To commemorate all the delicious reading you anticipate this year, our first project is How to: Make a Book Book.

With just twelve pages, and room for just twelve titles (unless you have tiny handwriting) this is a low-pressure make.

You’ll need:

• Paper: For the insides, one sheet of A4 or US Letter paper. For the cover, either a thicker strip of plain paper for you to embellish yourself, or a page from an obsolete book that you don’t mind re-purposing
• Hole punch or awl
• Ribbon/Thread/Wool
• Scissors
• Pen
• Glue stick

Cut the paper down into quarters.

Fold three of the sheets in half lengthways, and keep one for later…

Ready to cut the cover to size.

Make the cover four times the width of the closed pages and the exact same height as the pages.

If you’ve chosen an old book page for the cover, perhaps draw rectangles around particular words, to look like the titles on spines of books. Otherwise embellish your cover as you see fit!

I decided some extra decorative lines would distract from the other words on the page, and it was very relaxing drawing them…

That’s the cover finished.

Ready to bind.

Use the awl to make a hole through the middle of the three folded sheets and the cover, all together.

The bigger the hole the easier it is to bind without a needle…

Start from the outside, threading the cord right through the cover and all three pages.

Wrap the thread around the bottom, catching it in the ‘v’ of the folded sheets.

Then bring the thread up the spine on the outside.

…and over the top, back into the middle again.

Hopefully it’s not too tricky to thread the cord back out through the middle hole. Tip: Pull the thread that’s already there gently to the side, to make more space.

Back on the outside, make sure that both ends are on opposite sides of the long thread.

Ready to tie off.

Tie a double knot over the long thread to secure, like a parcel!

Fold the cover ends in, by wrapping them around the pages to get the width, and then tucking them in on themselves, adding strength to the paper.

Remember that fourth sheet of paper?! Design a title label for your Book Book.

Cut it out, and stick your title on to the front cover with a little glue.

Now you have a book with twelve pages, ready to record one book for each month.

January’s top read for me was Dr. Rangan Chatterjee’s Happy Mind Happy Life. I’ve made lots of notes and already feel the benefits of his advice.

Perhaps you’d like to add a few things about the book and the experience of reading it. Perhaps you were on a train, in a waiting room, on a sofa…How did it make you feel?!

Thank You Cambridge Imprint for creating the perfect paper background for this project.

I’m sure you won’t have any trouble at all coming up with twelve reads for 2026, but in case you’re looking for some variety, here are some suggestions: A Year of Reading: 5 Tips.