Books. For the literati among us.
- Thread starter FootyLovin
- Start date
25 Read in 2025
Murder Road - Simone st. James
Amazon Prime Far Reaches Series - Various
Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot #6) - Martha Wells
The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut
The Wailing Wind (Leaphorn & Chee #15) - Tony Hillerman
Strip Tease - Carl Hiaasen
Eleven Numbers - Lee Child
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
System Collapse - (Murderbot #7) - Martha Wells
Dune - Frank Herbert
Dakiti (Ziva Payvan #1) - E.J. Fisch
Carpathians - Paul A. Dixon
Trunk Music (Harry Bosch #5) Michael Connelly
Piranesi - Susanna Clark
The Night Window (Jane Hawk #5) - Dean Koontz
All Systems Red (Murderbot #1) - Martha Wells
One Dark Summer - Saskia Sarginson
Caught Stealing (Hank Thompson #1) - Charlie Huston
Compulsory (Murderbot Diaries #0.5) - Martha Wells
The Ghost Brigades (Old Man's War #2) - John Scalzi
Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor #1) - Mark Lawrence
There Is No Antimemetics Division: A Novel - qntm
Angels Flight (Harry Bosch #6) - Michael Connelly
Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict 16), Adrian J. Walker tr.
Grey Sister (Book of the Ancestor #2) - Mark Lawrence
I finished the last 2 yesterday, 12/31. I'm a bit disappointed I didn't do more being retired and all. Last year I read 24. But this is still OK. While this is not overloaded with extremely long books I think this list has fewer novellas and other quick reads than my last few years. On that note, the second entry is 6 books according to Amazon, Goodreads and my Kindle but they are really short stories so I counted the full set as one book. Overall disappointing too. One very good, 1 good, 1 partly good, and 3 meh to are you kidding?
Further notes:
The MANIAC If you asked all the giant names in math, physics and computer science in the first half of the 20th Century whose brilliance was the most impressive, they almost all said John von Neumann. Maniac is not exactly a biography, fictionalized story, or intellectual history, but it has elements of all three. There isn't really a plot. Most of it consists of POV chapters about von Neumann written (but not really) by family, friends, collaborators, etc. There is also a lot of information about the potential end of the world, human and computer minds, game theory, and how Go is a better contest for humans vs machines than chess. Its not long but it is rich and I might reread this year.
Carpathians is so close to being a great first contact story but IMO suffers from a highly predictable message dropped like an anvil at the end. I did very much enjoy the universe building.
Trunk Music and Angel's Flight are my favorite Bosch to date. The former is a murder mystery that closes in on an apparent solution very early, so you realize as a reader that there has to be much more going on than anyone knows and the fun is watching that unfold.
Piranesi is an odd and original sort of fantasy, with a protagonist whose memory goes back just a few years, and who is trapped in a world made entirely of a vast mansion with haunting, cryptic statues, beaches and tides, and just a handful of other human residents. I did not love the eventual explanation but the journey was worth it.
I discovered the Mark Lawrence books via X. Pretty original fantasy. There is a chosen one, but she's not the main POV protagonist. Though with 1 book left I suppose that might change. No dark evil or great lord, just a dying planet suffering eco-catastrophe while everyone fights and scrambles for a fleeting grasp of power and to have their society and clan die last. 80% of the main characters are women, IMO written well by the male author, and none of it is forced.
There Is No Antimemetics Division I can't even do this justice. Memetics steal memories, hide giant monuments in plain sight, render people invisible, and the more we fleetingly become aware of them the closer they get to destroying humanity. Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. This is not your first day. There is no antimemetics division. You have been in charge of the antimemetics division for years and we are at war. I rather got lost 2/3 through with some back and forth time jumps and characters who keep forgetting things. This is another I might reread this year.
Wildly original scifi.
