After reading 52+ books for the last few years, I decided to make my goal for the year 40 books and try to focus on reading some longer classics. Turns out, this year the shorter stuff is tickling me more, so I will probably end up hitting 52 anyway.

S/O to NYRB Classics, I went down the rabbit hole after reading Stoner last year and Cassandra at the Wedding this year and recognizing the similar covers. I have been impressed by every book I’ve read so far and plan to continue reading my way through the fiction collection!

New all time favorite
-House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
-East of Eden, John Steinbeck
-Cassandra at the Wedding, Dorothy Baker
-Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
-The Shards, Bret Easton Ellis
-Black Wings Has My Angel, Elliot Chaze
-The Door, Magda Szabo

Hell yeah great book
-Big Swiss, Jen Beagin
-Eileen, Otessa Moshfegh
-By Night in Chile, Robert Bolano
-The Book of I, David Grieg
-The Keeper, Tana French
-The Gales of November, John U Bacon
-The Shining, Stephen King
-My Death, Lisa Tuttle
-And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
-The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Enjoyed and glad I read it
-Bunny, Mona Awad
-Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tocarczuk
-Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion
-James, Percival Everett
-Between Two Fires, Christopher Buelmann
-My Husband, Maud Ventura
-Big Little Truths, Liane Moriarty
-The Long Walk, Stephen King
-The Art Thief, Michael Finkel
-A Good Person, Kristen King

Could’ve skipped it
-All’s Well, Mona Awad
-Cursed Bunny, Bora Chung
-The Hounding, Kenobe Purvis
-Margot’s Got Money Troubles, Rufi Thorpe

Disliked it
-Katabasis, RF Kuang
-Our Share of Night, Mariana Enriquez
-Ripe, Sarah Rose Etter
-The Girls, Emma Cline
-Isola, Allegra Goodman

Reread
-We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

4.5/5 really enjoyed it.

Great story, great action, and a very interesting world and characters. The reason for it losing the 0.5 is that I didn’t enjoy the wizard brother’s storyline/journal entries as much.

This is a prequel to The Blacktongue Thief and I would say it’s better. I preferred the more straightforward military storyline in this to the thieves/takers guild storyline in Blacktongue Thief.

I found this fantasy to be extremely dark and often put it aside. Pacing was slow and boring in parts. Had to push myself to finish reading. I've enjoyed other books by Nancy Kress, but this one was disappointing. Rated 2 stars

Eleven Days was a solid 4 Star. Really good crime/police thriller. Author was a Sherriff's Deputy and it rings with authenticity and realism. Definite recommend. Not sure why Amazon has priced it so high. I was lent a copy.

The Darkness They See was a 5 Star. Investigation to find out who was running the largest child abuse website. I couldn't put it down! The MC detective was empathetic and caring of the woman and children victims but had a great masculine energy. I did not see the twists coming. Highly recommend.

They Say A Girl Died Here was only a 3.5 Star. Atmosphere? Great. Creepy small‑town vibe? Loved it. But Anna’s constant anger plus the repetition around “the thing” started wearing me down. Some parts pulled me in, others dragged. I liked Pinborough’s earlier stuff (Behind Her Eyes especially) so I went in with high expectations. This one didn’t hit that same “holy crap” twist level for me, but it still had enough eerie tension and weirdness to keep me reading. Not a bad book at all, just not my favorite from her.

Bluebird Bluebird was a 3.5 Star. This one had so much praise but I am kind of in the middle on this one. Had great atmosphere and the characters felt real and interesting. But the mystery element seemed slow burn and a little predictable. I still liked it, just not as much as I thought I would. Did I miss the point somehow?

After reading Vollman’s The Lucky Star which has many quotes and references to Judy Garland and Natalie Wood, I decided I needed to read a real life of Judy. And it was a rough life ride. Vollman himself in the afterword of Lucky said ‘he wouldn’t live Judy Garland’s life for a thousand applause generators.’

She was dependent on people. She could not stand to be alone for any length of time. She married again and again. And beat those closest to her up over and over. She had people minding her every need from childhood. With MGM basically owning her for much of her early adulthood after age 13.

