. What are we like, eh?

Ha! I can’t believe I included this. I completely forgot all about it. I have read some of my own books this year but not nearly enough to say I read one a month.
Goal ten – ❌

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So those were my goals for 2025. This is what I hope to achieve in 2026:

1. Goodreads Challenge (52 books in 52 weeks)
2. 20 Books of Summer Challenge
3. Read a Popular Crime Series
4. Read Outside My Normal Genre
5. Read Daily (I don’t think this is possible for me but I want to include to make sure I stay on track)
6. Keep My NetGalley Shelf to Five Books or Under
7. Write Reviews as Soon as Possible (I am working on this at the moment)
8. Continue to Write a Monthly Wrap-Up Post
9. Beat 2025s Blog Stats
10. Read One or More of My Backlist Every Month

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I had some success with my goals for 2025. So I’m going to try again in 2026 (with virtually the same ten goals!). If at first you don’t succeed, try again! What are your bookish goals for 2026? Do we have any in common? Are you taking part in Top Ten Tuesday this week? Let me know in the comments.

So there we have it! If you fancy joining in next week then head on over to That Artsy Reader Girl’s blog to find out what the next topic is!