For the first time in a couple of years, I’ve really been enjoying my reading list! I’ve set a goal of reading 104 books this year, at a clipped pace of 2 books per week. Here at the end of February, I’ve managed to stay on track with this goal and hope to see it through this year.

Part of my renewed vigor with reading is that it has now been 4+ years since I’ve gone this long without being pregnant. In fact, 2026 might be the first year that I will not have a nursing baby or be pregnant since 2019 (7 years, wow)! In fact, I’ve only had two years (2013 and 2018) since 2011 that I have not been pregnant or had a baby under 1. Holy moly, when you put it that way, I need to give myself a lot more grace for my failing routines. I say that partially in jest and partially in truth.

Only the Lord knows what is ahead but my focus this year is building back up my body, my strength, and hopefully some braincells while I’m at it! It feels like a year wide open for good routines and nurturing parts of my health that have gotten neglected as of late.

I know you landed on this post to read my 40 before 40 list of classics I’m attempting to tackle over the next 4 years, but for me, the context matters. I think I’m finally ready to tackle some of these more daunting reads. And more than that, I’m excited to!

Jason and I have each taken on a big reading goal. We will turn 40 and 42 just 3 weeks apart from each other. So I made my 40 list and he made a 42 list. We have a lot of overlap but many changes too (books either of us has already read and he replaced the homemaking books on my list with others). This gives us just under 4 years to complete this list. So at a pace of 10 books per year, I think we can do it!

Now technically, my list is actually 44 books long. I counted C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy in one spot an then ended up adding two more books to the end of the list. I’m on a big classics binge right now and I want to read those anyway, so might as well add them to my list!

My reading list is based on working through the entire Western Canon. Also refer to this article for a crash course in the classics or for starting your own 40 before 40 list. I’m already looking forward to my 50 before 50 list.

Jami’s 40 Before 40 Reading List:

Classic Literature & Story: 

1. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

2. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

3. East of Eden – John Steinbeck

4. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

5. Middlemarch – George Eliot

6. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

7. Bleak House – Charles Dickens

8. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë

9. The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet

10. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton

11. Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

12. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier

13. Gullivers Travels – Jonathan Swift

14. Silas Marner – George Eliot

Epic & Philosophical Literature: 

15. The Divine Comedy – Dante Alighieri

16. The Aeneid – Virgil

17. The Odyssey – Homer

18. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky

19. The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky

20. The Faerie Queene – Edmund Spenser

21.L es Misérables – Victor Hugo

22. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes

Christian Faith, Family, & Home:

23. The Hidden Art of Homemaking – Edith Schaeffer

24. What Is a Family? – Edith Schaeffer

25. A Chance to Die – Elisabeth Elliot

26. Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton

27. Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan

28. The Space Trilogy – C.S. Lewis

29. Life Under Compulsion – Anthony Esolen

30. How Should We Then Live? – Francis Schaeffer

31. On the Incarnation – Athanasius

History, Philosophy & Formation: 

32. Meditations – Marcus Aurelius

33. Pensées – Blaise Pascal

34. Plutarch’s Lives – Plutarch

35. Church History – Eusebius

36. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs – John Foxe

37. In Defense of Tradition – Richard Weaver

38. The Gulag Archipelago – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

39. Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry

40. Kristin Lavransdatter – Sigrid Undset

42. Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer

Another goal that I will slowly be working through (without a timeline) is reading all of the works of a few particular authors including:

• George McDonald
• C.S. Lewis
• J.R.R. Tolkien
• Jane Austen
• Charles Dickens
• Edith Schaeffer
• Franics Schaeffer
• G. K. Chesterton
• John Steinbeck

Jason and I both just got our lists finalized and I’m off to a good start! I just finished Pride & Prejuide and then dove into Emma. Emma isn’t on my list but I am working on reading all of Austen. I took a break from Emma though because my book club is reading Cranford, another book not on my list but well worth a read! I will be diving into What is a Family by Edith Shaeffer next. I started this years ago and never finished it.

I’ll add some 40 before 40 reading updates for you throughout the year! Have you created a similar reading list? I’d love to know what you think I need to start adding to my 50 before 50 list!