Charon07 sees what’s in the cards for 2025

Greetings! I’m Charon07, a retired CPA from central Illinois. This is my second year of the Category Challenge, and I think I’ve gone overboard a little. I’ve been thinking about potential categories too long and come up with too many, so that even after culling, I’ll probably aim for reading just 2 or 3 from most categories. Plus I’m going to try the ColorCAT, the ScaredyKIT, the NatureKIT, the BingoDOG, and maybe even the CoverCAT if I can squeeze it in.

These are my categories for the year:

For the TBR group:
📚 TBR print & ebooks (6)
🔊 TBR audio (6)

Series & authors:
🥁 Louise Erdrich (focus on the Love Medicine books, 9)
🐦‍⬛ Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy (3)
🐺 Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall Trilogy (3)
🐎 Suzy McKee Charnas’ Holdfast Chronicles (4)

Other categories:
📎 On-hold books (ones I’ve started but not finished, 2-3)
👵🏽 Growing old (2-3)
🇧🇷 Lusophone literature (2-3)
🪆 Baba Yaga (2-3)
📆 2024 Category Challenge potential books I didn’t get around to (2-3)
🪽 Poetry (2-3)
🌍 African authors (2-3)
🐓 Tournament of Books (2-3)
🏔️ Daunting (difficult, dense, depressing, dangerously thick, 2)

CATs, KITs, & DOG:
🌈 ColorCAT (12)
💀 ScaredyKit (12)
🌿 NatureKIT (12)
🐶 BingoDog (25)
🖼️ CoverCAT (?)

📚 TBR print & ebooks

• Pothos by Rosa Campbell ★ ★ ★ 1/2
  
• The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
  
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas ★ ★ ★ ★

🔊 TBR audiobooks

• The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• Ammonite by Nicola Griffith ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe by Carl Safina ★ ★
  
• The Fisherman by John Langan ★ ★ ★
  
• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• The Fireman by Joe Hill ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🥁 Louise Erdrich

• The Night Watchman ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• The Mighty Red ★ ★ ★ ★

Series

🐦‍⬛ MaddAdam

• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🐺 Wolf Hall

• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
  
• Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🐎 Motherlines

Other categories

📎 On-hold books

• Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney ★ ★ ★ ★

👵🏽 Growing old

• The Summer Book by Tove Jansson ★ ★ ★ 1/2
  
• The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
  
• Two Old Women by Velma Wallis ★ ★ ★ ★

🇧🇷 Lusophone literature

• The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• We All Loved Cowboys by Carol Bensimon ★ ★ ★ ★

🪆 Baba Yaga

• Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott ★ ★ ★ 1/2

📆 2024 Cat Callenge potential books I didn’t get around to

• The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• Ammonite by Nicola Griffith ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• Perdido Street Station by China Miéville ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
  
• The Actual Star by Monica Byrne ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones ★ ★ ★ ★
  
• Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart by GennaRose Nethercott ★ ★ ★ ★
• The Seep by Chana Porter ★ ★ ★
  
• We All Loved Cowboys by Carol Bensimon ★ ★ ★ ★

🪽 Poetry

• Incarnadine by Mary Szybist ★ ★ ★
  
• Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney ★ ★ ★ ★

🌍 African authors

• White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🐓 Tournament of Books

• The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
  
• Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
  
• The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
  
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
  
• Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🏔️ Daunting (difficult, dense, depressing, dangerously thick)

• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (daunting due to its length, but also its subject matter, since history is not my favorite) ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
  
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas ★ ★ ★ ★

🌈 ColorCAT

January: Green
Pothos by Rosa Campbell ★ ★ ★ 1/2

February: Gold
The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard ★ ★ ★ 1/2

March: Pink
Attrib. and Other Stories by Eley Williams ★ ★ ★ ★

April: Brown
The Arrival by Shaun Tan ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

May: Red
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich ★ ★ ★ ★

June: Yellow
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell ★ ★ ★ ★
Adverbs by Daniel Handler ★ ★ ★ ★

