I read The Double (1846), by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the kindest thing I can say is: This was not his best.

I am familiar with the literature of twins, doubles, and look-alikes. The Double, by José Saramago. Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk. Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High, by Francine Pascale. They invite us to reflect on self, identity, and other.

Dostoevsky does not do a bang-up job of this. His book does not invite much reflection at all. I have not surveyed the critical literature to find out how others interpret the book, but my biggest criticism is that the characters are inconsistent. They behave for any reason or no reason.

Our hero (the book calls him that, often, but he's such a schmuck that it comes to feel ironic) is Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, who one day encounters a man who not only looks identical but has the same name. And is assigned to work in the same office as our hero.

This counterfeit Golyadkin starts out as a warm friend to the original Golyadkin, but after a day turns into his bitterest enemy. Why? We don't know. Golyadkin himself never asks why. 

Also peculiar is that almost no one but Golyadkin finds it remarkable that two men with identical appearances and jobs and names occupy the same circles. Perhaps this is meant to be absurd, like Gogol's influential short story "The Nose," published in 1836. But it takes a certain talent to write a successful tale of absurdism, and Dostoevsky had not yet developed that talent.

It pains me to criticize Fyodor Mikhailovich like this. In my estimation, the greatest novel yet written is The Brothers Karamazov, which became a foundational text for me when I read it at age 17. It reshaped how I understood God and it set me on the path of loving Russian literature, and Russian history, and Russian culture in general. It is safe to say that I majored in Russian history because of The Brothers Karamazov.

But that book would not be published for another thirty-odd years. With The Double, Dostoevsky was still learning to be a writer. May this comfort anyone trying to become a better writer. The finest novelist in the history of world literature had some duds, early on.

Now listen: I normally discourage people from finishing books they don't like. Life is short, and there are too many superb books to get through in a lifetime. But I make an exception for Dostoevsky because I know how great he becomes later. I was glad to make this my annual Russian novel, and glad as always to listen to one of of my favorite narrators, Stefan Rudnicki.

In 2007, I read all 40+ books of the Discworld series over the course of a few weeks. In 2026, I'm rereading them over the course of a few years. Life has changed, and my brain has too. The internet has rewired my neural pathways. I used to get engrossed in books, giving them my full attention, each day. That's probably never coming back.

Which is all the more reason to be choosy about the books I do read. The Discworld books remain some of the most enjoyable, and most affecting, I've ever read.

Wyrd Sisters plays around with MacBeth. A power-hungry woman convinces her husband to murder the king. The rightful heir to the throne, an infant, winds up in the care of three witches, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick, who whisk him off to a faraway land to be raised in obscurity.

To my disappointment, I discovered on this reread that I misread a pun. Lady Felmet does not accuse her husband of being "infirm on purpose." 

Like many readers, I prefer to read series in order, but Discworld has many, many entry points. If you haven't read any Discworld books but your interest is piqued, you can jump in with Wyrd Sisters without feeling lost. 

I read the latest Murderbot book, Platform Decay. As expected, it was delightful.

Murderbot is a Sec Unit, created by corporate overlords to protect property and occasionally people. These security units are robots, but they look like people and do have some organic matter.

They have no choice but to obey the commands they receive, even if those commands are ethically dubious. If the person behind the controls tells the sec unit to kill a room full of people, then that room full of people is going to die.

Early in the series, Murderbot figured out how to free itself of these controls. And for the best reading experience, I recommend reading these in order, starting with All Systems Red. But even if you start here, with the eighth book, you'll get the gist. Murderbot's personality is on full display here: its neuroticism, its clever ways to outwit the bad guys, its overwhelming desire to kick back and watch soap operas.

In Platform Decay, Murderbot is trying to extract his human charges from a safe house when the corporate baddies find the location. Their escape is complicated by the new knowledge that human children in a different location are being held hostage. 

For audiobook enjoyers, Kevin R. Free's narration captures Murderbot's special blend of insecurity and lethality. I strongly recommend listening to these books, if that's your thing. 

I re-read Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013). 

Occasionally you will come across a book that weaves itself into your worldview and stays there. I am a different, better person for having read it--though as with all books that reshape me, I struggle to adequately describe it.

Part memoir, part botany text, part indigenous philosophy, Braiding Sweetgrass shows us a different way of thinking and existing, a world where an economy of gifts and reciprocity replaces our current economy of capitalist extraction. It's a world where people care for each other...and not just human people, but animals and plants. A world where maple trees are people, and so are rivers, and so are the domesticated ducks who live in the pond out back.

I worry I am making this sound fluffy or Disneyfied. The book is neither shallow nor saccharine. It is a serious book that draws on indigenous knowledge and the lessons of plants to describe a better way to live. The topics are heavy, but the tone is hopeful. I listened to Kimmerer narrate the audiobook with her soothing voice (she reminds me in several ways of religious writer Anne Lamott) and I kept breaking out in tears as I walked my dog, not just because of the heaviness of the topics but because of the joy and hope. 

The other reason I love this book is because Kimmerer is a superb writer. As she contemplated college, she was torn between botany and poetry. Usually when I read, my editor brain is turned on, thinking of spots where I would have chosen different words or phrasing. Not with this book. Kimmerer's words are a pleasure to read. 

Friends, this is only my second book talk of the year. I am behind in books, in reading, in writing, in life. This is what happens when the masked secret police occupy your community.

Lev Grossman first hooked me with his Magicians trilogy, among the finest fantasy novels I’ve ever read, and once again astonishes me with The Bright Sword. It is such a rare thing to find a writer who is gifted with both word crafting and storytelling.  

This is an Arthurian adventure fantasy starring a group of misfit heroes. I don’t want to spoil the plot, but it is safe to say there is a wizards’ duel—as Arthurian tradition demands—and it is phenomenal. It is also safe to observe that the queer representation in this book is superb.

