The Reads of 2025

 Here's my annual rundown of what I read the previous year.  

I had a small note of panic when I started my post....usually I do one of these at mid-year, if only to save myself a few minutes of time when making this bigass post.  But I went to look, and it wasn't there near the first of July.

Ye Gods!

But I was merely dilatory.  I posted it around July 20.  So, unless I find something to edit in the next few minutes, there will be very little change from what I posted in July to now, for the first six months of the year.

I tried to do better recording my comic reading, but I know there are about a half dozen collections I read, but haven't recorded here.  I'll try to do better in 2026.

Anyway:  Here goes:

January

Age of Cage:  Four Decades in Hollywood Through One Singular Career  by Keith Phipps

Decent read.  Good overview of what I admit is one helluva career.  I enjoyed reading it, but with the conscious decision not to pursue Cage for a voice in the overview made this feel a lot of Google Journalism.....

The Immortal Hulk Omnibus by Al Ewing, et al.

I'm trying to keep better track of my comic reading in 2025 (with mixed results, Tommy in July says).  I'd picked up the digital copy of the gigantor omnibus and picked my way through it.  And ye gods, these omnibus editions can pack in 50 or 60 issues of story, so there's a lot there.  What's good is good.   Very good.  Perhaps some of the best Hulk stuff to cross my eyeline in a few years.   The book tends to trail off, or lose energy when it includes a story not specifically written as part of "Immortal Hulk."  Still, quite good, on the whole.....

Duma Key,   by Stephen King

Part of the continuing project to read through all of King's work in publication order.  I tapped out of King for a lot of the mid 2000's forward.  I'd tried Duma Key, but it never caught, for some reason.  I liked this, though, when I finally finished.  There's a lot of King still working through getting run down by the van, and the injuries and handicaps that may come with.  This one's also a look at the role of art in healing.  I felt like there was a lot of Duma Key that is King forgiving himself.....

Strong Female Character    by Fern Brady

I think I may have developed a little crush on Fern Brady during her series of the excellent teevee program Taskmaster.  Even after 7 months of having watched her season, I still get her hastily composed "I'm Fern Brady" song bouncing around in my head.  This isn't quite what I was expecting.  To be honest, I was thinking this was going to be one of those hastily published books that simply transcribe some of the comic's best bits.  Instead, it's a well spoken examination and memoir of Brady growing up Autistic, a diagnosis she received late in life.  Funny, yes, but her advocacy for those on the Spectrum is admirable.

Far Sector,  by NK Jemisen & Jamal Campbell

DC, last year, reintroduced a compact/manga sized series of several stories.  They've called this series "Compact" and they have a really nice $9.99 price point.  I say that because as a mostly casual comics fan over the last 2 decades now, I do a lot of my reading in trade paperbacks.  As the single issue price creeps up, it just becomes more economical to read the trade, which are largely inevitable nowadays.

The problem with that is that the price of trades has crept up, and if it's not a character I'm normally interested in, I may not shell out 20 or 30 bucks to read a story.  10?  That's a little more doable.

Far Sector is what made me love the Compact line.  This is a lot of fun.  Nerfs the Green Lantern concept a bit, but it makes for a better detective story.  Nice SF concept.  Good mystery.  I like Jemisen's work a lot, but this is the first comic work of hers I've read.  I recommend.

Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud

I read this initially in December of 2024.  I found myself unexpectedly sitting at the car shop for one of the route trucks, and digging through the Kindle app on my phone,  instead of reading something new, I decided to do this one again.  It's truly excellent.  Ballingrud's fiction instills a distinct sort of disquiet in me.  His collection Wounds is one of my favorite short story collections, and The Strange is one of my favorite SF/Western/Weird books ever.  This one is extremely good, as well.

The Drowning House  by Cherie Priest

Suitably creepy, which is Priest's Stock in Trade.  I enjoyed very much the aspect of a couple childless 40-year-olds having to search for a third.  Halfway expected the missing friend to just show up at the end saying "Oh, I went camping for a few days to clear my head" as one of my friends did once, worrying us all.....