July: White
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones ★ ★ ★ 1/2

August: Gray
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher ★ ★ ★ 1/2

September: Silver
Kittentits by Holly Wilson ★ ★ ★ ★
Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney ★ ★ ★ ★

💀 ScaredyKIT

January: Diverse Perspectives
White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

February: Haunted Houses & Haunted Locations
The Grip of It by Jac Jemc ★ ★

March: Real-Life Monsters
The Long Drop by Denise Mina ★ ★ ★ 1/2

April: Spiders, Insects, and Reptilia
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

May: Out in the Wild
The Fisherman by John Langan ★ ★ ★
The Willows by Algernon Blackwood ★ ★ ★ ★

June: Graphic Novels
Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath ★ ★
A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll ★ ★ ★ 1/2

July: Ghosts
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters ★ ★ ★ ★

August: Female Authors
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher ★ ★ ★ 1/2

September: Stephen King and Family
The Fireman by Joe Hill ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🌿 NatureKIT

January: Sheep & Shepherding
Sheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep, and Enough Wool to Save the Planet by Catherine Friend ★ ★ ★

February: Forests, Farms & Grasslands
PrairyErth (A Deep Map) by William Least Heat-Moon ★ ★ ★ ★

March: Landscapes
The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd ★ ★ ★ ★

April: Flying Creatures
Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe by Carl Safina ★ ★

May: Plants, fungi, etc.
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake
★ ★ ★ ★

June: Oceans & Rivers
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith ★ ★ ★ 1/2

July: Inner Lives of Animals
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal ★ ★ ★ 1/2

August: Weather and Climate
The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

September: Urban Nature
The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl ★ ★ ★ ★

🐶 BingoDog



1. The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard ★ ★ ★ 1/2
2. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa ★ ★ ★ 1/2
3. Down a Dark River by Karen Odden ★ ★ ★ 1/2
4. The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor ★ 1/2
5. Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle ★ ★ ★ ★
6. Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle ★ ★ ★ 1/2
7. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green ★ ★ ★ ★
9. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson ★ ★ ★ 1/2
10. Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
11. The September House by Carissa Orlando ★ ★ ★ 1/2
12. The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey ★ ★ ★
13. White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi (January ScaredyKIT) ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
14. Sheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep, and Enough Wool to Save the Planet by Catherine Friend ★ ★ ★
15. Cascade Failure by L. M. Sagas ★ ★
17. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas ★ ★ ★ ★
18. Reykjavík by Ragnar Jónasson and Katrín Jakobsdóttir ★ 1/2
21. Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter ★ ★ 1/2
22. Three Apples Fell from the Sky by Narine Abgaryan ★ ★ 1/2
23. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
24. The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🖼️ CoverCAT

January: Let's Have a Tea Party
Cackle by Rachel Harrison ★ ★ 1/2

February: A Tree on the Cover
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

March: Farm Animals on the Cover
Three Apples Fell from the Sky by Narine Abgaryan ★ ★ 1/2

April: A Road on the Cover
Suppose a Sentence by Brian Dillon ★ ★ ★

May: More Than One Element on the Cover
Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

June: Something with Wheels on the Cover
Adverbs by Daniel Handler ★ ★ ★ ★

July: Fruit on Cover
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

August: Photography
Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming ★ ★ ★ 1/2

September: Cats and/or dogs on cover
Kittentits by Holly Wilson ★ ★ ★ ★

All in all, the cards predict a very busy year of reading!

Great to see you set up and ready! I, too, fear that I have gone overboard with my planning this year - but as we all know plans are made to be broken!

Good luck and happy reading!

I am loving the tarot cards

>6 Charon07: Daunting (difficult, dense, depressing, dangerously thick) is a great category! Happy reading in 2025.

Beautiful set up! And a clever use of cards!

>13 DeltaQueen50: >14 majkia: >15 lowelibrary: >16 pamelad: >17 VivienneR: Thanks for stopping by!

>13 DeltaQueen50: I guess I’ll see if I can keep up with all these categories, but I really couldn’t find any more that I could part with! Maybe the daunting ones, but I figure if I can’t read at least one or two over the course of a year, I should just take them off my TBR altogether, and I don’t want to do that either.