11 Audiobooks
City Under One Roof (Cara Kennedy #1)
Salt: A World History - Mark Kurlansky
The Habsburgs: To Rule the World - Martyn Rady
Burma '44 - James Holland
Siege of Vraks - Steve Lyons
The Last Dynasty: Ancient Egypt from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra - Toby Wilkinson
The Secret Lives of Color - Kassia St. Claire
Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Ieyasu - A.L. Sadler
The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England - Dan Jones
The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors - Dan Jones
The Great Northern War: The History of the Conflict that Made Russia the Dominant Empire in the Baltic - Charles River Editors
City Under One Roof Murder mystery based on a real city in Alaska where the entire town lives and works in one building with apartments, city hall, grocery, restaurants, laundry, police, etc. for 8-10 months every year and only comes out in summer. Fascinating concept but I don't think the novel made as good use of it as I hoped.
Salt Brilliant and fascinating. Thanks for the rec CCMore.
Siege of Vraks. I got this for a couple bucks on Audible not knowing it's a Warhammer 40K novelization, or even what that meant. Had I understood I never would have bothered, but nonetheless it was kind of interesting to get a glimpse into that grimdark universe.
Secret Lives of Color is a magazine column turned into a book but I'm fascinated by the history of color. It covers how humans and societies perceived and named and categorized and learned how to make different shades and hues over centuries.
Tokugawa Ieyasu is the real life Japanese leader at the center of the Clavell Shogun novels. This bio was written about 100 years ago and you can tell, but if you allow for that it holds up.
I could not find an solid audiobook history of The Great Northern War. This version is from a publisher who seems to specialize in "good enough" histories of subjects that might not have as much coverage as others. I'm guessing it was an AI first draft with significant human editing to make it acceptable.
I well enjoyed and recommend all the other big sweeping histories in the audio list, subject to your interest in the subject matter.
Murder Road - Simone st. James
Amazon Prime Far Reaches Series - Various
Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot #6) - Martha Wells
The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut
The Wailing Wind (Leaphorn & Chee #15) - Tony Hillerman
Strip Tease - Carl Hiaasen
Eleven Numbers - Lee Child
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
System Collapse - (Murderbot #7) - Martha Wells
Dune - Frank Herbert
Dakiti (Ziva Payvan #1) - E.J. Fisch
Carpathians - Paul A. Dixon
Trunk Music (Harry Bosch #5) Michael Connelly
Piranesi - Susanna Clark
The Night Window (Jane Hawk #5) - Dean Koontz
All Systems Red (Murderbot #1) - Martha Wells
One Dark Summer - Saskia Sarginson
Caught Stealing (Hank Thompson #1) - Charlie Huston
Compulsory (Murderbot Diaries #0.5) - Martha Wells
The Ghost Brigades (Old Man's War #2) - John Scalzi
Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor #1) - Mark Lawrence
There Is No Antimemetics Division: A Novel - qntm
Angels Flight (Harry Bosch #6) - Michael Connelly
Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict 16), Adrian J. Walker tr.
Grey Sister (Book of the Ancestor #2) - Mark Lawrence
I finished the last 2 yesterday, 12/31. I'm a bit disappointed I didn't do more being retired and all. Last year I read 24. But this is still OK. While this is not overloaded with extremely long books I think this list has fewer novellas and other quick reads than my last few years. On that note, the second entry is 6 books according to Amazon, Goodreads and my Kindle but they are really short stories so I counted the full set as one book. Overall disappointing too. One very good, 1 good, 1 partly good, and 3 meh to are you kidding?
Further notes:
The MANIAC If you asked all the giant names in math, physics and computer science in the first half of the 20th Century whose brilliance was the most impressive, they almost all said John von Neumann. Maniac is not exactly a biography, fictionalized story, or intellectual history, but it has elements of all three. There isn't really a plot. Most of it consists of POV chapters about von Neumann written (but not really) by family, friends, collaborators, etc. There is also a lot of information about the potential end of the world, human and computer minds, game theory, and how Go is a better contest for humans vs machines than chess. Its not long but it is rich and I might reread this year.
Carpathians is so close to being a great first contact story but IMO suffers from a highly predictable message dropped like an anvil at the end. I did very much enjoy the universe building.
Trunk Music and Angel's Flight are my favorite Bosch to date. The former is a murder mystery that closes in on an apparent solution very early, so you realize as a reader that there has to be much more going on than anyone knows and the fun is watching that unfold.