February

Why We Love Football: a History in 100 Moments  by Joe Posnanski

Posnanski's book "Why We Love Baseball" was amazing.  A shining bit of positivity that I needed in November 2024.  Mom got me this for Christmas.

It's a good read, though I couldn't tell if my own enthusiasm for baseball over football or Posnanski's paints the thing.  It's a good read....Posnanski just doesn't seem to have the same exuberance in this as he did for baseball.....

The Boys of Summer   by Roger Kahn.

A re-read.  Read it in the 90s.  Probably during the offseason, when I was missing baseball.  The first third of the book, which is largely a memoir of growing up near Ebbets Field made me jealous all over again of those folks who lived close enough to a Major League Stadium to partake, even irregularly.  The second section is very much a love letter to the sports-writing beats and newspapermen of the 1950's. The book's last section hits a lot harder at age 47 or 48 than it did at age 18.  In this section, Kahn interviews those members of the Dodgers after their careers....when they're managing a factory, or a grocery store, or working construction.  I found myself close to tears a couple of times.  Marvelous book.....

The History of Sound, by Ben Shattuck

This year, Shyam and I at the suggestion of our friend Jillian have started a small reading group.  As of this writing, I think we've just finished our fifth book together.  This one, a collection of short stories, was the first.

And of everything we've read as a group, this is what my mind keeps bouncing back to, 5 or 6 months later.  Good collection of interconnected stories that bounce and play off each other.  I liked it.  There's a wry fatalism that I appreciated very much.....

Just After Sunset   by Stephen King

Continuing project, and whatnot.  I'd read a couple or three of theses stories in other anthologies, or in whatever they'd originally been published.  The rest were new to me.

Twins are a recurring theme for King.  Much the basis of The Talisman and Black House.  A major point of The Wolves of the Calla.  There are stories that are resonant Twins.  Dark Half and Secret Window, Secret Garden both seem to grow out of the same paranoia of fame and artistry.   There's a bit of it in Just After Sunset.  A couple of stories "Gingerbread Lady" and "Stationary Bike" share a lot of the same energy as Duma Key.

Many of the stories were written in close enough temporal proximity to September 11th that you can feel King unpacking those feelings for that event.  And there are another set of twin stories that are musings on what the Afterlife, especially the immediate Afterlife, will look like.  Toward that end, I really enjoyed "Willa" and thought it one of the better stories of his career.  And the best of this Volume.

Good collection with arguably only one turd.

March

Einstein's Cosmos   by Michio Kaku

Kaku's vibe reminds me very much of Carl Sagan's.  His enthusiasm for his subject is contagious.  I learned a lot in this one, even if it is an examination of Albert Einstein's career and teachings....

Horrorstor   by Grady Hendrix

First Hendrix I've read.  Not bad, especially the retail stuff which made me think Hendrix probably toiled in the big box store salt mines for a stretch.  But in the end, it didn't do a whole lot for me.

Don't Know Tough by Eli Cranor

Another one we read for the group.  It's not without its charms, but the small town southern football culture doesn't bear much resemblance to the actual thing......

Redcoat, volume 1   by Geoff Johns, Bryan Hitch et al.

I like Johns.  I like Hitch.  I just didn't get much out of this.  It never really comes together, nor leaves me interested in pursuing the story to see if it does come together.  Feels like it borrows concepts from a dozen different sources without saying much on its own....

Everything is Tuberculosis: the History and Persistence of our Deadliest Infection  by John Green

A pre-order that I surprised myself with.  Strong, accessible look at one of the formative illnesses for humanity.  Interesting look at its role in in U.S. and World Events (we may not have had a first World War without it).  Even more interesting:  its role in forming modern ideals of beauty (rosey cheeks, porcelain skin....)

Focuses even more strongly on advocacy for those in impoverished areas in the planet where the disease thrives, where drug resistant strains are likely to emerge.  Much of the book follows the story of Henry Reider, a young man in Sierra Leone whose treatment (and lack of it) is an exampble of how this beast persists in the 21sth century.

