What I’m reading… 2025

I had an incredible year in booklandia, reading nearly 200 books. Of course, 60 of those were read during my Asian sojourn, and many of those were of the “lighter reading” variety. I happily binged my way through several of the Horatio Alger series, for instance – 19^th century views of American life that are unapologetically popcorn reading. If you’re curious, they’re freely available on Project Gutenberg (which is available to you even if you happen to be in China, by the way!): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/168

But alongside the binges were books that built world, wonderful worlds. These books have stayed with me as rooms in my mental house. Even thinking back on them now floods me with bits and pieces of their stories and revitalizes the characters that inhabit them.

Hao Jingfang, Vagabonds

A group of young people had been sent from Mars to Earth as a special delegation. Can you ever come home from a strange place again? I picked up this novel partly because I was heading to China, and partly because the idea of being an outsider in one’s “own” place feels profoundly 21^st-century. This book spoke to me, and I lingered over its intricate story.

Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (and the rest of the Wayfarers series)

It’s hard for me to articulate just how much fun this series is. Multi-species crew on a tunnel ship with an AI character – no, not that kind of AI, think sort of “Ship’s Doctor” from Star Trek, or perhaps even Data – legitimately a character. Each character is flawed; each is trying; each wants to connect. And really, isn’t that what it means to live fully? Go ahead, buy the whole series. It’s joyful, generous, and deeply humane science fiction. Much fun!

1. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
2. A Closed and Common Orbit
3. Record of a Spaceborn Few
4. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

KJ Parker, Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City

Okay, I’m a sucker for the historically quasi-plausible and quasi-invented riproaringly good tale. Tom Holt’s Who’s Afraid of Beowulf was worth the re-read, as were the first 9 of the Lindsey Davis Roman mysteries with Flavia Albia (which were a significant part of my China reading), and the eight short novellas by Alex Zudor in his Agent Strabo mystery series.*

But for witty sarcasm and an engaging glimpse into Roman engineering, Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City was a gobble-me-up. (KJ Parker is actually a Tom Holt pseudonym; I’m not sure why he needed one, but, well, marketing is a mystery, eh?). In this tale of city siege, I loved not loving the main character! Orhan is grumpy, opinionated, loud-mouthed, rebellious, creative, crafty, and someone I wouldn’t want to *be* but I’d certainly like to *know.* We get the story from his perspective, snark and all. It’s fast-moving, and yet also full of very human moments. Read it!

Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

I fell for these books thanks to my library app. Yes, and again yes. I read them in publication order but it doesn’t really matter. The premise remains the same: What if you could go back in time? But there are rules. Nothing you can do in the past will change the present. You can’t move from your seat. You can only visit people who have been to the cafe. And you must return before the coffee gets cold.

These lyrical invocations of human connections and missed connections revisited are heart-wrenching mini-worlds, each chapter a glimpse into a relationship that comes to life for the reader. It’s not that you won’t tear up; it’s that the tears have a purpose.

1. Before the Coffee Gets Cold
2. Tales From the Cafe
3. Before Your Memory Fades
4. Before We Forget Kindness
5. Before We Say Goodbye

Of course, there were work books and drive-to-work books and read-on-the-train books and too-tired-for-TV books. And so, so many were amazing reads. But in terms of world that are now part of my world, these four stand apart.

Happy reading to you all!

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*The Zudor collection

Special bonus, since they aren’t widely known: Alex A. Zudor, Vox Populi: An Agent Strabo Mystery Novella

These fit the theme of the unrepentant and unredeemable character, as we first meet Agent Strabo at a personal low: cashiered out of the Roman Army, and deciding if there’s any remaining reason to live. He gets hooked into an investigation, and the story takes off. These are great airplane reading – I read two on my flight to Nepal. They are short and have relatively simple plotlines, which is part of their appeal. They aren’t world-building in the way the other series are, but they are a yummy distraction, well-suited for the time waiting for the food cart to roll down the aisle.

1. Vox Populi: An Agent Strabo Mystery Novella
2. Si Tacuisses: An Agent Strabo Mystery Novella
3. Mala Parta: An Agent Strabo Mystery Novella
4. Quis Custodiet: An Agent Strabo Mystery Novella
5. Non Omnia: An Agent Strabo Mystery Novella
6. In Vino Veritas: An Agent Strabo Mystery Novella
7. Acta Est Fabula: An Agent Strabo Mystery Novella
8. Et Tu, Bruta?: An Agent Strabo Mystery Novella

...so many good books, so little time!...