Book rundown, 2025

I read 24 books for pleasure this year, a quarter of what I read in my heyday, back before the internet took a sledgehammer to my powers of deep concentration. In addition to reading those 24 books for fun, I edited 16 books for clients and wrote one book, currently unpublished, but maybe someday. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written.
Also I wrote a poem, my first since grade school. Writing it felt good, and it’s come close to publication a coupla-three times. I’ll keep submitting it.


Total books read:
24

Age levels:
All adult. No YA or children’s books this year.

Books that were published in 2024:
Human Nature, by Kate Marvel
Bad Law, by Elie Mystal
Making History, by K. J. Parker

Total books read:
Nonfiction: 9
Fiction: 15

Annual Russian novel:
Actually more of a memoir instead of a novel, My Childhood, by Maxim Gorky. I loved it.
 
K. J. Parker: Is he still the best?
“She looked at me like I was spelt wrong.” What a line. I adore what he does with his prose. He’s funny and shrewd and cynical

Re-reads:
The Light Fantastic; Equal Rites; Mort; and Sourcey, because I am slowly rereading Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series
Also I reread Sigrid Undset’s first Kristin Lavransdatter book, The Wreath, which I loved as an undergraduate but not so much as a middle aged woman who is tired of men’s shit.
  
 Best book of the year:
This was a banner year for fiction. Apart from an anthology of short stories of wildly varying quality, every piece of fiction I read was superb.

Still though, for best of the year, I’m going with nonfiction.

The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, had been on my radar forever, because it’s one of the most influential books about Black Americans written in this century. It is a stretch to call this a pleasure read. There was nothing pleasurable about it. But it’s a necessary read.

Best audiobook narrator:
A two-way tie. Tom Stechschulte is one of my all-time favorite narrators. The way he handles the wheedling, psycho killer main character of Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God was a delight, as I knew it would be. Contrast this to Natalie Haynes, who is not a professional voice actor but rather an author who does a terrific job narrating her own words in A Thousand Ships. She doesn’t go in for doing different voices, but she has a straightforward style that works beautifully.

All the books I read, sorted by genre:

Nonfiction

History
Baptist, Edward E. The Half Has Never Been Told, 2014

Meditation
Young, Shinzen. The Science of Enlightenment, 2016

Memoir
Gorky, Maxim. My Childhood, 1913

Political Science
Mystal, Elie. Bad Law, 2025

Publishing
Maum, Courtney. Before and After the Book Deal, 2020

Science
Marvel, Kate. Human Nature, 2025

Social Science
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow, 2010.
Kim, Peter H.  How Trust Works, 2023.
Pishko, Jessica. The Highest Law in the Land, 2024.


Fiction

Fantasy
Grossman, Lev. The Bright Sword, 2024
Harris, Joanne M. The Gospel of Loki, 2015
Parker, K. J. Making History, 2025
Pratchett, Terry. Sourcery, 1988
Pratchett, Terry. Equal Rites, 1987
Pratchett, Terry. Mort, 1987
Pratchett, Terry. The Light Fantastic, 1986

Literary fiction
Haynes, Natalie. A Thousand Ships, 2019
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go, 2005
McCarthy, Cormac. Child of God, 1973
Morrison, Toni. Beloved, 1987
Saunders, George. Liberation Day, 2022
Undset, Sigrid. The Wreath, 1920

Science fiction
Pulley, Natasha. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, 2015

Science fiction and fantasy
Howey, Hugh, ed. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024