Dry Bones  by Craig Johnson.

Minor Spoilers, here:  It's weird getting attached to fictional people.  So apologies to the people of western North Carolina as I cussed myself silly.  In my want of something light to read, I wandered here.  And not far over the border from Tennessee to North Carolina, one of the characters loses a new husband in the line of duty.  And I cussed a blue streak from nearly Murphy to Andrews.

Good read.

April

2020: One City, Seven People and the Year Everything Changed   by Eric Klinenberg

Tough to read.  Not because of Klinenberg, but the subject matter.  Hadn't realized how raw 2020 still ran for me.  Took me a couple months to get through this one.  

The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King   by J.R.R. Tolkien

Pippin and Merry have more reunions than Hobbits have meals.

Under the Dome  by Stephen King

King's Lord of the Flies.  A prescient look at the rise of Christian Nationalism.  After the van accident, King was a different cat.  The road back was long.  There's a lot of experiementation.  There's a headlong rush to finish The Dark Tower.  A move from supernatural horrors to the more tangible monsters and traumas we faced in the early part of this century.  A lot of it doesn't feel exactly right.  A lot of it....didn't work for me at the time.  A lot of what I read as part of this project in the last year was new, because I tapped out.  This was the first thing I read back in 2011 after being away for a while (and after Dad lent me his CD copy of the novella collection Full Dark, No Stars).

The book itself is a bit bloated, and kinda scrambles for an end.  The cast is a little too crowded, even if King likes a crowded cast.  Besides Barbie, Julia and a handful of others, they all feel interchangeable, and regardless they're dead by the book's end.

But on the whole, it's a lot of fun.  I'd forgotten just how much Big Jim's fascist playbook comes into play, especially the "Punish Those who didn't Vote for Me" aspect.  It's a little chilling.

First time around, I'd completely missed the odd Jack Reacher crossover....after looking that up, King just likes the Reacher books.....

May

The Antidote  by Karen Russell

Discussion Group.  So far in her career, I've enjoyed everything of Russell's.  I'd initially thought this one quite a bit darker and less prone to sarcastic whimsy, but then I looked at my notes on Swamplandia, and I'd forgotten a couple of the dark bits of that book.  Yeesh, Tommy...... 

Two other thoughts:  this one reminded me a lot of Katherine Dunn's Geek Love for some reason.  Similar spirits?  Definitely not similar execution.  I do think this had much more mission behind it than much of Russell's previous work.

The Blessing Way  by Tony Hillerman

Shyam and I started watching (and finished, actually) the really excellent Dark Winds, which adapts some of Hillerman's work.  I'd never read any of his stuff.  I enjoyed it.  Light on mystery, heavy on action.  I'll read another.....

True Grit by Charles Portis

I'm gonna be honest.  It's in the running for my favorite book.  Favorite line this time around:  "he went there from time to time to pay attention to a lewd woman...."

The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

One of those that I've seen cited from time to time.  Found a cheap copy.  Written not long after teh dissolution of the Soviet Union, it supposes that a Democracy of the informed and involved is the pinnacle of human governmental achievement.  And that personal recognition and glory are bigger drivers than economics.   Hindsight makes for easier criticism.  There a pile of writing looking to counter Fukuyama's supposition, and an even bigger contingent that wants to point and laugh.  At the end of the day, I don't feel justified joining that group except to say that even in my meager reading, the fall of Soviet communism wasn't That Big of a surprise, and the rise of groupings not necessarily nationalistic in nature that grow out of the increased access to fringe ideas afforded by the Information Age turn a few of his ideas on their ear.  Radicalized people taking out Oklahoma City or the World Trade Center, or political movements driven by near baseless propaganda, isn't new, and probably should have been given more thought, especially with the shortening of communication lines.  Not enough credit is given to the role of the Super Rich or the ideation of personhood being given to corporate entities....

Still....interesting read....and there is a healthy dose of "I could be wrong" in Fukuyuma's writing....