Piranesi is an odd and original sort of fantasy, with a protagonist whose memory goes back just a few years, and who is trapped in a world made entirely of a vast mansion with haunting, cryptic statues, beaches and tides, and just a handful of other human residents. I did not love the eventual explanation but the journey was worth it.
I discovered the Mark Lawrence books via X. Pretty original fantasy. There is a chosen one, but she's not the main POV protagonist. Though with 1 book left I suppose that might change. No dark evil or great lord, just a dying planet suffering eco-catastrophe while everyone fights and scrambles for a fleeting grasp of power and to have their society and clan die last. 80% of the main characters are women, IMO written well by the male author, and none of it is forced.
There Is No Antimemetics Division I can't even do this justice. Memetics steal memories, hide giant monuments in plain sight, render people invisible, and the more we fleetingly become aware of them the closer they get to destroying humanity. Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. This is not your first day. There is no antimemetics division. You have been in charge of the antimemetics division for years and we are at war. I rather got lost 2/3 through with some back and forth time jumps and characters who keep forgetting things. This is another I might reread this year.
Wildly original scifi.
11 Audiobooks
City Under One Roof (Cara Kennedy #1)
Salt: A World History - Mark Kurlansky
The Habsburgs: To Rule the World - Martyn Rady
Burma '44 - James Holland
Siege of Vraks - Steve Lyons
The Last Dynasty: Ancient Egypt from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra - Toby Wilkinson
The Secret Lives of Color - Kassia St. Claire
Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Ieyasu - A.L. Sadler
The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England - Dan Jones
The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors - Dan Jones
The Great Northern War: The History of the Conflict that Made Russia the Dominant Empire in the Baltic - Charles River Editors
City Under One Roof Murder mystery based on a real city in Alaska where the entire town lives and works in one building with apartments, city hall, grocery, restaurants, laundry, police, etc. for 8-10 months every year and only comes out in summer. Fascinating concept but I don't think the novel made as good use of it as I hoped.
If I had a nickel for every murder mystery I consumed in a January 2024 and January 2025 in which women in very remote Alaska killed abusive men and the authorities who solve the crime decide to cover it up, I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice. I'm not anticipating to make it 3 Januaries in a row.
Siege of Vraks. I got this for a couple bucks on Audible not knowing it's a Warhammer 40K novelization, or even what that meant. Had I understood I never would have bothered, but nonetheless it was kind of interesting to get a glimpse into that grimdark universe.
Secret Lives of Color is a magazine column turned into a book but I'm fascinated by the history of color. It covers how humans and societies perceived and named and categorized and learned how to make different shades and hues over centuries.
Tokugawa Ieyasu is the real life Japanese leader at the center of the Clavell Shogun novels. This bio was written about 100 years ago and you can tell, but if you allow for that it holds up.
I could not find an solid audiobook history of The Great Northern War. This version is from a publisher who seems to specialize in "good enough" histories of subjects that might not have as much coverage as others. I'm guessing it was an AI first draft with significant human editing to make it acceptable.
I well enjoyed and recommend all the other big sweeping histories in the audio list, subject to your interest in the subject matter.
Last edited:
Still a lot. My average is 305, but that includes the 6 short stories I consider one book, and also all my audiobooks. So I really have little idea of the average length of the books I actually read.
2 big reading changes for me this year.
1. I tried to get much better (and frequently succeeded) at stopping books I wasn't really enjoying. So there is a big gap between my # of books started and # of books finished.
2. I started listening to audiobooks, primarily as accompaniment to my running. Really loved this.
So here is my best of in written form:
1. I tried to get much better (and frequently succeeded) at stopping books I wasn't really enjoying. So there is a big gap between my # of books started and # of books finished.
2. I started listening to audiobooks, primarily as accompaniment to my running. Really loved this.
So here is my best of in written form:
- Say Nothing, by Patrick Redden Keefe - history of the last 50 years or so of the IRA.
