- The Republic of Pirates – Colin Woodard
- The Practicing Stoic – Ward Farnsworth
- The Fissure King – Rachel Pollack
- Backflash – Richard Stark
- A Walk on the Wild Side – Nelson Algren
- Ten Restaurants That Changed America – Paul Freedman
- Hitman – Howie Carr
- David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
- Murder on the Orient Elite – Larry Correla
- When You Finish Saving the World – Jesse Eisenberg
Monthly Archives: December 2025
Books to Read- December 2025
Filed under Books, Uncategorized
Books Read – December 2025
Fiction:
Nobody Move – Denis Johnson
What Feasts at Night – T Kingfisher
Nothing but Blackened Teeth – Cassandra Khaw
Non-Fiction:
Hunting Buffalo with Bent Nails – Lawrence Block
The Gap and the Gain – Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy
Peace is Every Step – Thich Nhat Hanh
Better Than Before- Gretchen Rubin
Graphic Novels:
Rivers of London: Night Witch – Ben Aaronovitch & Andrew Cartmel
Filed under Books
Quote of the Week – December 26, 2025
“Friendship is a sheltering tree.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Filed under Quote
Quote of the Week – December 19, 2025
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Maya Angelou
Filed under Quote
Quote of the Week – December 12, 2025
“Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Filed under Quote
#HRCYED Progress Update
It’s been five months since I started working on the Hardest Reading Challenge You’ll Ever Do (HERCYED) 2.0.
While I’ve been putting up reading lists for each prompt, I might not always read exactly as planned. Part of the challenge for myself is trying to do as many of these prompts as possible using the books that I already have on hand. This is my round up of what progress I’ve made so far:
Completed Prompt: Subgenres of Choice (in August)
Completed Prompt: 24 Hour Readathon (in September)
Completed Prompt: Non-Fiction (in October – Traded out Thick for Why I Hate Everything by Maggie Weber)
In Progress:
- By the Hundreds: 4/7
- Series Staircase: 6/10
- The Last 10 Years: 3/10 or 11 if you want to earn +5 points
- Adaptations: 7/8
- Around the World: 3/7
- Spooky Creatures: 3/8
- Become the Avatar: 1/4
- Animals: 3/5
- Queer Alphabet: 2/9
- BIPOC Authors: 3/10
- New Releases: 4/12
- Challenge Yourself: 3/??
- Readathon Challenge: 4/25
- Make a Quote: 0/6
- The Even Bigger Rainbow: 7/13 (6 replaceable)
- Translation Challenge: 1/5 (All replaceable)
- Heritage Months: 2/12
- Disability Challenge: 0/5
- TBR Game Challenge: 0/6
- Award Season: 1/7
- HRCYED 1: 3/3 (All replaceable)
I’m still very much enjoying this. It’s forced me to actually read some of the stacks of books that are in the house. And I’ve been putting off finishing some series for years now. Over 14 years in one case. As of November, there was only one book left to read and it’s part of the series staircase, so it’ll be done during this reading challenge. I’ve discovered at least one new favorite author. And I know now that I was missing a whole bunch of books from another author because they were only released in England. (I got them via eBay. Yes, that costs. And no, I don’t want to think about what I’ve spent on books over the years. The library says that I’ve saved over 3K by taking books out from the library this year as opposed to buying them. That’s sort of terrifying.
Anyway, if you’d like to learn more about HRCYED, and join the madness, you can find the announcement here:
Filed under Uncategorized
BitterSuites 