Skip to main content

My 2026 Maison Tranquille Reading Year

 December 2, 2025

My 2026 Maison Tranquille Reading Year

A Year of Nourishment, Curiosity, and Quiet Transformation

There is a special kind of magic in choosing a year of books before it begins.
It feels like laying out teacups for a year of conversations — one for each season, each question, and each inner landscape.

I’ve curated my reading year from December 2025 through December 2026 with two intentions:

Pleasure and Beauty — stories that stir the imagination, evoke Europe’s quiet charm, and remind me that interior lives matter.
Learning and Becoming — books that deepen presence, civic compassion, writing voice, and the art of living.

This isn’t a race or challenge — it’s a gentle rhythm.
One or two books a month, savored slowly, across Audible, Kindle, and paper.

If you want to read along, here is what’s on my Maison Tranquille shelf for 2026:


🌿 December 2025 — Grounding & Presence

An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor
The Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh

🌿 January — Reflection & Renewal

Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

🌿 February — Love, Memory & Home

Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

🌿 March — Quiet Thoughtfulness & Delight

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay

🌿 April — Happiness & Humanity

The Good Life by Robert Waldinger & Marc Schulz

🌿 May — Creativity & Voice

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
How to Write a Sentence by Stanley Fish

🌿 June — Summer & Story

Paris to the Past by Ina Caro
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

🌿 July — Family & Legacy

The Light Years (Cazalet Chronicles Book 1) by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Someone by Alice McDermott

🌿 August — Migration & Resilience

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

🌿 September — Meaning & Growth

The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick
Falling Upward by Richard Rohr

🌿 October — Earth Wisdom & Gratitude

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

🌿 November — Civic Renewal & Faith-in-Action

The Soul of Civility by Alexandra Hudson
A Way Out of No Way by Raphael Warnock

🌿 December — Beauty, Art & Reflection

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

  • space to revisit favorite passages from the year


How I’ll Read These

I’ll be rotating between:

🎧 Audible — for walks, errands, drives
📖 Kindle — for bedtime and travel
📚 Paper books — for journaling in the margins

The goal is not completion.
The goal is companionship — to let these books walk with me through the year.

I hope this inspires you to begin your own curated reading year — whatever your themes may be: peace, beauty, courage, healing, art, or curiosity.

If you’d like to read along, I’ll share reflections here as I go — and I’d love to hear what you are reading.

Here’s to a year of pages, presence, and becoming.


Still Curious. Still Growing, Still Grateful.

by Janis @ Simple Raw and Natural


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Happy in the Garden

Yesterday I worked in the garden instead of walking around the neighborhood.  It is a different feeling. It's true that I only got in about 6500 steps by the end of the day instead of over 10,000, but it was a different feeling.  Travis planted some tomatoes and peppers, I cleaned the lower deck and pulled some weeds.  Lucy dug in the dirt and felt so happy.  I felt the same way. Working in the garden makes you feel happy and productive. I was puzzled by a plant growing in the herb garden as a weed.  I started pulling them out but decided to check if they are edible.  Edible weeds, such as dandelion,  can be used in our smoothies.  I put a picture on Facebook to ask for help identifying the weed, and the consensus is that it is plantain.  Some say edible and some say not, but I am inclined to think that it is edible.  My brother, Max, lives up in the mountains, and his neighbor says it is edible and the smallest leaves are best with...

The Lou Corona Story

Yesterday, we went to Magic Springs with our daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren.  The landscaping there is beautiful this year.  This one little flower didn't let a little concrete stop it.     Lunch today was three bananas which I ate about 1:30.  I'm letting my body rest a little bit after eating too much food the last couple of days.  I did domestic chores today.  But Travis made a trip to the City Compost Facility for another load of compost.  We'll use it on the trees we still have left to plant. We have a volunteer tomato plant coming up in one of the garden beds.  It's doing pretty well, too.  I have it on my to do list to buy some more tomato cages. The arugula I planted is up. The kale Travis planted is up. The new plum tree is planted. Here is a volunteer Poke Salat that came with the blueberry plant.  Travis planted some more blueberries in the blueberry row that lines our driveway. The...

Alko Shredder

 It was chilly this morning, but I got out and worked a bit in the garden bed that had the strawberries moved out yesterday.  I fed it with the mineral supplement and fertilizer.  I started putting on compost, but ran out of time before I finished.  We are going to plant some kale in this bed. Bed #3 weeded, minerals added, fertilized, and partly composted. Travis and I went to an estate sale today.  First thing we saw was a garden shredder.  We bought it for $60.00 and brought it home.  There are lots of leaves in my yard that could be shredded. Our new used Alko shredder...made in Germany.    For dinner tonight I made a soup.  The inspiration came from Dara Dubinet on her You-tube video, but mine was different because I used what we had. My vegetable soup recipe:  Juice a beet, 6 carrots, 3 broccoli stalks, and a sweet potato.  Then heat a pot of water on the stove, but do not boil.  In the Vita-Mix, put 3 med...