Here's what I read this year:
Book #114 was The Names, by Florence Knapp. I loved the three possible ways this story played out, each with its own sadness and tragedy, but each with its own redemption too.
Book #115 was Wreck, by Catherine Newman, whose Sandwich I enjoyed last year. Again, this is a book about a life that's far from perfect, but still full of love and purpose.
Book #116 was a reread that I recommended to my book group, How Far to Bethlehem?, by Norah Lofts. I last read this as a teenager. I wish I knew what I made of it then! It's the Biblical Christmas story told from many different perspectives, and I enjoyed it again.
Book #117 was The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World, by Christine Rosen. This was thought-provoking and readable, and it encouraged me to think of ways to live an analog life going forward.
Book #118 was Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden, by Camille Dungy. (I shared one of Dungy's poems here in 2020.) This was a fascinating meditation on gardening, the pandemic, race, environmentalism, family life, and other matters. I bought it on deep discount for my Kindle recently, and since I own it, I'm sure I'll be rereading it.
Books #119 and 120 are two I've read every year for a while: Savor, by Shauna Niequist and You are the Beloved, by Henri Nouwen.
Reading through these posts again as I was compiling the year's reading, I was impressed by how many times I said "I loved this book." I had a lot of great reading experiences in 2025. At the end of 2024 I said I wanted to read more paper books, and I didn't really do that. Again this year I want to attempt it. I honestly don't see much difference in the reading experience, except that I often don't remember titles of books I read on my Kindle, because I don't see the title every time I pick up the book to read it. But I do want to read paper books because they are accumulating, and they take up room, unlike the digital ones. Another note: thumbs up to reading with my book group. I've enjoyed that enormously this year.
I'm glad I got in the habit almost 20 years ago of writing down all the books I read. I wish I had a list of all the books I've read in my whole life. This year I read some discussion online among people who were wondering if their habit of tracking their reading was actually detrimental to their reading. Some felt pressured to have high numbers of books finished; some felt they chose their books to be impressive or to read the shiny and new, or for some other purpose other than just wanting to read that book. I do sometimes wonder what a blog reader might make of my bizarre combination of choices, but then I tell myself that nobody is following that closely or caring that much. There's generally a reason I pick something up - maybe it was recommended by someone in person or online, maybe it's a topic I'm interested in or an author I love, maybe it was just available at the library without waiting. But I can't always trace what the reason was, after the fact. I do resent slightly how controlled I am by my library holds; because they only last a short time, I hurry to read them first before they disappear from my Kindle. And that means less time to read books I actually own, whether digital ones or paper ones. I keep thinking I should stop putting so many holds on books, but then I keep doing it. As I'm writing this in late December I have 15 holds, plus nine books checked out on Libby (three of them already read).
