I read 40 books in 2025, down from 53 books in 2024. We spent five months in Manhattan this spring and summer, swapping reading for exploring the city. It was a good trade.

My reading was split evenly between fiction and non-fiction, with a particular emphasis during the year on the history of Nazi Germany.

I read much more on Kindle in 2025. Spending five months away from my cozy home library drove most of this, though, as I get older, I appreciate more and more the ability to dial up the font size at night.

Three Favorites

The Notebook By Roland Allen. A delightful Western history of the humble notebook, beginning as a bookkeeper’s accounting ledger in fifteenth-century Italy. Allen uses great storytelling techniques to share dozens of examples of notebook use over the past six hundred years, including Leonardo’s sketchbooks in the 1500s, early commonplace books, naturalists’ field notes, ship logs, police pocket notebooks, and modern-day bullet journaling. This seems like a dry subject, but Allen creates a sense of mystery and wonder with each fun chapter. If you geek out even a little in the notebook section of bookstores, this one’s for you.

Brightness Falls By Jay McInerney. I loved Bright Lights, Big City, but never got around to McInerney’s later novels. I read this one while living in Manhattan, which amplified the city vibe that pulses through this atmospheric novel. The claustrophobic and chaotic beginning soon widens to grapple with some big themes: the loss of youthful idealism, the fraud and sanctity of marriage, alcoholism and addiction, poverty and prejudice, the hubris of men and relentless pursuit of wealth and status, and the inevitability of decline and death. Brightness Falls is the first book of a trilogy, which I look forward to completing in 2026.

Things In Nature Merely Grow By Yiyun Li. A heartbreaking memoir about the author’s loss of her two teenage sons. Most readers won’t relate, but a few, the ones who never chose to be part of this unfortunate club, will nod their heads, and cry, and set this book down in meditative thought many times during their reading. This one touched me deeply.

One Essay, One Short Story, One Poem

I stumbled upon this post about Ray Bradbury’s reading advice for aspiring writers: read one essay, one short story, and one poem every night for a thousand days. Bradbury knew that reading makes writers, and this continuous exposure to a variety of short-form pieces would surely turbocharge any writer’s creativity.

I started this practice in August, and except for a few gaps due to travel and other commitments, I’ve stuck with it. For essays, I’ve reread Emerson and E.B. White, and I tackled The Best American Essays 2024, which introduced me to a diverse group of established and emerging voices. For stories, I read the massive collection in A Century Of Fiction In The New Yorker, as well as a couple of Stephen King story collections I hadn’t gotten to yet.

In a surprising twist, it’s the poetry that I am enjoying the most. I’m reading the two-volume Norton Anthology of Modern & Contemporary Poetry (3rd Edition), cycling through the poets sequentially, from Whitman to moderns, at one poem per night.

I read each poem twice, then a third time aloud, trying to get to the heart of it. I scribble notes and underline words that speak to me. Eventually, I ask Claude to share the poem’s themes and meaning to see what I’ve missed (usually a lot!). Some miss the mark, but a few hit me like a lightning bolt. A poem’s ability to reach the very heart of life’s most fundamental questions in such few words can be breathtaking.

Poetry is language against which we have no defenses.

David Whyte

I’m adding tick marks to the poems in the table of contents to mark my progress. With almost 1,600 poems, it will take me years to read them all. I expect these two books will be in cherished tatters in a few years.

New Book Blog

I launched a companion book blog in 2025 to share reviews of books I’ve read. I was inspired to do this by Jamie Todd Rubin who recently logged his 1,500th book on his public list which spans thirty years of reading history.

I was already posting my reading notes on Micro.blog, but I wanted a more personal solution that would integrate with my site here on WordPress. I used the Content Views and Display Posts plug-ins to build the various pages, i.e., book covers, books by year, books by genre, and my all-time favorite books. All of this happens automatically when I publish a book review. I really like how this came together.