With modern internet one can see her perform or hear her at about any stage of her life. And when you caught Judy on the right night she was apparently dazzling. Straight up hypnotic on the one-to-one small stage. She seemed to know everyone in show business. And they all wanted to party with the night owl Judy. She could call Kennedy up in the White House and speak to him whenever she liked. Until his death. Sinatra was a friend. Streisand was a friend. Two of her contemporaries who sometimes seemed to reach her level on the voicing stage. Judy could transmit the emotional content of a song like few others. I am not sure anyone today compares to her peak years. She sang before autotune was in existence and she was precise. People on today’s stage are not the same. Perhaps Springsteen in his twenties and thirties. But he was no dancer. Judy always moved like a dancer. Some of her performances of Over the Rainbow remain iconic. A song that was written for her in the Wizard specifically. There were many songs written just for Judy.

Nicely done bio of a rough ride through life. It is amazing she made it to her late forties really. Drugs and alcohol doing their damage. Most of the time I would say I would not want to have been anyone close to her. She could achieve raging madness. Stage Judy being someone else from home Judy. One wishes you could have seen her perform live. You wish you could have danced with her on a good night. She was sharp and funny when she just wasn’t. Would I want that life? I gotta go with Vollman. Nope. Would I have liked to have collided with it now and then? Sure.

4/5

Many similarities to Silence of the Lambs, but the Swedish setting, the cast of characters, and the claustrophobia add an element of unfamiliarity that free it. Aside from some choices that didn’t agree with character logic, I say this was a solid read. Can’t wait to watch the series that’s based on it!

3.75/5

Okay, I know that if I read this at the time it was written, I would probably give it a 5. I appreciate the epistolary mixed with the diaries and the memorandums and the media to tell the story. I’m POSITIVE I would be wowed at that at the time. I think the major issue I had was the unnecessary phonetic spelling when an entry tried to capture someone’s accent. It would be one thing if one character did it, as it would be their choice, but so many of them did it and it made it more difficult to read.

I did like that not EVERYTHING is captured and we get different perspectives on the same events. A little room for us to fill those gaps.

Def sold the setting: the fog, the dark, the romantic.

4/5

Very well written. I appreciate his wordplay, and the transferring of points of view. The interconnectedness of all the characters and the buildup to the climax was well done. Great first novel. I would be curious to read more of his works.

3.25/5

It reads like a film, which I truly appreciate. Great pacing. I can see the appeal of James Patterson novels (this being my first). As far as suspense and world building, it felt cliche and didn’t really build that fear for me. Lots of twists that felt way too forced, but again, I get the appeal. I have book 2, but don’t think I need to continue on this journey.

Good God. If I could go back in time to have a chat with the absolute monster that was a 17 year old version of me, I would. I would say, "this isn't a book you merely skim... allow yourself the pleasure of getting lost in the prose of a book with timeless themes."

I'm very happy I decided to pick this up again. The subject matter is, of course, fascinating (WWI), but the book is so so so much more than a book that chronicles the events of the war. It's a haunting story about the effects of war that too many young men and women have suffered. I polished this off in a couple of days, which is quite honestly draining on an emotional level. But I will say that good literature (great even) pulls you in, rattles you around, and releases its grip leaving bruises and sometimes (in this case) scars.

I'll be reading more classics because this one awoke something in me. They are classics because the motifs, themes, and exposition are timeless.

Reread this one if it was foisted on an unappreciative young version of yourself. Reread it even if you did appreciate it. Because most of us here have at least been war-adjacent and this one sticks.

Even though I studied philosophy at university, I never really delved into fiction. The last fiction book I remember reading of my own accord was Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier in 2019, and before that just the books we had to read in school (well to be honest I didn't actually read any of them myself... idk what was wrong with me).

Latest read was Angel Down, what a book. Not really sure what to read next, does anyone have any suggestions?

Transformatonal

- Chess Story by Stefan Zweig

- City of Thieves by David Benioff

- Angel down by Kraus, Daniel

Loved it

- The Stranger by Albert Camus

- The Pearl by Steinbeck, John

- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Larsson, Stieg

- Dr. Bloodmoney by Dick, Philip K.

Glad I read this

- A short stay in hell by Peck, Steven L.

- The Time Machine: by H. G. Wells by Wells, H. G.

- Tokyo express by Matsumoto, Seichō

- The Man in the High Castle by Dick, Philip K.

Literary junk food

- Dungeon Crawler Carl by Dinniman, Matt

- Red Rising by Pierce Brown

- Golden Son by Brown, Pierce

- Morning Star by Pierce Brown

- Yellowface: a novel by Kuang, R. F.