I realize I’m handing out superlatives like they’re candy, but The Bright Sword was such a delight—what a high fantasy quest story should be. For those who like to hear their stories, Nicholas Guy Smith’s narration is a joy. He is adept at accents from all over the British Isles and some other places, too.

Here on the last day of Black History Month, I still have not finished reading Isabel Wilkerson’s phenomenal The Warmth of Other Suns (2010). I started it in early January but have not finished, because I have been too busy resisting ICE in the Twin Cities.

Two whole months without finishing a book. That’s a dubious lifetime achievement. I do not like this.

A few years back, I read Wilkerson’s Caste, which is examines social caste systems in the United States, India, and Nazi Germany. It remains one of the finest history/sociology books I’ve ever read. The Warmth of Other Suns is exceptional, too. It is about the Black migration out of the South in the twentieth century.

I’ve learned more about Jim Crow from this book than I have from any other source. I don’t know if other countries handle their own histories better, but in America, we sanitize the uglier parts, rendering Jim Crow as something unfortunate rather than deadly. We talk about how Black people had to use separate drinking fountains, which is bad but not lethal. We don’t do a good job talking about the pervasiveness of lynchings or how sharecropping was barely distinguishable from chattel slavery.

Wilkerson describes the brutality of Jim Crow by following the lives of three Black southerners who escaped to New York, Chicago, and California. She centers the stories of individuals while incorporating broader lessons of history and sociology.

I have been listening to the audiobook, with superb narration by Robin Miles, even as my government terrorizes immigrant minorities who came to America for a better life. I am reminded that one reason we study history is to avoid repeating it.

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

I read “The Apologists,” by Tade Thompson. Thompson’s novel Rosewater contains one of the scariest, most visceral scenes I have ever read, so I was eager for his new short story.

In the early scenes, we meet a mother and daughter who get bludgeoned to death. Detective Eve Stevens investigates the murders, and for a while I thought I was getting a murder mystery, but then came the bit with the spider, a hiccup of weirdness in an otherwise straightforward police procedural.

The weirdness gradually escalates, and by the time things really get cooking, the story is a whole lot more than just a whodunnit. The plot zigzags like a ball in a pinball machine, leaving you dizzy and wondering where you left your coat.

I enjoy Thompson’s prose, which is economical and at times elegant, and I liked his characters here, especially Eve, trying to do her job in exceptionally difficult circumstances. I was also quite fond of the tiger.

I read Child of God, by Cormac McCarthy, because the older I get, the shorter life seems and the less patience I have for the ordinary when I could have something sublime.

Let my start by saying I laughed at the necrophilia scenes. Perhaps I should finish by saying that too. That one sentence will tell you whether this book is right for you or not.

McCarthy is famous for the violence of his writing. Quite a few critics point to Blood Meridian as the most violent book. Not just the most violent McCarthy book, but the most violent book.

I disagree. Now it has been many years since I read Blood Meridian, but I do not recall that one featuring a serial killer rapist who attempts to make sweet love to a corpse but keeps getting thwarted in Loony-Tunes-esque ways—forbidden desecratory love, but make it slapstick.

Child of God does not resonate for me as much as No Country for Old Men (the finest crime novel I have ever read) or The Road (with the scariest horror scene I have ever read), but even a lesser McCarthy is a magnificent thing. He is a prose stylist nonpareil. At times his sentences are straightforward and terse, the noun did the verb to the object, marching the plot forward in staccato steps. Without warning his sentences turn wavy, different lengths, new cadences. He describes the mundane throwaway details like a monk illuminating the serifs in his scroll.  

I did not read a print version, but when I checked the Wikipedia page, I found the passage that made me stop in my tracks and rewind the audio as I walked the dog the other day:

“He came up flailing and sputtering and began to thrash his way toward the line of willows that marked the submerged creek bank. He could not swim, but how would you drown him? His wrath seemed to buoy him up. Some halt in the way of things seems to work here. See him. You could say that he's sustained by his fellow men, like you. Has peopled the shore with them calling to him. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it. But they want this man's life. He has heard them in the night seeking him with lanterns and cries of execration. How then is he borne up? Or rather, why will not these waters take him?”

One final but crucial note: If you enjoy audiobooks, do not miss the Tom Stechschulte narration. He is one of my top five favorite narrators. Child of God is set in eastern Tennessee and he gets the accents right.

When I started as a public librarian, I checked out a few annual “Best of” anthologies to get a sense for different genres: sports writing, science writing, crime fiction, short stories in general. I recently found The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 (Hugh Howey and John Joseph Adams, eds.) on sale, so I gave the ensemble-cast audiobook a listen.

Disappointingly, the stories were of varying quality. I expect better in an anthology with the word Best in the title. Or let me be more accurate: the stories were all good, speaking on a plot level, but the prose was not always up to snuff.

The phrase “achingly beautiful” should not appear in your short story, because that phrase is hackneyed. If I’m editing, I’ll let that slide in book-length manuscripts for some authors, because prose craft is not everyone’s forte. I will not let that slide in a short story, because you’ve only got three thousand words, give or take, and each one needs to count.

I absolutely, positively would not let “achingly beautiful” appear twice in the same fucking story. Which it did in one of the stories in the anthology.

My favorite fantasy short story was “John Hollowback and the Witch,” because I am a sucker for good witchy stories. Amal El-Mohtar has been on my TBR for years. I’m going to seek out her longer fiction on the strength of this story. My favorite science fiction short story was “Calypso’s Guest,” by Andrew Sean Greer. I love a familiar story thoughtfully retold.

And there was a short story I expected to dislike. I won’t name the writer, but I had bounced off his novels because his prose disappointed me, but he did a great job with the short story.