Anima Rising  by Christopher Moore

I play Trivia.  A lot.  And one of my weak areas is art and art history.  But I will tell you that what little I know?  I know because of a couple of Moore's books.  This one centers around Gustav Klimt, and the gathering of geniuses in Vienna near the beginning of this century.  And then there's the Bride of Frankenstein......

I liked this one a lot.

Blockade Billy by Stephen King

Fun in a Penny Dreadful kind of way.  Made me think that King had probably read or re-read Boys of Summer before writing this one.....

I will also note that I intensely dislike the accompanying story "Morality."  Never sure of the point King's looking to make, or even if there is one.  Just a sour, sour story.

June

The Three-Body Problem  by Cixin Liu

I've had this one kicking around my Audible library for a while.  Finally used it as a route listen.  Reading this reminded me some of reading Heinlein and especially Clarke.

I read one ridiculous review that bashed the book saying that Science Fiction has moved past this sort of storytelling.  My reply is that modern commercial science fiction has gotten away too long writing space opera and action stories disguised as science fiction, and some modern fans wouldn't know good SF it it were injected into their eyes.

I did have the problem I have with a lot of translated fiction:  I feel like it probably loses some of the poetry in the translation.  The prose does feel flat, from time to time.....

Mice 1961   by Stacey Levine

One year, about 15 years ago, I got invited to a New Years Eve party.  I knew no one except the host and a couple co workers.  I went at the invite of the host, with whom I'd carried on one of the few successful flirtations of my life.  I went to the party in hopes of maybe doing "the sex."  That didn't happen because the love of her life was there despite my thinking they were on the outs.  So, I wandered around this party with people I barely knew.  I left before midnight.

That party is how this book felt.  

It's an odd motherfucker of a book.

We read it for our discussion group, and Jillian and Shyam both agree.

The Glass Teat  by Harlan Ellison

This one feels like required reading.  The tricks that the conman in the White House uses aren't new.  Ellison was dealing with the same with Reagan in California, and Agnew & Nixon in Washington, in 1969 and 1970.  Good stuff.   Very good stuff.  Finding a copy for my nephew.

The Comfort of Strangers   by Ian McEwan

Strong horror vibes in this one.  And for good reason.

Full Dark, No Stars   by Stephen King

The one that brought me back to King after a 3 or 4 year hiatus on the new stuff.

1922 and Big Driver are Strong.  (Parenthetically, the movie adaptations of each are quite disappointing).  I enjoyed the collection, though.  Might be King attempting to exorcise his feelings and vengeance and retribution after his accident.

This one made me think of Dad.  And also of my late friend Gina Fann, who you may find in comments as far back as 2004 under the name "grandefille."  She unexpectedly passed a couple summers ago, but she was likewise a big King fan, and she also enjoyed this one.......

July

DCeased by Tom Taylor, et al.

DCeased came out at the wrong time for me.  The market, and my mental capacity for zombie stories had reached saturation point.  Plus, I read the Marvel Zombie stories first, and just didn't need another Superhero undead tale.  But among Walking Dead and my own wander through the Romero movies, I'd burned myself out on zombie tales.

This one's fun, if not all that novel.  I did like the use of Darkseid's quest for Anti-Life being the source of the zombie plague.  Good art.  And, for the first time for me, I enjoyed the use of the next generation of heroes DC has been cultivating for the last 20 years.  Gives opportunity for these youngsters to actually replace the heroes....

I will say I like to advocate for the DC Compact format that they've leaned into.  I wouldn't have read this story had it not been for the $9.99 price tag that comes with these books.  I'd like to see DC try to reach beyond the bookstores and local comic shops with this format.  It would be interesting to find a shipper of them in a Wal-Mart, or a CVS, or something similar.....

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten

1950's Swedish forensic science and policework aside, mostly because I don't know enough about to comment on.  This was a fun little mystery horror.  Spooky.  Very, very heavy on atmosphere.   And the dynamic between characters remained admirably taut.

