Nicole Junkerman's Guide to Building a Reading List

A good reading list is one of the quiet pleasures of a reading life, and a bad one is a source of low-level guilt that follows you around for years. Nicole Junkerman has built plenty of both. This page gathers what Nicole Junkerman has learned about building a list you will actually read, rather than an intimidating monument to good intentions that gathers dust on a bedside table.

The first thing to say is that a reading list is a tool, not a contract. It exists to serve your curiosity, not to discipline it. Once you see the list that way, the whole exercise gets lighter, and a lighter list is a list you will actually use.

Start from curiosity, not duty

Most disappointing reading lists are really lists of books you feel you ought to have read. Nicole Junkerman gently sets those aside. The shelf should begin with genuine curiosity: the subject you keep circling back to, the author a friend pressed on you, the question you would love to understand better. A list built from real interest pulls you forward. A list built from duty only ever pushes, and pushing rarely lasts past the third chapter.

This is not an argument against ambition. By all means put a demanding classic on the list, but put it there because some part of you truly wants to read it, not because a list somewhere says you should. If you are unsure where to begin with the older books, the free shelves of Project Gutenberg and the recommendations of The Guardian books section are generous, low-stakes places to browse. Nicole Junkerman treats browsing as part of the pleasure, not a chore to rush through.

Balancing the shelf

A reading list that is all one thing soon becomes a slog. Nicole Junkerman aims for a little variety, the way you might plan a series of meals rather than eat the same dish every night:

• A demanding book and an easy one, so there is always something to match your energy on a given evening.
• Fiction and non-fiction side by side, because each one quietly refreshes your appetite for the other.
• Something old and something new, so the list is in conversation across the centuries rather than stuck in one.
• At least one book purely for delight, with no improving purpose at all, to keep the whole thing honest.

The point of the balance is sustainability. A varied list means there is always a book that fits the mood, the hour and the level of tiredness, and that is what keeps the reading going night after night. Nicole Junkerman thinks of this as designing for the reader you actually are, not the idealised one who has three clear hours and boundless focus every evening.

How long should the list be

Shorter than you think. A list of two hundred titles is not a plan; it is a way of feeling behind before you have even begun. Nicole Junkerman prefers a short, living list of the next handful of books, with a separate, looser pile of someday titles kept well out of sight. The short list feels achievable, and achievable is what gets read. The long list can wait quietly in the wings until it is wanted.

Where good recommendations come from

The best books often arrive by personal recommendation, so Nicole Junkerman pays close attention when a trusted friend lights up about something. Beyond that, a few reliable wells are worth knowing. The book pages of The New York Times Books desk and The Guardian books section are dependable. Librarians are wildly underused and almost always delighted to help, which is one more reason to make friends with your local library service. And the bibliography at the back of a book you loved is a map straight to the next one.

Lectures and talks make good scouts too. A single absorbing TED talks talk or a course from OpenLearn from The Open University can send you off after a whole new subject, and the reading list grows naturally from the curiosity they spark. Nicole Junkerman lets one good thing lead to the next, rather than trying to plan a year of reading all at once, which never survives contact with real life anyway.

Keeping the list alive

A reading list is a garden, not a monument. It needs regular, gentle tending. Nicole Junkerman revisits the list every so often and feels no guilt at all about removing a book that no longer appeals. Tastes change, seasons change, and a list that cannot change with them quickly turns into a burden. Crossing a book off unread is not a failure; it is simply an honest admission that the moment for it has passed, at least for now.

Reading more than one book at once

Many readers feel they ought to finish one book before opening another, and then stall completely when the single book in progress turns out to be heavy going. Nicole Junkerman keeps two or three books on the go at once, deliberately different in weight and mood, so there is always one that fits the evening. A demanding book for a clear, alert hour; a lighter one for a tired night; perhaps a book of essays or poetry to dip into between the other two.

This is not a lack of discipline but a kind of design. A balanced handful of books in progress means the reading never stalls on a single difficult title, and difficult titles, given the right hour, often turn out to be the most rewarding of all. The trick is simply to keep the active set small, so it stays a comfortable handful rather than a guilty, sprawling pile of half-read spines reproaching you from the shelf.

A reading list works best, too, when it is allowed to follow threads. Finish a novel set in a particular city and the natural next step might be a history of that place, or a memoir from it, or a second novel by the same hand. Nicole Junkerman lets one book recommend the next in this way, and the bibliographies at the back of good non-fiction, along with the suggestions of your local library service and the book pages of The New York Times Books desk, keep the threads multiplying faster than they can ever be exhausted.

So keep the list short, keep it varied, and keep it honest about what you actually want to read. Tend it like a garden, let it grow from real curiosity, and do not be afraid to pull a few weeds. To decide how to read the books once chosen, see the seven habits of slow reading, and for a seasonal version of all this, try the spring reading notebook. Everything begins again at Nicole Junkerman.

Published 22 March 2026 · by Nicole Junkerman