Great set-up, and I’m curious to see what will go into the daunting category! I’ve got books of that kind myself.

Happy reading! Hope your plans work out, but you can always adjust as you go. I like the card graphics, very unique.

>19 MissWatson: >20 LadyoftheLodge: Thanks for dropping in!

Sadly, a couple of my daunting books are also ones that are “on hold,” started but not finished, which makes them even more daunting since I know I couldn’t finish them at least once before.

Good luck with your 2025 reading!

Nice set-up. I'll never read everything I've planned either, but it's fun planning

Love your setup. I see you have the Wolf Hall trilogy on your list. Definitely one for the daunting category! I have owned the trilogy for ages and it just keeps getting put aside as looking at the three of them together is quite intimidating - so long!

>24 JayneCM: Well, I can try the ebooks—that way their bulk isn’t as intimidating!

>25 Charon07: Good way to trick yourself! :)

Happy reading in 2025!
Boy, can I relate to a "daunting" category.

I love your cards and categories. Happy reading!

Gorgeous illustrations! Looking forward to following your reading in 2025 and maybe hitting up a book sale or two.

These are some great categories! I have a doorstopper category for really long books, which is a bit similar to your "daunting" one. I read three of those in 2024 and hope to read a few more in 2025.

>27 mstrust: >30 MissBrangwen: I’m hoping that making a category for them actually inspires me to read a couple of the daunting books this year!

>28 susanj67: Thank you!

>29 RidgewayGirl: Definitely want to hitone of the bog sales this year, and make the pilgrimage to Exile in Bookville!

Hi there, it looks like a very interesting reading year lies ahead of you. I love the Daunting category and am interested in your experience of Wolf Hall. I have not yet read it myself.

Hi Charon, thanks for visiting my new thread! I'm dropping my star to keep up with your thread too.

I second the ebook suggestion for the big fat books. I read War and Peace a few years ago, and would never have managed it if I'd had a paper book!

>33 Jackie_K: Audiobooks are another way to make the doorstoppers more palatable, but I just looked and War and Peace is 60 hours!

Happy New Year and good luck with your reading.

I'll be following along. My categories aren't anywhere near as ambitious but I am going to be trying to read more African authors.

>35 lowelibrary: Thank you! Happy new year to you too!

>36 charl08: I made a note of the link in your thread to the 100 Notable African Books by year! That will be a terrific resource! I don’t know how many I’ll be able to fit in this year, but my goal is to eventually read authors from as many countries as I can.

Happy new year to you--and happy reading!

Great set up. I am looking forward to following along this year.
Find me here
https://www.librarything.com/topic/367017#8712413

🌍💀🐶 White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Just the sort of horror I love: eery, a creeping sense of wrongness, with very little that’s an overtly scary trope. My full review is here.

🖼️ Cackle by Rachel Harrison ★ ★ 1/2
Although the genre here on LT is horror, I’d call this rather a cozy witch story, nothing horrific about it unless you find the prospect of being single horrifying. My review is here.

Love the tarot cards! Looks like you are going to be very ambitious this year. Looking forward to following along.

>38 thornton37814: >39 beebeereads: >42 Crazymamie: Thanks for stopping by, and happy new year!

Very ambitious challenges, but they look fun! I look forward to following along!

🐓 🐶 The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
A cautionary tale about book censorship and authoritarianism with a message that, if not entirely original, still apparently needs to be repeated. My review is here.

>45 Charon07: I liked your review - added my thumb to it. And don't you just love that cover?!

>47 Crazymamie: Thanks for the thumbs up! It is a great cover, isn’t it?

>45 Charon07: Glad you liked this one as I picked up a copy of this from the library just yesterday.

>49 RidgewayGirl: I’ll be interested to see what you think of it.

📚 🌈 Pothos by Rosa Campbell ★ ★ ★ 1/2
This was a memoir of the author’s grieving the death of her father—almost a prose poem, or a series of prose poems. My review is here.

🐶 Down a Dark River by Karen Odden ★ ★ ★ 1/2
An engaging mystery set in Victorian England. My review is here.