Andy & Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show  by Daniel de Vise

I probably shouldn't have been surprised at how strong a read this one was:  de Vise's book on Aykroyd and Belushi was quite good.

Good look at the backgrounds of both men, and their respective careers, apart and together.  Very strong look at why the formula for the Andy Griffity Show worked to the point it remains a mainstay on cable & syndication today.

It confirmed a few things I'd heard in other readings about Griffith....inasmuch as he was loyal (occasionally to a fault) to friends, but could turn into a Class A Son of a Bitch when he felt wronged.  Sometimes, even being questioned counted as a betrayal for Andy.....

Helene in Appalachia   by Mila Roeder

Shyam picked up some art from Roeder, whom she's followed online for a while.  She also ordrered her journal of her experiences with Hurricane Helene, in the fall of 2024, in the tiny mountain community of Celo, North Carolina.  There's lots of raw emotion in these writings.  Anger....isolation and fear.  There is alos just as much wonder and love for her community.

I Cheerfully Refuse   by Leif Enger

A reading group book.  I saw that my friend Julie had read it, and suggested it for our group.  It's a little offputting at first, reading dystopia when there are days that that feel we are wandering headlong towards a future that seems sadly possible.  I liked this one for its quiet optimism.....

The Other Glass Teat   by Harlan Ellison

There ain't nothing new under the Sun, Children.  The things Harlan rails against in 1970, we rail against today....

August

1984 by George Orwell

Thomas was reading this as part of his summer reading for school, so I read it for the first time (I think) since college.

This go around, the lack of empathy...indeed, the humor, early on in the book, when Winston describes the community reaction to the movie, and people being shot in the water, kicks my ass.  Feels a lot like what we're living....

A lot of this felt too fucking familiar.

When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists and How America Cracked up in the Early 1990's.  by John Ganz

One of my favorite things I read this year.  I ran across Ganz in a podcast with Jamelle Bouie (Unclear and Present Danger).  I recommend the podcast as a fun, informative look at movies & policy.  I also recommend Bouie as one of my favorite well-thought commentators of our time.

Good read.  Served as a fine companion piece to Chuck Klosterman's The Nineties, both of which are something of a response to Francis Fukuyama's End of History & The Last Man....

Looks specifically at the rise in lower and middle class discontent and the political/media rise of folks like David Duke, Pat Buchanan, Sister Souljah, Ross Perot and even Bill Clinton.  Examines the causes and lang-reaching political fallout of various events, but largely the L.A. Riots of the early 90's.  and Gives valuable perspective on how today's political movers and shakers found their roots in this era....

The Last Good Queen of these United States   by Adam Owenby.

Fun read.  Nice bit of alternate history/speculation.  American loses its bid for independence in the 1770s, and England maintains its place as the greatest power in the world into the 2050s.  It does bog down a bit in tactical discussion, but I had fun with it.

September

The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand  edited by Christopher Golden & Brian Keene.

I was really looking forward to this one.  It paid off for me.  The Stand is my favorite King book, which puts its in the running for my favorite book, period.  It's a small thing, but I always enjoy finding somebody else expresses how much they like it, and it's even more exciting when a writer I enjoy expresses a love for it.  I daresay that there are a couple of writers or more in this collection who appreciate the book more than I do.  I tend to re-read the book every few years....editor Christopher Golden wanders through it annually....

Favorite stories:  "The Trips" by Wrath James White...a different take on The Dark Man, but I liked how bleak this felt.

"Lockdown" by Bev Vincent.  This one seemed to polarize on the King subreddit.  I found it uniquely sad, and liked it very much.

"In a Pig's Eye" by Joe R. Lansdale.  Damn, Joe.

"Lenora" by Jonathan Janz....such an oddly sweet tale

"The Hope Boat" by Gabino Iglesias....oof...this one killed me

"Wrong Fucking People. Wrong Fucking Time" by C. Robert Cargill....probably my favorite story in the book, and a reason to look up more Cargill

"The African Painted Dog"   by Catriona Wand.  Another possible favorite:  a couple zoo animals ride out the madness

"the Boat Man" by Tananarive Due & Steven Barnes.  Maybe the best meld of an author's style and King's vibe.  Unless I miss my mark, Due & Barnes really, really dig the novel....