I chose to keep my reading activity separate from my existing blog because I didn’t want to overwhelm subscribers with too many emails. Currently, the only way to subscribe is through an RSS reader. However, I am launching a periodic digest of book reviews and other “micro” posts in early 2026. Stay tuned!

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Previous Year of Reading Reviews: 2023; 2024.

One of the easiest ways to get more out of the books you read is to keep a journal. When you take notes, you’re not just passively reading; you’re reshaping the material in your own words, deepening your comprehension and the connections in your brain. These notes become a record you can revisit to refresh your memory and make recall easier.

I’ve used Day One as my journal for years, but I only recently discovered how well it works to keep my notes and favorite passages from my reading.

Day One is a leading journaling app for the Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, and most recently for Windows. Journals are protected from prying eyes using secure end-to-end encryption. Prompts and suggestions help remove writer’s block about what to share. The app makes it simple to create an entry from a photo, from your Apple Watch, from a location you visited, and many other ways that remove the friction from keeping a journal. I liked Day One so much that I transcribed a dozen old paper journals to have a complete digital record of my life in the app.

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Keep a Book Journal with Day One and Apple ShortcutsRead More »

I read 53 books last year, split about evenly between physical and e-books, and listened to just one audiobook. I usually listen to 10 -15 audiobooks a year, but in 2024, I decided to leave the AirPods behind on long walks to be more present. This felt like a fair exchange.

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My Year of Reading in 2024Read More »

There seem to be two kinds of people on this earth—those who love books and everyone else. The bookish have always been far outnumbered, and the gap must be widening in this age of endless digital entertainment. I count myself among the proud minority, but a book, of all things, has brought into question my lifelong practice of keeping a private library.

A recent acquisition illustrates the issue.

“Didn’t you just read this on your Kindle,” Lisa asks me as she flips through the book I’ve brought home.

I dislike direct questioning about my book-buying habits. It feels like the pointed inquiries on medical questionnaires about alcohol consumption.

“Yeah, but I liked it so much I wanted the hard copy,” I tell her.

The fact is, I will likely never read this book, even though I did enjoy it. I bought the book because I like having a visual, tangible record of the time this book and I spent together. I like scanning my shelves and seeing proof of a rich reading life. I like the way a roomful of books makes me feel about myself. Besides, I tell myself, there are worse ways to spend money.

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The End of Private LibrariesRead More »

In the spring of last year, I started reading The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant. This is no quick undertaking. Spanning eleven volumes and 10,000 pages, it will take me the rest of this year to finish.

The first volume was published in 1935 when Durant had just turned 50. He published the final volume forty years later. Midway through these decades of writing, Will’s wife Ariel became a co-author and active collaborator in this epic undertaking. Together, they read an average of five hundred books as research for each published volume.

The Story of Civilization is regarded as one of the most compelling narratives of world history ever written. The tenth volume, Rousseau and Revolution, won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1968. Goodreads currently gives these books a 4.4 out of 5. Such a high rating is rare, which indicates how readers truly admire the series. Essayist Jamie Todd Rubin chose these as the sole books to take along to his proverbial desert island, which was all the prompting I needed to start this adventure.

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Reading The Story of CivilizationRead More »

I read 75 books in 2023, my high water mark for the most reading in a year. Books have always been like a warm blanket, and I needed that comfort during a most challenging year.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.

James Baldwin

I took on some ambitious books during the year. I read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which has long been on my to-be-read pile. I read a new translation of The Odyssey after having last followed the plight of heroic Odysseus some thirty years ago. I am tackling a multi-year reading of Will and Ariel Durant’s epic eleven-volume Story of Civilization. I inherited these books from my Grandmother twenty-five years ago, and I have finally found the time to read them. Discovering her careful handwriting in the margins of these books has revealed a new and somewhat startling side to my prim and proper Grandmother. What you mark and highlight says a lot about your thoughts and beliefs. It’s like a second history is being told in these pages. I’ve decided to leave my own trail of marginalia for my daughter, should she find the patience and fortitude to complete this generational journey herself one day.

