I made my 2026 reading list at the end of last year, thinking it would carry me slowly through the months ahead. Instead, I’ve been moving through it much faster than I expected because I finally have space. Some of these books are new to me. Some are rereads. That, too, is intentional. I don’t reread because I’m out of ideas. I reread because certain books continue to meet me where I am, and I’ve learned to trust that instinct.
Rereading, for me, has never been about comfort or nostalgia. It’s more like checking in with an old conversation to hear what lands differently now. A book that once felt urgent might feel quieter. One that I rushed through years ago might ask me to slow down. Returning to certain stories is a way of taking stock, not of the book, but of myself. Of what has shifted and what has stayed the same.
I feel this tension most clearly when I look at certain rereads. Crime and Punishment keeps calling me back, almost insistently, as if I know there is still something there I haven’t finished reckoning with. When I first read it, I remember feeling a fierce clarity about people, about conscience, about responsibility. I wonder what I would take away now. Would it be the same?
Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice feel different. When I first read Pride and Prejudice, it was almost entirely for enjoyment. I loved the wit, the restraint, the way everything unfolded just so. I’m not sure what I would be returning to now. I can’t quite imagine learning from it in the same way, and yet I’m not ready to dismiss it either.
Maybe enjoyment isn’t as shallow as we sometimes make it out to be. There is something instructive in returning to a book simply because it delights you. Delight doesn’t always announce itself as learning. Some of the most formative things in our lives are ordinary and quietly pleasurable. Perhaps that’s a reflection for another day.
Pride and Prejudice doesn’t ask me to wrestle in the same way Crime and Punishment does, but it sharpens a different set of muscles. It teaches attentiveness. Restraint. The slow recognition of character over time. It reminds me that not all growth comes through suffering; some of it comes through observation, patience, and learning to read between the lines. Think about it. Who, exactly, was prideful? And who was prejudice? It is what is not being said that reveals the nuances of those human conditions.
Jane Eyre feels like the bridge for me because it offers both enjoyment and reckoning. It has the pleasure of story, romance, and atmosphere, but it also follows a woman who is constantly choosing between what she wants and what she knows is right. When I think about rereading it now, I imagine paying more attention to what Jane refuses to compromise. Not just who she loves, but who she insists on being. It’s not as crushing as Crime and Punishment, but it doesn’t let you stay comfortable either.
Beyond the rereads, there are also books on my shelf that I haven’t yet entered. The Picture of Dorian Gray waits with its questions about beauty, desire, and the cost of refusing self-examination. And then there are the novels I turn to for different reasons entirely, books by Jojo Moyes that remind me of the quiet dignity of ordinary lives. I don’t read with the goal of finishing a list anymore. I read to stay awake, to remain attentive to what asks something of me in this season. The list will change, as it always does. That, too, feels like part of the point.
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Share it with someone who might need it, too. Whether it’s a quiet encouragement or a new way of seeing things, these reflections are meant to be passed along.
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Martina Griffin is a Catholic convert, writer, wife, and mother of four. She writes about faith, motherhood, beauty, books, and the quiet ache of transformation. A lover of popcorn, deep questions, and old classics, she shares her heart at Big Bowl of Popcorn—one post at a time. Instagram | Facebook | Email Me |
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