"The Mosque at the End of the World" Usman T. Malik.  6 or 7 of the stories delve into what the superflu does outside the contiguous US, and this is probably the best of that bunch.

There are a couple clunkers in the lot, which I won't name, except to say I'm rarely a fan of writing dialects, and even less so if you're not writing a dialect of an area you're from....

There are also a couple in here that felt very much like they were written with other goals in mind, but hammered somewhat into shape to fit into this anthology.....

The Soul of Baseball:  A Road Trip Trhough Buck O'Neil's America   by Joe Posnanski

This was marvelous.   It was an injustice that O'Neil was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame after he died.  He was one of the great ambassadors for the game, and one of the few bridges we had to the Negro Leagues.  The two groups that sour baseball are the businessmen and the stat-bros, neither of whom enjoy the game for its intricate poetry, in small couplets or great epics.  O'Neil was one of the few who could be involved in the game at its highest levels, and still elucidate on the evolving work of art that the game is.

And he died before he could be adequately thanked.  

But one of the many beauties about the man is that he probably wouldn't have been greatly bothered by all that.

The book started as O'Neil wanting his friend Posnanski to write about the Negro Leagues, and while there are large swaths of history related by O'Neil and others in the book, it's more an exploration of O'Neil, who kept a hectic schedule well into old age.  It's an exploration into what made him one of the game's great representatives.

Posnanski has moved near the top of my list of baseball writers.

Woo....Mercy, Daddy! The Jimmy Valiant Story    by Jimmy & Angel Valiant

I bought this from the Boogie Woogie Man his own self at Angela's in Athens, TN.  

It's a mess of a book, but there are some funny stories in there.

11/22/63   by Stephen King

Part of the continuing project.  And maybe the one I was most looking forward to, when I started this project back in 2017.

This is a hell of a ride.  A tale of obsession, with that Tales from the Crypt morality thrown in for good measure.

This time around, it hit me (somewhat at somebody else's suggestion, though I couldn't shake it when they mentioned it) that its weakest aspect is exactly why Jake takes on Al's mission.  I realize that he doesn't have a whole lot holding him in 2011, but it's also not a bad life he's got.  I've taken the stance, also largely at somebody else's suggestion, that it's simply the adventure, and then he gets snagged by the obsession.

All of that's a minor quibble.  It's a roller coaster ride.

I started this one with the audiobook, but the narrator was wearing me out.  So I pulled my copy down from the shelf.  August and September were weird for me, though.  My attention span wasn't strong.  So it took a minute....

The Art of Prophecy   by Wesley Chu

Gifted a copy by my friend Dino.  I like the Kung Fu take on the hero's journey.  Chu turns a good phrase,  I think I'll continue the series down the road.....

October

Holy Cow!  by Harry Caray with Bob Verdi

I've run across some rough ghostwriting....makes me wonder just how much Verdi had to work with, because this had roughly zero of Harry's charm.....

The Case of the Velvet Claws  by Erle Stanley Gardner

Shyam is a big Perry Mason fan.  She reads the books.  She watches the TV shows.  I'd never read a Gardner.  This was fun.  I think Gardner might have been getting paid by the word, for as many times as he referred to characters by first and last name......

No Country for Old Men   by Cormac McCarthy

A re-read.  Blank Check went through the Coens' filmographies (combined, and solo) this year, and that was a fun listen and watch.  Re-read this after watching the flick....which is the reverse of how it went when the flick was released.

I wish I could write a third as well as McCarthy.  He does so much with so little language.  Meanwhile, I babble on aimlessly.....

The Haar   by David Sodergren

I really enjoyed this one, which had been floating around my recommendations probably since it was published.

Had to confer with my friend Fiona, a Scot herself, whether The Haar, a thick, coastal fog, was indeed a real phenomenon, or a writer's fabrication....