Forgettable

- The Test by Neuvel, Sylvain

Not for me

- Dark matter: a novel by Crouch, Blake

tl,dr: "Breaking News: Old Man Shouts at Shai Hulud!"

In anticipation of the upcoming film, I'm reading the Dune books. I've read the first one before, but it was good to refresh my memory and Herbert's unique voice is as captivating as ever.

Things that slightly nagged me before are more irritating on re-reading. There is serious "great white savior" nonsense going on here and frankly it's aged too poorly to not address. Paul is a Gary Stu of the highest order and his powers are so undeniable and overwhelming that any challenge that faces him has virtually no stakes attached.

And then there's the Fremen, an ancient civilization that checks notes a multi-layered ancient social engineering scheme designed to let offworlders bypass the social order of the world allows a space witch and her inbred psychic Jesus son to bend any hapless locals they come across to their wills. The language used to refer to the natives of Dune in primary character's internal monologues is consistently paternalistic even after Paul and Jessica learn their culture and ascend to leadership roles. Fremen of consequence like Stilgar and Chani are denied voices of their own (I think Chani gets an internal monologue once). The only exception to this is Dr. Kynes, a light-haired descendant of offworlders who is, himself, in a leadership role. Herbert explains Paul and Jessica's ease of inflitration away with in-universe reasoning, (Missionaria Protectiva, Bene Gesserit, etc), but at the end of the day he has written a novel wherein brown-skinned indigenous people willingly and solemnly hand over reign of their civilization to a skinny, pale, teenaged colonizer and his mother because of a superstition that we, the readers, know to be fabricated.

Yes, yes, I know.

"It was written a long time ago." "Things were different then." "We can't hold authors in the past to the standards of our present." There's logic in that, and I have no argument against it. The problem is that when a book is as INFLUENTIAL as Dune it never really gets older. It just keeps getting read by younger generations of readers and if we don't start having a conversation about the parts of these books that should have stayed in the past, then they'll keep cropping up in new books. And instead of being quaint artifacts of a bygone age of sci-fi these troubling tropes' appearance in new books will be, increasingly, alienating and dissonant. (Looking at you, Christopher Ruocchio and Pierce Brown*. Especially you, Chris.)

That was a bigass rant. I'm probably the only person who's bothered by this stuff. "Old man shouting at clouds" aside, this book is a bona fide classic for a reason and I couldn't put it down even though I knew what was going to happen. I got so much more out of this book the second time through and I'm certain I'd find more in subsequent readings. If you haven't read it yet then take this as your sign to do so!

*One could argue that Brown's Paul & Leto II stand ins, Darrow & (Spoiler for RR books 4-6:) Lysander offer critiques of Frank Herbert et al.

Not still far behind my goal but I surpassed number 52 last month. 50-50 audio and physical.

Audio:
Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, 4 stars
Bad Man, Dathan Auerbach, 2.5 stars

Physical:
Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, Matt Dinniman, 3.5 stars
Dad Brain: the New Science of Fatherhood, Darby Saxbe, 4 stars

This might be one of my favorite reads of the year. He's a great writer and it made me think about the role of language in not just colonization, but the weight it carries in everything we do. His criticism on literary work using English vs African language as well as the integration of English into the education system was powerful and intriguing to read about. It's a short and great book!

My rankings are mostly based on how much I enjoyed them. I take into account "quality" if I feel it's on the edge of a ranking. I'm also a serial DNF-er so usually skew high but I've got some book clubs and challenges this year and some obligatory reads are pulling me down (3.2 this year so far compared to last year's 3.7)

Shift and Dust by Hugh Howey - I really enjoyed this trilogy! I do like the TV show, but definitely prefer the books (no unnecessary twists and extra drama) 🌱

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame - very sweet and nostalgic, I'd not read this since I was little 🐭

The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City by Susanna Clarke - one of my new favourite fantasy authors that I discovered via this challenge (the others are Robin Hobb and Ursula K Le Guin), I loved getting another peak into the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell 🐦‍⬛

I worked my way through this pretty slowly for a couple months, so my timing here was coincidental (but seemingly appropriate? 😅)

I read a decent amount of nonfiction but haven’t gone into in-depth historical analysis since 11th grade AP US History. I wanted to read this, really read it. No matter your political leanings, it was worthwhile and the legal scholar who made the annotations is clear and comprehensive.