>40 Charon07: and >45 Charon07: These are already on my WL and your comments confirm that!

>52 Charon07: This one sounds really good and I just love a Victorian London book cover such as this!

>53 MissBrangwen: I hope you enjoy them! White Is for Witching had some qualities that reminded me of The Icarus Girl (its unsettling uncanniness, for instance), so if you’ve read one and liked it, I also recommend the other, though they are in other ways very different books.

🔊 🇧🇷 📆 The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel ★ ★ ★ ★
A deeply affecting story about an illiterate gay man looking back on his life and his first love. My full review is here.

🌿 🐶 Sheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep, and Enough Wool to Save the Planet by Catherine Friend ★ ★ ★

Interesting, amusing, and occasionally educational anecdotes about sheep farming, becoming a “fiber freak,” and trying to be writer while still being the “backup farmer.” I laughed out loud at several points, and annoyed my husband by reading the especially funny parts out loud to him. “We can all love sheep, of course in an entirely healthy and platonic and non-gross sort of way.”

🐶 Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle ★ ★ ★ ★

So much better than I expected—funny and scary and full of heart! My full review is here.

>56 Charon07: The title already sounds great.

>57 Charon07: Great review - I added my thumb. Sounds like one for The List, so I added it. Not a title or an author I am familiar with, so thanks for that.

>59 Crazymamie: If you end up perusing his other titles, please don’t judge this book by his past ouevre!

>60 Charon07: Duly noted.

🐶 The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa ★ ★ ★ 1/2

A sweet, heartwarming, and rather melancholy tale of a single mother who works for a housekeeping agency and her ten-year-old son who befriend a former mathematics professor with a brain injury.

🐶 The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor ★ 1/2

A disappointment. A sad and unsatisfying tale that lacks the creepy whimsy and charm of Welcome to Night Vale.

>63 Charon07: Bummer. Hoping your next read is much better.

>55 Charon07: This sounds ... I can't find the right adjective. I was going to say wonderful or lovely, but those don't seem right for something so sad. In any case, I am going to see if my library has it. Thanks for your review!

>64 Crazymamie: I’ve already read several great books this year, and it’s only January! A clunker every now and then is inevitable.

>65 purpleiris: It is lovely, even though it’s sad.

🐶 Cascade Failure by L. M. Sagas ★ ★

A disappointing, formulaic space opera. My full review is here.

>62 Charon07: I've read this a couple of years ago and remember to have liked it quite much, I gave it 4 Stars. It was a good read, heartwarming and full of empathy.

>69 Tallulah_Rose: Yes, indeed. The relationships between the main characters were so warm and gently depicted.

🐦‍⬛ Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This was a reread, and I’m pleased to say it was as good as I remembered. My original review is here. This is the postapocalypse book by which I judge all others. This is the first of the MaddAddam trilogy, and the only one I’ve read so far. I reread it because it’s been more than 20 years since I first read it, and I wanted it to be fresh in memory going into the next book. I have to say that I’m a little afraid that the subsequent books might alter my perception of this one, and I’d hate for that to happen.

>71 Charon07: I have not yet read it, but it sounds really great.

January Summary

Tree books: 3
Ebooks: 6
Audiobooks: 5

Fiction: 12
Nonfiction: 2

Author gender:
   Female: 11
   Male: 3
   Nonbinary/other: 0

Living author: 9, 5 presumed
Deceased author: 0

English: 10
Non-English: 4

Published:
   2020s: 10
   2010s: 2
   2000s: 2

Own books:
   Acquired < 2025: 7
   Acquired 2025: 0
Borrowed: 7

Best of the month:
Oryx and Crake, White Is for Witching, The Book Censor’s Library

Worst of the month:
The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home

I love that you do a monthly summary!

>74 purpleiris: I noticed that many people in this and other groups do a summary, and I thought it would be interesting to see what sorts of trends there might be.

📆 The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo ★ ★ ★ ★

A delightful fairy tale for adults set in Japan and China at the end of the Qing Dynasty, in the early 1900s. I listened to the audiobook, read by author Yangsze Choo, who did a wonderful job and whose British accent was very pleasant to listen to.