This book, dedicated to Sodergren's grandmother, who helped raise Sodergren, features one of my favorite heroines of the year.  She reminds me of my own mother.....

November

The Baseball 100    Joe Posnanski

Took a while to get through, but it's worth it.....

Kingdom Come   by Mark Waid & Alex Ross

I didn't do well keeping up with my comic reading, but I did re-read this.  It's still good.  The fascism in both Superman's and Batman's camp is interesting....

The Dark Tower: the Wind Through the Keyhole   by Stephen King

I don't care for this one.  The framed story within a framed story doesn't do much for me, nor does the minor bit of character advancement for Roland....though I wonder if this story is part of King's therapy, forgiving himself for forgetting the face of his father

December

The Color Purple   by Alice Walker

The best thing I read in 2025.  I'd never read it.  Excruciating.  Brutal.  Oddly funny, at times.  Just a beautiful book.

The Bible Says So:  What We Get Right (and Wrong) about Scripture's Most Controversial Issues  by Dan McClellan

I've followed McClellan on social media for quite a while.  He's got a meticulous nature and a dry wit that appeal to me.  His Data over Dogma approach also appeals to me, and his willingness to break things down as etymologically and with as much granularity as possible serves toward the valuable goal of greatest possible context.

I will say that in his longer form, I abandoned the audiobook in favor of text, as he does run deep into a few lines of thought that I wanted to be able to trace with a finger, if needed.

Joyland by Stephen King

I really, really like this one.  Maybe more than most.

I started with my King read through a month or two after Dad died in 2017.  I didn't think it would take this long, but there's always tons of other stuff to read....plus I found that I liked giving each book room to breathe, and stand on its own.

This was a romp.   I thought so when I read it back in 2013, and I think it now.  I think King had a lot of fun with this one.  I appreciated his telling a story simply, and not giving into his more loquacious tendencies.  That tendency, combined with his tendency towards nostalgia often tends toward creating a treacly consistency....but he avoids that here.

I dig this one....

A Christmas Carol   by Charles Dickens

Annual read.  Go find Tim Curry's rendition and give yourself a couple or three hours to listen to it.  It's one of the best things out there.

Project: Hail Mary   by Andy Weir

Thomas wanted to read this one, in advance of the movie coming out this spring.  I'd had it floating around my Audible library for a while, and listened when I had to make a couple longer trips this December.  

It still leans a bit heavily into Geek humor, but I guess I'm fine with it.

I like the improvisational science.

I dig even more that Weir calls out his first person narrator late in the book.  It was needed.

This was fun.

Destiny of the Republic:  a Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President  by Candice Miller

Shyam and I watched Death by Lightning on Netflix late in 2025, and it was one of the best things on teevee this year.  Great character work, nice period piece, great performances from McFadyen & Offerman especially....and it was based on Miller's book.

Great read.  Definitely in my top 5 this year.

Star Trek: the Lost Years   by J.M. Dillard

I probably read 50 or 60 Star Trek and Star Trek: the Next Generation books from 1988 to 1992 or 1993.  They were cheap, quick reads.  Sometimes you could find a couple of them for a dollar at Book Mart or the Sweetwater Flea Market.  This one, published in hardback in 1989, was a big one.   At least, I convinced myself it was.  I mean, it was supposed to finally tell the story of what happened between the end of the series and Star Trek: the Motion Picture.

I got it, then, from the library.  I blew through it in a day or so.  

I ran across a paperback copy in a Little Free Library along my route (that I found, 2 days ago, is no longer there--it's near a customer that I only hit once a month during the winter, and some time between the first Friday in December, and the first Friday in January, it was removed...).  I pulled this out back in November, and have been thumbing through it a few pages at a time.

It's fun.  Kirk has the time of his life, and McCoy has the worst adventure you could ask for.  Typical.

After reading it, I ended up grabbing a couple more novels at a used book store, just to stick in the armrest of the truck, for traffic troubles........