Tagged "books"

I had a fun time taking on the What’s in a Name? 2025 Challenge, so let’s run it back! The challenge is once again being hosted by Andrea at Carolina Book Nook and runs from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2026.

I found this fun end of year reading survey from Perpetual Page Turner and thought I’d fill it out. Here we go!

2025 was a year like any other. I’m terrible at writing these retrospectives, hence why it’s already February and I’m just now publishing it. Which is worse, posting a year in review in two a month after the year starts, or sending out the yearly wrapped/recap/some-other-fancy-name two months before the year even ends? I’m looking at you, Spotify, YouTube, Netflix, etc. etc. etc. How can you possibly know who my top artists of the year are going to be if you stop counting in November? A lot can change in those final two months; I first listened to the song that would eventually become my most listened of the year on October 9th! Kudos to Last.fm for being the only service that waited until January to release their playback. Rant over, let’s break down some numbers.

I enjoy a good book challenge but some of them are just too daunting (I’m looking at you, r/fantasy). Fortunately this year I found the What’s in a Name Challenge, where each book title must contain the prompt. The challenge is hosted by Andrea at Carolina Book Nook and runs from January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025.

A gorgeously constructed article about the history of science fiction in India.

Jonathan Snook opened his 2024 recap post musing, Sometimes I wonder if doing these recap posts at this point are masturbatory. It’s a great opening and the statement is not without truth. His recaps are a bit more introspective than mine, where I just compile my consumption habits for the previous year, and who else is really interested in that besides me? I still find the exercise fun, so let’s take a look back at what I read, listened to, and watched in 2024.

Every year, the r/Fantasy subreddit issues a challenge: complete a bingo card filled with various science fiction and fantasy topics on it. As you can see, the topics are varied, but that’s the point.

The core of this challenge is encouraging readers to step out of their comfort zones, discover amazing new reads, and motivate everyone to keep up on their reading throughout the year.

The bingo period lasted from April 1st 2023 to March 31st 2024. I learned about the challenge around August, and decided to give it a shot even though I was getting a late start. I read a lot of SFF anyway, so I was sure that I already had some books that qualified. I thought I would complete the card fairly easily, but I couldn’t have been more wrong! As you’ll see below, I fell a few squares short. Finding qualifying books that were available at my library and met my own personal reading criteria was difficult. I ended up reading books hoping that I’d be able to fit into a square later. While I’m glad I took on the challenge, this made my overall experience unsatisfying.

It’s been far too long since I’ve done a personal year in review. Let’s take a look back at what I read, listened to, and watched in 2023.

I don’t read enough books written by women. Since I started keeping track of what I read, only 33% of the 180 different authors I’ve read are women. That’s a problem. I’ll be making a more concerted effort to read books by women from now on, starting with Women’s History Month, where I read books exclusively by women. Here’s what I read along with some of my favorite passages from each book.

Continuing the tradition I started last year, I celebrated Black History Month by reading black authors. Here are those books I read along with some of my favorite passages from them.

2020 was quite a year, wasn’t it? Last year’s roller coaster both thrilled and nauseated me, and at different times made me happy, sad, depressed, confused, excited, fulfilled, overjoyed, and despaired. Is that enough adjectives? Those will have to do, because 2020 brought on so many different emotions that my vocabulary is not large enough to describe it.

Reading is one of my favorite pastimes, and the pandemic hasn’t stopped my appetite for books. I have, however, steered clear of anything dystopian or post-apocalyptic, because who wants to read about that at a time like this! Instead, I’ve taken in the rare historical fiction novel along with the usual sci-fi and mystery/thriller books. Here are the latest books I’ve read and some selected highlights from them.

I decided to celebrate this Black History Month by reading only black authors. I even managed to mix in some non-fiction, a rarity for me. I thought it’d be fun to share my reading list along with my highlighted passages.

Kobe Bean Bryant. August 23, 1978 - January 26, 2020. My mind has been all over the place since Kobe’s tragic death. I’ve been thinking about mortality, fatherhood, legacy, basketball, grief, depression, happiness, forgiveness, appreciation, family, friendship…as I said, all over the place.

2019 was quite a year of reading for me. I easily completed my Goodreads Reading Challenge by reading 34 books, which beat my previous record of 33 books in 2018.

As the decade draws to a close, I thought I’d make a list of some of my favorite books, albums, and movies released or published in the 2010s. For when the dog bites. And the bee stings. In no particular order:

Barack Obama shared his summer reading list (see below), and he’s inspired me to share mine. Here are the books I’ve read so far this summer:

Once again I completed Goodreads Reading Challenge. My goal for 2018 was 15 books, and I read 33! A total of 11,211 pages. I’ve done the challenge for the last five years and have completed my goal each year. I think it’s time I raise the bar for 2019!