Reading is making a comeback in a big way for me in 2026. In this post, I talk about books I hope to read in the coming year in philosophy, literature, poetry, and mathematics.
Math
And as always, we’re leading with the math. There are only two math books I want to complete in 2026, and they are:
- Understanding Analysis by Stephen Abbott. I did the first chapter of this book in the autumn of 2025 and I found the presentation to be quite approachable. I have heard that this is the best introduction to real analysis for the self-taught, and I hope to prove those people right in the coming year.
- Linear Algebra Done Right by Sheldon Axler. I’ve watched several of Professor Axler’s lectures over this book and read the first couple of chapters, and I think I’m going to enjoy his unique approach to the formal presentation of linear algebra.
Literature
Within literature, 2026 is going to be the Year of the Doorstop, where my main readings are all going to be very long novels. There are six that I am considering non-negotiable and six more that I would like to add if I have the time.
The six non-negotiable works are:
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu
- Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
- Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
And the six stretch goal books are:
- The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- Clarissa by Samuel Rutherford
- Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
- David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
- Bleak House by Charles Dickens
I’d also like to start working on reading all of Thomas Hardy’s novels if time allows. I read Tess of the d’Urbervilles in August and loved it; my next Hardy novel is going to be The Mayor of Casterbridge or Jude the Obscure.
Poetry
I have resolved to spend more time with poetry in 2026. My goal here is simple: to read and savor one or two poems per day. I have poetry compilations by Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Yeats, and Hardy, and I plan to add compilations by Dickinson, Whitman, Burns, the Brontë sisters, and Donne in the months to come – mostly so that I am never hurting for choice. I am finding myself drawn to the poetry of Thomas Hardy, which makes sense as I adore Hardy as an author of prose.
If I don’t get to all twelve epic novels that I’ve chosen, it’ll probably because I’ll have gotten into epic poetry. I have the four major epics of Greco-Roman antiquity (Aeneid, Iliad, Odyssey, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses), and I want to read all four of them in the next year or two.
Philosophy
2026 is the year that I start taking my philosophy practice seriously. To this end, there are six major works of philosophy that I want to read over the course of the year – three core and three more as time allows.
- The Republic (Plato)
- Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle)
- The Analects (Kong Fuzi1)
- Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)
- Selected works of Epictetus
- Mengzi (Mengzi2)
Structure
Periodizing my studies is an important consideration to help ensure that I will get done everything that I want to get done in my course of self-study. To this end, I am breaking 2026 up into three trimesters and splitting up my studies accordingly. This structure is subject to change in the coming days.
- First Trimester: January to April
- Literature: War and Peace; Middlemarch; poetry of William Wordsworth
- Philosophy: Plato (and Marcus Aurelius if time allows)
- Math: Real analysis
- Second Trimester: May to August
- Literature: Ulysses; The Tale of Genji; poetry of Thomas Hardy
- Philosophy: Aristotle (and Epictetus if time allows)
- Math: Real analysis; abstract vector spaces
- Third Trimester: September to December
- Literature: Vanity Fair; Tom Jones; poetry of W. B. Yeats
- Philosophy: Kong Fuzi (and Mengzi if time allows)
- Math: Abstract vector spaces
I will be publicizing my reading list via a shared Google Sheets document later this month. Until then, keep reading.