74. This Year's Books

This year I had no goal of a specific number of books to read, as I have had in some years past. Just... to read. So here's my 2025 list, twenty-five in all. And as so often, many of the books I tackled were thrillers/mysteries. I do like a good story. Those are marked by an asterisk.

(I'm still working on the last book, but I'm sure I'll have it done by Thursday. I've got less than 100 pages to go, plus it's riveting. And that's saying something, since it's nonfiction.)

2/23 Philip Roth, The Plot against America
2/23 Martin Walker, The Patriarch*
3/18 Raynor Winn, The Salt Path
4/3 Kate Atkinson, Case Histories*
4/16 Mick Herron, Dead Lions*
4/23 Teju Cole, Every Day Is for the Thief
4/28 Geraldine Brooks, Memorial Days
4/30 Mark Salzman, The Man in the Empty Boat
5/6 Percival Everett, James (audio mostly)
5/30 Yangsze Choo, The Fox Wife
6/4 Elizabeth O’Connor, Whale Fall
6/19 Mick Herron, Real Tigers*
6/24 Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional
7/29 Jayne Anne Phillips, Night Watch
8/3 John Kenney, I See You’ve Called in Dead
8/11 Jess Walter, So Far Gone
8/24 William Kent Krueger, Iron Lake*
8/30 S. A Cosby, King of Ashes*
10/18 Kate Atkinson, Death at the Sign of the Rook*
10/21 William Kent Krueger, Boundary Waters*
11/11 Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines
12/3 Mick Herron,  Spook Street*
12/9 Andrea Lewis, What My Last Man Did
12/25 Brian Phillips, Impossible Owls
soon Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

Sixteen by men, only nine by women—I'll change that up next year. Nine thrillers/mysteries. I probably won't change that up. April was a winning month, closely followed by August and December. Maybe next year I'll try for at least one book a month, but maybe it doesn't matter. At all.

I have started back on my alphabetical challenge, with the last couple of books here—I and J. I've already got the next book sussed, but it's in German, so next year might be even fewer titles. We'll see. It's not a contest. I read for the pleasure of inhabiting other worlds, to learn something, to expand my awareness and my empathy too. Sometimes I read to practice one of my languages. Or simply to be engrossed, entranced, entertained. There are so many reasons to cuddle up with a book.

P.S. I found a different K book, in English, so the pace can stay steadily directed forward. But I am going to schedule a daily fifteen minutes, half hour, for the German K book as well. Slowly by slowly I will get it done.