2026 New Year’s Reading Resolutions (Off-Season)
To start off the New Year, Sontag Mag contributors were asked to share their New Year’s reading resolutions. A list, a paragraph, goals, or habits they’d like to keep or embark on; here’s what they had to share:
I’ve been reading less and less, slower and slower, but my few encounters with books still feel as magical as when I first started reading, and I have a faint idea of some of the things I’d like to lean toward this year. Last year, I got myself, as a Christmas present, Dante’s The Divine Comedy, which I’m curious about reading, however long it takes. I also started reading, sometime in late fall, Tomaž Šalamun’s collected poems, Kiss the Eyes of Peace: Selected Poems 1964-2014, translated by Brian Henry (always acknowledge the translators!), which I’m nearly finished with and would like to finish reading before spring. Beyond this, I have a mound of new books to get through, but I would also love to read more poetry, always, read more rural fiction, especially those set in or influenced by the South (recommendations welcomed), and read a book, which is not so new and not so under-the-radar, which has recently entered my mind, Steinbeck’s East of Eden … I read a few pages randomly at the bookstore I work at, and it was so gorgeous.
Asheley Nova Navarro, Founding Editor
Replace time spent doom scrolling on the train to work with reading time.
Journal at least weekly.
Read more books than I buy new ones.
Finally get into Ursula K. Le Guin.
Aanji Sin, Poetry Reader
I try to read as much as I can, even though the rat race of a life we live in comes in our way of trying to get back at books and movies, things we look forward to the most while we have our bad days; we always circle back to them. My reading list doesn't have any specific titles, but currently I aim to complete Oscar Wilde’s Only Dull People are Brilliant at Breakfast and Han Kang's The Vegetarian. I also look forward to reading more radical feminists like Taslima Nasrin and Khadija Mastoor's The Women's Courtyard.
Other than that, I look forward to any book that catches my eye. You could say I do, sometimes, if not often, judge a book by its cover.
Aanya Mehta, Poetry Reader
Entering this year, I did not initially have any reading goals, as I like to read what spontaneously comes to me. Yet, early this month, I read last December's issue of La Nouvelle Revue française, and it made me want to read so many books! I mainly wrote down Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, André Malraux's Museum without walls and José-María de Heredia's Les trophées. I have high hopes about reading more literary analysis and non-fiction.
Anna Erre, Poetry Reader
I am an avid reader already, so I don’t have any genre goals particularly, but this year I am seeking and reading poetry, fiction, and film where memory is explored. I am personally musing on how to write memory and welcome the insight in the books I encounter.
Jai Michelle Louissen, Poetry Reader
My reading resolution is definitely to get through books I have started reading and am yet to finish and to read more historical fiction and memoirs. Some books on my list include The Fraud by Zadie Smith, My Mother Laughs by Chantal Akerman, Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy, and Hold Still by Sally Mann.
Suzanne Claridge, Poetry Reader
My New Year’s reading resolution is to read at least two books a month. After crushing my goal of reading a book a month last year, I want to set a new and improved goal for myself! In a world that is increasingly reliant on and consumed by technology, I am trying to be more intentional about picking up a book and trading screen time for page time.
Amarys Dejai, Staff Interviewer
A (bad, neutral?) habit of mine is crying when I read, and since I like to read at my local bookstore, it’s often to the concern and confusion of the people around me. But it’s a habit I enjoy—there’s an unmatched intimacy between me and the characters in a good novel—so I’d like to experience many more cry-reads this year. One tradition I hope to continue is reading a Joan Didion book each January (thinking of Blue Nights this time); while I’m sure she’d hate my vibe, she’ll always be one of the writers I hold closest to me. Some other goals of mine include getting more into Sheila Heti and autofiction more broadly. I’m thinking of making my way through Knausgaard’s My Struggle, but I hope that doesn’t eat up three months of my reading. Other than that, Susan Sontag—this magazine’s namesake—is someone I’ll be sure to read more of too. Her essay collection On Photography is at the top of my list.
Rishi Janakiraman, Staff Reviewer
Off-season is a column created by Sontag Mag to share with our readers a glimpse into the team’s reading and writing life. From resolutions to dialogues to contemplations, Off-season is published outside of our regularly scheduled volumes in April, August, and December.