- The Doorman, by Chris Pavone - fun mystery
- The Monk of Mokha, by Dave Eggers - true story about Yemeni coffee that reads like a spy novel
- Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid - present sci-fi with a novel lens for exploring our society
- Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand - story of an American runner who ends up in the Pacific in WWII.
- Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain - I think this book was his first big breakout in media about his early life up through NYC chefdom.
- Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall - story of a tribe of runners in Mexico who are mostly cut off from modern society
- A Life Without Limits, by Chrissie Wellington - story of a woman who becomes a triathlete and then some
- Can't Hurt Me, by David Goggins - story of possibly the world's most capable recipient of punishment
Here is my list. It’s been a good year.
Where the subject of the book is not clear from title and author, I’ve added a parenthetical.
The Longest Winter - Halberstam (Korean War)
Titan - Chernow (J.D. Rockefeller)
King Leopold’s Ghost - Hochshild (Belgian Congo)
Heart of Darkness - Conrad
Rules of Civility - Towles
Delores Claiborne - S. King
Gerald’s Game - S. King
Leonardo da Vinci - Isaacson
Young Stalin - Montefiore
Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut
The Institute - S. King
Lincoln Highway - Towles
Safe Enough - Child & Child (Jack Reacher)
You Like it Darker - King (ch 3 to end)
Midnight in Chernobyl - Higgenbotham
James Penny’s New Identity - Child (short story)
The Fellowship of the Ring - Tolkien
The Name of this Band is R.E.M. - Carlin
Mornings on Horseback - McCullough (T. Roosevelt)
Rise and Kill First - Bergman (Israeli Secret Service)
The Two Towers - Tolkien
King of Kings - Anderson (Iranian Revolution)
Guests of the Ayatollah - Bowden (Iran hostage crisis)
The Return of the King - Tolkien
Tonight in Jungleland - Carlin (Making of Born to Run)
The Hobbit - Tolkien
My Brilliant Friend - Ferrante (first of Neapolitan Series)
The Finish - Bowden (killing of USB)
Catastrophe 1914 - Hastings (first year of WWI)
The Story of a New Name - Ferrante
Those Who Leave & Those Who Stay - Ferrante
The Warmth of Other Suns - Wilkerson (Great Migration)
City Primeval - Elmore Leonard
The Story of the Lost Child - Ferrante (3/4 through)
Where the subject of the book is not clear from title and author, I’ve added a parenthetical.
The Longest Winter - Halberstam (Korean War)
Titan - Chernow (J.D. Rockefeller)
King Leopold’s Ghost - Hochshild (Belgian Congo)
Heart of Darkness - Conrad
Rules of Civility - Towles
Delores Claiborne - S. King
Gerald’s Game - S. King
Leonardo da Vinci - Isaacson
Young Stalin - Montefiore
Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut
The Institute - S. King
Lincoln Highway - Towles
Safe Enough - Child & Child (Jack Reacher)
You Like it Darker - King (ch 3 to end)
Midnight in Chernobyl - Higgenbotham
James Penny’s New Identity - Child (short story)
The Fellowship of the Ring - Tolkien
The Name of this Band is R.E.M. - Carlin
Mornings on Horseback - McCullough (T. Roosevelt)
Rise and Kill First - Bergman (Israeli Secret Service)
The Two Towers - Tolkien
King of Kings - Anderson (Iranian Revolution)
Guests of the Ayatollah - Bowden (Iran hostage crisis)
The Return of the King - Tolkien
Tonight in Jungleland - Carlin (Making of Born to Run)
The Hobbit - Tolkien
My Brilliant Friend - Ferrante (first of Neapolitan Series)
The Finish - Bowden (killing of USB)
Catastrophe 1914 - Hastings (first year of WWI)
The Story of a New Name - Ferrante
Those Who Leave & Those Who Stay - Ferrante
The Warmth of Other Suns - Wilkerson (Great Migration)
City Primeval - Elmore Leonard
The Story of the Lost Child - Ferrante (3/4 through)
I don’t think there’s a book on the list I wouldn’t recommend.
Daniel James Carlin’s books on music have been a joy. I got his biography of Paul Simon for Christmas and am looking forward to it.