Favorites of the Year

My favorite novel in 2023 was Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane. It’s a bleak book, but protagonist Mary Pat Fennessy is one of the most compelling characters I’ve encountered in a long, long while. She made the bleakness of this book and its theme of parental grief worth it. I will reread this one if only to spend more time with Mary Pat.

I love essays and usually read a half dozen essay compilations during any given year. My favorite this year was These Precious Days by Ann Patchett, who also narrated the audiobook. I recall precise moments on my walks through our neighborhood here in Verrado as I stopped to soak in the wisdom and honesty of this brilliant author speaking to me through my AirPods.

My favorite non-fiction book was The Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh. Sometimes, the universe sends you exactly the book you most need to read. What a clear-eyed and compelling manifesto of living your best life right now.

Stephen King Challenge

In May, I discovered I had read more Stephen King novels than any other author, living or otherwise. Out of his 74 published works of fiction (excluding collaborations), I had read an astonishing 47 of them. It shouldn’t surprise me that I’ve read so much of this author. I love a good yarn, and Mr. King is almost certainly our generation’s most preeminent storyteller. I count Misery, The Dark Tower series, The Stand, and The Shining as some of my all-time favorite reads.

So, I decided to go back and read the 28 books I had missed along the way. In 2023, I read 14 of those, including his most recent novel, Holly. My favorite from the year was Night Shift, his first collection of short stories published in 1977.

I look forward to tackling the remaining 14 unread gems in 2024 before the prolific Mr. King publishes his next book.

More Physical Books in 2023

For the past few years, I’ve borrowed most of the books I read from the library on my Kindle using the Libby app. This year, two-thirds of the books I read were physical copies I own. There was a reason for this change.

We moved from Washington state to Arizona late last year, which afforded the possibility of a larger home library. In my old library, I had to donate a book to make room for every new one I purchased. After nearly twenty years of scanning the crammed shelves for the next sacrifice, choosing what book to cull became excruciating. Borrowing books on Libby seemed the more humane choice.

The new library was indeed more spacious. Once all sixty boxes of books from the move were properly shelved, I marveled at the many gaps between books. This was all the invitation I needed. With joyful abandon, I bought dozens of books during the year to fill those unsightly gaps. I joined two book clubs. I experienced once again that long-forgotten thrill of leaving a used bookstore with a bagful of books. The gaps slowly narrowed and finally evaporated. I struggled in vain to find an open spot for Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li, the last book I finished this year.

In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long… Ultimately the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted.

Alberto Manguel

The coming year will see another series of book sacrifices and likely a return to library borrowing. I enjoyed this book buying spree while it lasted.

My Reading System

I use the Craft app to house all my reading notes and links to my personal note system. I passed the three-year mark of using Craft and have now written and linked over 250 literature notes in this quasi-Zettelkasten system. The connections between books and ideas inside Craft have produced more than a few epiphanies and have indeed taken on a life of its own as a knowledge system.

I continue to be an avid fan of the ReadWise service to collect and review notes and highlights from my reading. I added 234 new highlights to the system this year, bringing me to 1,600 total passages in ReadWise. My daily review of five random selected highlights always makes me smile … and ponder.

Craft and ReadWise form a system that helps me retain and leverage more of what I read. For as much time and money as I spend with my nose in a book, these tools ensure I get the best return for that investment. If you’re curious about either of these apps, please see my earlier post, Read Better with Craft and ReadWise.

The Year Ahead

At my steady pace of 30 pages per evening, I expect to finish The Story of Civilization sometime late in 2024. Beyond that, I’ve been toying with the idea of reading only books I already own, reading only books written in the last year, books written more than a hundred years ago, or reading books I’ve already read. But I know myself. I won’t do any of these things. Books are a comfort to me, and the right book at the right time is the best comfort of all. I’ll know it when I read it.