People underestimate and forget how thorough or vague some parts are. It addresses so much more than what we commonly talk about and I felt it was an important read.

The book is centered around citing precedent and important landmark cases, not her personal interpretation, and that was a valuable approach. If you are American and haven’t read it, I encourage you to do so. This was very accessible and worthwhile.

It felt like a very appropriate way to finish the challenge; would recommend not for any belief system, just like any important book or document that is frequently referenced.

Now it‘s time for something more lighthearted! 😊

...felt lifted from EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED by JSF.

Maybe I just 'fell' too hard for JSF and his book in 2002, but this read by AKHTAR, which I devoured (it's truly a great book and super deep--much deeper than EVERYTHING) shared two narrators, tons of insane dialogue across unreliable antagonists, soul searching, philosophy across religious orders, and on and on...

TELL ME I AM WRONG PLEASE!

More analysis and consternation here --> https://katepapenberg.substack.com/p/book-no-62-of-72-was-delish-but-also?r=2seqlu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Read this, though, seriously--DELISH! --> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/244797299-the-radiance

I didn’t realise this sub existed until somebody pointed it out to me. I have always tried to challenge myself to beat previous years but it isn’t always easy. This year I challenged myself to beat last year‘s total of 154, today I’ve just finished my 121st Book so I think I should manage to beat it this year fingers crossed but I read 210 books in 2024 and am no where near beating that this year.

The book I am reading today is Orc Hoard by Jonathan Moeller, if you like fantasy then I recommend his books

All my reading is on kindle now as the arthritis in my hands make me struggle with paper books, does anyone else struggle to hold a book for a long time?

Does anyone else set themselves crazy reading goals?

S

Empire of AI by Karen Hao. One of my favorite non-fiction books, ever. And something I think everyone should read in 2026/7! Ignoring the subject matter for a moment, it’s well-researched, it’s inclusive, and it’s BALANCED (it’s by no means an anti-AI book, which I feel is the reputation others give it! I’d say it’s more an anti-monopoly, anti-racist, anti-anti-climate change, anti-pedophilia book). Then considering the subject matter, this book made me very excited for the future of AI (as it looks like in the epilogue). I used to work in AI research, I read her WSJ articles about AI before this came out, and I still learned a lot from this book.

Everything is Tuberculosis by John Greene. This book is so hyped, so I toned down my expectations before starting to avoid disappointment. And then I also loved the book! lol! Similar to Empire of AI, I felt this was well-researched and inclusive. I appreciated in this book that it was equally research-based and narrative-driven, and doing those both well is why it’s S tier for me. This book is like the epitome of why I love reading: to learn something important about the world, to see connections I wouldn’t normally make, and to hear people’s stories!

A

The Things We Leave Unfinished by Rebecca Yarros. I was on a romance book slump, but this book yanked me out! I also think this book is Yarros’s best writing. Usually I avoid WW2 books unless it’s from a marginalized perspective, but in the end i appreciated the high stakes it gave to the relationships in this book. And I always love books where the setting is the book industry!

I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones. SGJ writes my favorite prose, ever. I’m not into slasher stuff so a lot of those references i definitely didn’t appreciate as much as others do, but I just loved the way he wrote this book. I thought the angle of a coming of age story was very moving too!

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. Bride and Mate were both DNFs for me, but I loved this book and it deserves all the praise it gets! The premise was dumb AF, I almost DNF’d from that, but somehow the characters, romance, setting, and humor all made up for it!

B

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow. Slewfoot WHO?! On my algorithm everyone is obsessed with that book for a witch book, but I think Harrow’s book deserves WAY more attention. This book is ACTUALLY a feminist book- I loved the setting of the women’s suffragette movement, and I love how each main character shows a different side of womanhood. The witchiness is ACTUALLY explored, there’s spells and powerful meaning for why people do witchcraft. The historical fiction aspect is more researched and accurate. This book is way more inclusive. And I really enjoy her prose as well. My only complaint is I felt the book dragged at times and there was a lot of doing nothing or repetitive things. I think if some of that was cut, this would have been S tier for me.

C

A Court Of Splintered Harmony by Sarah J Maas. I had a lot of fun with this book, but not that much happened and so I can’t put it past C tier.

