What’s your niche reading project?

I love the experience of reading a good book—a book I pick up because it sounds intriguing, because I suspect it will be right up my alley. Those are reasons enough.  

But I’ve learned that no reading experience is truly isolated. Every book I read is in conversation with every book I’ve read before. In fact, part of the delight of reading widely is constantly making unexpected connections between the books I’ve read. This is bound to happen organically, as I notice similar themes carrying through multiple reads, or coincidentally end up reading several books in quick succession that share something more unusual in common—like they all happen to be set in Michigan, or at MIT, or with characters who row competitively, or who are working through grief. 

But as much as I love bookish serendipity, I’m also very much in favor of occasionally crafting an intentional reading plan with a specific desired experience or outcome in mind.  

We’ve been talking a lot about personal reading projects around here lately: in MMD Book Club we’ve focused on “great books” and how to contemplate the “inputs” and “outputs” for your own personal reading project. On What Should I Read Next?, I talked with Amy about potential topics for her own personal curriculum (options: Fleetwood Mac, food science, Greek mythology, cults!), and how to think about putting together what she described as “a learning plan you design for yourself.” Will and I talked about his accidental personal curriculum, with the only-visible-in-hindsight theme being “the control of nature.”

Last week Callie shared her at once both terribly and enticingly strict Alpha-Book reading challenge, giving us the opportunity to explore the benefits of structure and flexibility to expand your reading life. And just yesterday our team member Donna shared the thing that really worked for her reading life this year: her Taylor Swift-themed reading project.

(On a perhaps smaller scale: this year I read The Power Broker and it was so incredibly long I felt like just reading that book was a project!)

These individually crafted, self-directed reading projects deliver fun, motivation, and purpose. They can be straightforward or off the beaten path. They can be as niche or nerdy as you want.

I’m tentatively planning my own project that resides on the more “niche” end of the spectrum. In 2016 I want to read German thrillers—not ones by German authors, necessarily, but thrillers in the German language.

I studied German in college and was close to fluent at one point, but my command of the language has suffered from lack of use. But then early last year we traveled to Germany to visit my kid studying abroad, and I was shocked to discover my language skills hadn’t suffered nearly as much as I expected. I could barely believe it when I realized I could have actual conversations with native Germans (who were, it must be said, extraordinarily patient and kind) and at least somewhat hold my own. 

I came home from that trip newly inspired to strengthen my lapsed German. Partly because the task didn’t seem nearly as daunting after our trip, when I was using my German constantly, and partly because browsing European bookstores made me want to read All The Things … in German! (It didn’t hurt that Will lugged an enormous copy of my favorite novel, Maggie O’Farrell’s This Must Be the Place—er, Hier muss es sein—all the way from a Frankfurt bookstore to our Kentucky home.)    

But where do the thrillers come in? Shortly after I began incubating my reading-in-German-again idea, I happened to read thriller writer Julie Clark for the first time. My entry point was The Ghostwriter, which I loved and included in our 2025 MMD Summer Reading Guide. When summer rolled around and I went on my annual backlist binge, I started exploring her older books … and somewhere along the way discovered that her work is extraordinarily popular in Germany. Lucky for me, this means translations are readily available—so I can have the satisfaction of reading in German, with the safety net of an English counterpart within arm’s reach to bolster my confidence as a reader. I’m not sure if I’ll read each chapter first in English and then in German, or only use the English edition as a backup, but I like to know I have options.

My ultimate goal is to tackle the Maggie O’Farrell, but considering where my language skills are right now, the Julie Clark thrillers feel much more accessible. I’m still in the dreaming-and-scheming stage—as in, I haven’t actually read one of these books in German yet—but I sure do like the idea for my early 2026 reading life. 

Have you embarked on a reading project? Are you cooking one up for next year? I’d love to hear all about it in comments, and I’m sure our community of readers would appreciate you adding fuel to their fire as well.