2025 is in the books

I used to be a great reader. 

As a kid, I read a book a day. Six was the maximum number of books you could take out of the Worcester Public Library (Main South Branch), where my father took us every Friday evening to check out our books for the week. He would have my mother's library card with him, so he could take out a dozen books. 

What we all got from the library was augmented by book clubs. For the kids, my family subscribed to Vision Books (a series about saints and other renowned Catholics) and some American history series. When I had fifty-cents, I beelined to Woolworth's and picked up a Bobbsey Twins book or, as my reading tastes became more sophisticated, a Nancy Drew. 

My parents were "members" at various times of the Book of the Month Club, the Literary Guild, and the high-quality paperbacks The Time-Life Reading Program (which I think was a bit up the literary foodchain from the Literary Guild.) I still have a couple of books from The Reading Program, including a 1964 re-issues  A.B. Guthrie's The Big Sky, in which my mother has written my father's name, A.T. Rogers. I think I'll put it on my reading list for 2026.

There was also, if memory serves, and Ellery Queen mystery book club. And the Reader's Digest Condensed Books.

By the time I was in junior high, I was reading those book club books (other than Ellery Queen) alongside the books I was reading for school.

Throughout my adult life, I'm guessing that I averaged 2-3 books (plus or minus, mostly plus) a week. We're not talking War and Peace here, but literary fiction, not-so-literary fiction, biography, history, mysteries, detective books (just not Ellery Queen), and on occasion pure, unadulterated junk. 

But within the last decade or so, my reading tapered off. I was spending more time watching (and fretting over) the news. I was perfectly capable of watching 8 straight hours of MSNBC, with the same stories presented over and over again from slightly different angles. Then I found myself doomscrolling on Twitter (and more recently Blue Sky).

Last year, I decided to start reading more and set a goal of a book a week. I made it, thanks in no small part to reading my favorite childhood books, the Betsy-Tacy-Tib series, which chronicled the turn-of-the-twentieth-century lives of three girls in Mankato, Minnesota, taking them from kindergarten through marriage and motherhood. Wonderful books, all, but easy enough to plow through in a sitting or two. No wonder I could read seven books a week as a kid!

For 2025, I doubled my goal to two books a week. And I made it.

Oh, I had a couple of gimmes in there, mini-books that took less than an hour - way less - to breeze through: On Tyranny (Timothy Snyder), A Child's Christmas in Wales (Dylan Thomas). But they were counterbalanced by a 700 page biography of the British writer Barbara Pym. (An old favorite. I think I'll reread her this coming year.)

Mostly, I read fiction.

Last year, I read books by writers I like but had lost track of, in including the three Paula Spencer novels by Roddy Doyle, which brilliantly chronicle the life of a working-class Dubliner. A couple of books by Curtis Sittenfeld (Show Don't Tell, Romantic Comedy), a couple by Jhumpa Lahiri (Unaccustomed Earth, Whereabouts). And a John Sayles (To Save the Man). Having loved Demon Copperhead, I picked up another novel by Barbara Kingsolver (Unsheltered). I reread Tillie Olsen (Yonnondio, Tell Me A Riddle). I'd forgotten how much I had enjoyed Anne Tyler, once she outgrew her quirky-character phase (Three Days in June, French Braid). I, of course, laughed out loud reading Fever Beach (Carl Hiassen). 

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Thanks to the Boston Public Library, I found a bunch of new writers. No one too memorable, but I'll be looking for more by Christine Sneed, Joshua Moehling, and a couple of others.

On the non-fiction front, I depressed/scared myself with Sarah Kendzior's The Last American Road Trip, Rachel Maddow's Prequel, and Brian Goldstone's There Is No Place for Us.

On the non-depressing, non-scary non-fiction front, I adored Stanley Tucci's Taste, about how he grew up to be a foodie. (I mad crush on Tucci, so I knew I was going to love this one.)

I went through my bookshelves to pick out books I've had waiting to be read for years. Some for decades. 

Thus I discovered Carlos Eire's brilliant memoir, Waiting for Snow in Havana, and went out and got its follow on, Learning to Die in Miami. 

I finally got around to reading Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, and Killers of the Flower Moon (David Gann). I've seen the Killers movie (didn't like it), but I'll be putting Crawdads on my watch list. 

By far the worst book I read last year was Robin Cook's Bellevue. Poorly written. Ridiculous plot. Wasn't a big Cook fan to begin with, but I had it lying around for some reason. Never again!

I'm signing myself up for another two-book-a-week year, starting out with The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny (Kiran Desai) and The River Is Waiting (Wally Lamb). Slow going so far, as I had a raft of New Yorkers to catch up on. However slow a start, in 2026 I will get to 104 books again, even if I have to find a couple of minis in there.