If you saw my post on my goals for 2025, you’ll know that I’m doing monthly goals instead of yearly goals this year. So I didn’t set an overall reading goal for 2025, but I am planning to set monthly goals.
For January, my goal was to finish 6 books and I’m thrilled to report that I finished 6 books! No fiction this month, but I did finish one memoir!
Each month, I plan to share reviews on the books I finished the month before + my book stack for the next month (see my book stack for February here!) since many of you have begged for me to bring back my book posts here on the blog. I’ll also be sharing more in real-time what I’m reading over on Instagram stories and on the podcast and in my personal email newsletter.
The 6 Books I Finished in January
- Cultivating Deeper Connections in a Lonely World – If you have struggled with friendship breakups, found building community challenging, or just want some practical advice to build healthy friendships, this was a really good read! (I wrote a post inspired by Becky’s book here.)
- Adrift – My mom gave me this book and it was such a fascinating and engaging story. It’s an old reprinted book and I love the story of courageous faith!
- Sabbath Soup – I loved this book! It is packed with menu plans and encouragement to meal plan in a way that allows you to have a Sabbath. Plus, I loved Kathi’s encouragement and ideas to be prepared to be able to bless others by opening your home or bringing a meal!
- The Love Your Life Project – If you need a really practical but simple guide to help you fall more in love with the life you already have, definitely check out this book! It’s packed with sage advice + doubles as a workbook with each chapter containing hands-on questions and suggestions to help you apply things in your own life! Listen to our podcast episode here.
- The Vision-Driven Leader — Thank you, Michael Hyatt, for inspiring me to create a mission statement and vision script for our company for the first time ever! After 20+ years of running a company, it’s about time! This book was so inspiring to me as I step into a new role in the company (overseeing daily strategy of the blog/business) and as I seek to move from being a manager to a true leader!
- Word Before World – Thank you, Gretchen Saffles, for the encouragement to put Jesus first. This book goes along so well with my goal to not turn my phone on for the first hour of the morning.
For those who ask when I read: I always have a few books going at once and I read a few pages to a chapter of a Christian inspiration book + a business book every morning. Then, my goal is to read at least 30 pages of a some type of more fun reading in the evenings before bed — memoir, fiction, etc. I have been struggling to get that in because usually by the time I go to bed, I’m too tired to read. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s the reality! 🙂
What books have you finished recently? I’d love to hear!
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Thanks for sharing your little habits, like you just did in the last paragraph about reading what and when. Often, I read your new posts and find such tiny details about your life inspiring. I always struggled to read books. I started so many and finished some. I get distracted so easily that sitting over a book for a long makes me loosing my interest. I started listening books on my way to work and I still limit that to 15 minutes as my thoughts start wondering elsewhere. So far, it works. I love your reviews about books. Thank you for your posts, Crystal.
Aw! Thank you for your encouragement! I’m so grateful that this post was an encouragement!
My favorite recent read was also by Gretchen Saffles, The Well-Watered Woman. Here’s a link to my review of it: https://practicalwalk.com/2025/01/03/book-review-the-well-watered-woman/
And my January book stack:
https://practicalwalk.com/2025/01/31/january-book-stack/
Thank you so much for sharing!
Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, is GREAT! I highly recommend! Also just finished There Be Dragons by Melanie Shankle, loved it, had to read in 2 days, great story, and A Higher Call by Adam Makos – excellent, heartbreaking story about WWII but also an incredible true story of faith. Thank you for inspiring me to read more! I love your recommendations!
I am so excited to read all of those!!
I recently finished Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport and wow sos good! I’m also half way through Habits of the Household and it’s been challenging and inspiring.
YES!! I’m a huge fan of Cal and of Habits of the Household!
Chock full, not chalk full.
Haha! Yes!! That one always trips me up!
I think it’s a hazard, so to speak, of listening to a lot of audiobooks. There are so many words I pronounce the way my British narrators do, for example.