The Elena Ferrante books are excellent, but the narrator is quite a flawed person, and I did struggle with disliking her for long stretches. Still, the descriptions of life in a poor neighborhood of Naples are gut wrenching.
For those curious, no - I had not read the Tolkien books until now.
Amor Towles’s books are all great. I can’t recommend them enough.
The histories on Israel and Iran are all fascinating and worth the price of admission. Rise and Kill First is about Israel’s use of extraterritorial assassinations and adds thrilling stories to a solid historical read.
The book on the Great Migration is incredibly well done.
Daniel James Carlin’s books on music have been a joy. I got his biography of Paul Simon for Christmas and am looking forward to it.
The Elena Ferrante books are excellent, but the narrator is quite a flawed person, and I did struggle with disliking her for long stretches. Still, the descriptions of life in a poor neighborhood of Naples are gut wrenching.
For those curious, no - I had not read the Tolkien books until now.
Amor Towles’s books are all great. I can’t recommend them enough.
The histories on Israel and Iran are all fascinating and worth the price of admission. Rise and Kill First is about Israel’s use of extraterritorial assassinations and adds thrilling stories to a solid historical read.
The book on the Great Migration is incredibly well done.
I'm half way through book 2 in the Neapolitan series. I find it oddly gripping. There is a level of detail I would expect to lose energy. But so far I keep wanting to read more. I also read her book The Days of Abandonment. None of these rose to my favorites of the year list. But all have been solid reads.
Just added these to my list. Never read him before, but did watch the series (Netflix I think) The Gentleman in Moscow. That was excellent.
I'm stuck in the middle of the LBJ series by Robert Caro. Those who know, know.
I read A Gentleman in Moscow first, which was terrific. The good Mrs. Dr. G told me that Rules of Civility was even better, and when I finally got around to reading it, I agreed. His third book came out this past year and was also very good.
Ended up at 65 books. Let's see how many I feel like talking about. Chronological order within categories.
Fiction
The Wheel of Time books 9-14 and the prequel. Still feels weird to be done.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. This was really good
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Delightful. I meant to ready more of the series but it fell off my radar. Will have to pick back up in 2026.
Either/Or by Elif Batuman. A sequel to The Idiot, which I loved. Either/Or didn't live up to it but was still good.
A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine. A series that is actually finished! Fun space operas, I don't get much sci-fi in my diet.
One of the Boys by Victoria Zeller. Great high school coming of age novel.
Graphic Novels
Nimona by ND Stevenson. Really enjoyed this and was surprised to stumble across a short Netflix series based on it. I think it's technically YA.
Simplicity by Mattie Lubchansky. Not quite as good as Boys Weekend but I liked it.
Other notables
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros (The Empyrean #2) repeated and reinforced enough of the annoying parts of book one to overcome my completionist tendencies. Which is good because apparently the planned three book series is now going to be five.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Grew up in Salinas so was legally obligated to read this at some point in my life. He writes great descriptions of nature/landscapes; I could take or leave the story.
Fiction
The Wheel of Time books 9-14 and the prequel. Still feels weird to be done.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. This was really good
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Delightful. I meant to ready more of the series but it fell off my radar. Will have to pick back up in 2026.
Either/Or by Elif Batuman. A sequel to The Idiot, which I loved. Either/Or didn't live up to it but was still good.
A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine. A series that is actually finished! Fun space operas, I don't get much sci-fi in my diet.
One of the Boys by Victoria Zeller. Great high school coming of age novel.
Graphic Novels
Nimona by ND Stevenson. Really enjoyed this and was surprised to stumble across a short Netflix series based on it. I think it's technically YA.
Simplicity by Mattie Lubchansky. Not quite as good as Boys Weekend but I liked it.
Other notables
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros (The Empyrean #2) repeated and reinforced enough of the annoying parts of book one to overcome my completionist tendencies. Which is good because apparently the planned three book series is now going to be five.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Grew up in Salinas so was legally obligated to read this at some point in my life. He writes great descriptions of nature/landscapes; I could take or leave the story.