How has your week been? What have you been reading lately? We’re down to the last week of the year and I’m finishing up the last 2 book for my reading challenges – X’s for Eyes, Laird Barron and Under the Whispering Door, TJ Klune. This year, I added more horror books to my reading life, which was great, as was reading more novellas, and posting here at ChapterAdventure twice a week. Now on to the 10+ bookish links I bookmarked recently.
one+ In case you missed it, I updated A Huge Round Up of 2025 Year Long Reading Challenges and The Most Popular 2025 Reading Challenges on StoryGraph.
two+ Of course, we’re bringing back the 2 reading challenges we host – The 2025 Key Word Reading Challenge and 2025 Motif Reading Challenge. I’m putting together my list of books to read, but here’s All She Wrote – Motif Challenge Picks and KeyWord Challenge Picks! You can also get more ideas at the StoryGraph Key Word and Motif Reading Challenge, or at the Plan It Out section of the Chapter Adventure Reading Challenges Goodreads Group.
three+ Also recently I shared My Favorite Book Covers of 2024 – what’s yours? Check out the winner of Electric Lit’s 2024 Book Cover Tournament is The Manicurist’s Daughter by Susan Lieu, design by Julianna Lee. There were 32 initial book covers with multiple rounds of voting on Instagram and X. Also loved the look at cover trends in Cover Love 2024.
four+ Oprah announces her 109th book club pick as Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan. Honestly, this is the first time I’ve heard of this book – but aren’t novellas having a moment?! “At just 128 pages, the novella follows an Irish father and coal merchant in the weeks leading up to Christmas as he discovers a town secret that forces him to choose between protecting his own and standing up for the powerless.” Here’s The Complete List of All 109 Books in Oprah’s Book Club. Oh – and she also announced a new podcast.
five+ Here are The Books NY Times Readers Loved in 2024, which has the usual suspects – the books you’ve heard about all year, but over at The 2024 Libro.fm Bookseller Choice Awards, their Best Under-the-Radar Audiobook is The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, P. Djeli Clarke – and I have to say yes! I loved it.
six+ How do you keep track of all the books you want to read? There’s some really good tips in Organize Your TBR. Another option is the NetGalley Digital Reading Journal, especially useful if you use NetGalley to get advanced reader copies of books. Another fantastic option is this Digital Reading Journal (from The Flow Planner on Etsy). I actually use the customizable version of that planner – Printable Reading Tracker Journal – which is the individual pages. It says printable, but I use it digitally and it works fine for me.
seven+ Another good option for tracking your reading is the Book Riot 2025 Reading Log. It’s free and spreadsheet based (Google Docs).
eight+ If you’re still looking for book recommendations – and I must admit, I’m a bit overloaded with them at the moment – but I saved even more books from the LitHub’s 17 of the Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Books of 2024 and The Best Audiobooks of 2024 plus Jodi Picoult, Kennedy Ryan and More Bestselling Authors Share Their Most-Anticipated 2025 Books.
nine+ Found via News & Notes – have you heard of OpenAudible or used this service? It’s “a cross-platform audiobook manager designed for Audible users” that lets you “download, view, and manage all your Audible books” on your own computer. Interesting! It’s not free though.
ten+ Off the Books – What are you watching? I just finished watching The Day of the Jackal and the ending crushed me! I’m in a mood for adaptations now, so perusing the list of The 10 Best Literary Adaptations of 2024 or My Favorite Book-to-TV Adaptations of 2024, and staying away from The 10 Worst Book-to-Screen Adaptations.
Special Note: A blog friend has published Take the Helm: A Small Victories Journal that will inspire, empower and encourage you to record your wins even on your low energy days.
—- Cheers to the weekend and week ahead!