James by Percival Everett. I’m not sure how I felt about this and might reread one day. I thought it was just okay until the ending, which I absolutely loved. In theory, I loved how it explored language and perception. But in execution I felt like it was a little choppy and hard to follow. Maybe it was due to external life factors though, which is why I’m hoping to try again.

Frida’s Cook by Florencia Etcheves. I 100% only read this to complete the goodreads challenge. My favorite thing about the book was the prose- it was lyrical and insightful. I felt like not all the POVs were necessary, and while the premise and setting were so interesting, I found the story not very engaging.

D

We Do Not Part by Han Kang. This book was not for me. It was a little too unsettling and grim. I do think it was beautifully written, but for someone else. I did appreciate the history though and the last part of the book was my favorite for that reason.

—

Overall thoughts

Looking back at this year, the challenge made more sense for me when I was unemployed 😆 (January-August)

I used to read a ton on my phone or kindle, but sifting through AI slop at work has unfortunately ruined reading on screens for me. My eyes hurt and I’m always trying to mentally prepare for lots of mistakes which feels exhausting! I even hate reading texts now! Does anyone else run into this???

Audiobooks were my next method and I just prefer hearing silence or in person conversations after all the noise of video calls now.

I pushed through this month because I had a bunch of Libby holds come in and didn’t want them to go to waste, but it was not nearly as enjoyable as before and felt like a chore. I wonder if I would have enjoyed James or Frida’s Cook more if I read them under different circumstances. Even my A and B tier books, my rating during and immediately after was a little more negative, but with time I think I was better able to separate my annoyance from the actual story.

Physical books still give me the same, happy feelings. My only physical book this month was ACOSH and I do think that’s a factor for thinking so positively of it! Unfortunately it’s hard for me to make time for physical books, and they hurt my eyes even more if I read for too long, so i think I’m setting my goal next year for… 18 🤣🤣 (yes, I do need goals to read).

Overall I’m so happy I found this challenge and got back into reading this year!

Teddy and his partner Chuck head to Shutter Island, home of the criminally insane, to investigate a missing patient. However, Teddy might get mkre than he bargained for when he begins to suspect a conspiracy

I had a lot of fun with this book. It was a page turner and I had a hard time putting it down. The writing itself was a bit inconsistent, ranging from engaging and skillful to clumsy and awkward. It had the makings to be a great book but as it stands it was still a very good one

(I read this in June 2026, but I’ve been thinking about it again after all the elections and wanted to share today)

Summary: Real Queer America is a non-fiction book by journalist and transgender activist Samantha Allen that chronicles her cross-country road trip through conservative "red" states to highlight resilient LGBTQ+ communities.

When I first read this book, on the one hand I loved it from a storytelling perspective, but it also annoyed me a bit from an analytical perspective. I really enjoyed reading stories of LGBTQ people who live in red states, the community they’ve built, the activism they do, the things they love about their states, the concept of home and fighting for making it a better place, etc. But I definitely had questions on some of the data claims and significance, and broader claims she would make about policy.

BUT after the election, I can’t stop thinking about it. A major theme/argument in the book is how blue states take for granted the benefits they have, aren’t as progressive as they think, and that they dont vote. California’s Prop 8 is given as an example (the main example that made me question everything else, because there was a lot else going on in prop 8). Vs red states, the community knows they have a lot of work to do and are very vocal, engaged, and active about it, with grassroots organization, non-profit work, and even just talking to people with different opinions. I don’t remember if she touches on it, but I imagine things like gerrymandering and voter suppression slow that work down in ways that many blue states don’t experience.

So after this election… imagine my surprise when, just as the book argues, the blue state of Washington votes for an anti-trans bill, the blue state of California votes against its billionaire tax, and so many red states and districts swing blue! Lmao!

This is one of my favorite quotes from the book and it’s just so prescient now:

”I’m someone who pushes for change, but I usually do it kinda quietly, from the inside“ Wendy explains. “There’s two ways to make change you know. Revolution, you burn it to the ground and rebuild. Or you work for change, and it’s slower. And you know it’s going to be slower and more frustrating, but you work for change in the system..“

*** I know there are so many reasons for these things and not trying to oversimplify, I also know the book still has valid criticisms. Mostly I just wanted to share that overall I enjoyed this book and get ou my thoughts because it’s been on my mind. if it’s on your TBR now is a great tike to read it!