My full review is here.

>76 Charon07: Adding this one to the wish list - it sounds really good!

>77 scaifea: I hope you enjoy it! The fox wife, Snow, is a very engaging character.

>76 Charon07: Taking a BB for this one.

>79 lowelibrary: Hope you also enjoy it!

🐶 🖼️ The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

A heartwarming story of found family with fairly light-handed social justice messages. My full review is here.

🐶 Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter ★ ★ 1/2

A surreal set of interrelated stories that failed to jell for me.

💀 The Grip of It by Jac Jemc ★ ★

A vague, amorphous haunted house story with too much psychological babble for my taste.

>83 Charon07: Sorry this one didn't work for you, but I find the cover intriguing!

🌈 🐶 The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard ★ ★ ★ 1/2

Hopepunk in the guise of epic fantasy. Goddard has created a vast world, only parts of which we see in this novel, with endearing characters. I plan to read the next novel in the series.

My full review is here.

📆 The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey ★ ★ ★ ★

Trying out the new “embed review” feature:

>86 Charon07: I have this on my tbr and I really need to get to it, especially since she has a new book.

I do like the look of the embedded review and it makes giving a review a thumbs up much easier.

>87 RidgewayGirl: I’ll be interested in what you think of it and what you think of any of her other novels. I just looked at a few, and they all seem to have the common theme of roughing it in the Wolverine River Valley in Alaska, so as much as I liked this one, I’ll probably hold off on the others until I hear more about them.

>88 Charon07: I really liked To the Bright Edge of the World.

>89 RidgewayGirl: Is she a one-trick pony though? They sound like they could be much the same story in different trappings.

>87 RidgewayGirl: - I didn't realize she had a new book coming out. I need to make a note of that.

>91 dudes22: Well, I see you’ve read two of her books and are waiting for the new one, so that’s an endorsement! I guess I’ll add To the Bright Edge of the World or Black Woods, Blue Sky to the TBR.

>90 Charon07: I will let you know, as soon as I've read another book by her. But if an author's one trick is good enough, I'm happy to follow them through several iterations.

>86 Charon07: I read that one...last year? Two years ago? Fairly recently, let's say. And I really enjoyed it. I'm glad you did, too!

ETA: Ivey has a new one just out this month that looks good, too: Black Woods Blue Sky.

Since I’m unlikely to finish any of the four books I’m currently reading today, I can safely post my monthly summary for February:

February Summary

February/YTD total: 9 / 23

Tree books: 3 / 6
Ebooks: 4 / 10
Audiobooks: 2 / 7

Fiction: 9 / 21
Nonfiction: 0 / 2

Author gender:
    Female: 8 / 19
    Male: 1 / 4
    Nonbinary/other: 0 / 0

Living author: 6 / 15, 3 / 8 presumed
Deceased author: 0 / 0

English: 9 / 19
Non-English: 0 / 4

Published:
    2020s: 4 / 14
    2010s: 3 / 5
    2000s: 1 / 3
    1980s: 1 / 1

Own books:
   Acquired < 2025: 2 / 9
   Acquired 2025: 2 / 2
Borrowed: 5 / 12

Best of the month: A History of Hazardous Objects (an ER win), The Bean Trees

Worst of the month: The Mall Walkers (also an ER win), The Grip of It

Looks like you had another good reading month! And I like the look of the embedded review feature. I'll have to try it!

>96 purpleiris: I didn’t read as many books as I’d hoped to, and I didn’t finish my book for one of the February KITs, but I did read some good books.

I’m not sure how I feel about the new embedded review feature. It does save me from having to either come up with something new to write or copying and pasting the same thing in two (or more) places. But since there’s a button to expand longer reviews, I wish what was displayed was a little more abbreviated. I feel like I’m imposing a lot of text that people might not want to read, which is okay in my own thread, but I’m hesitant to do in the shared KIT and CAT threads.

On the other hand, I love seeing other people’s reviews in the threads. It saves me the trouble of having to follow touchstone links and searching to see if they wrote a separate review.

I didn't think about using the feature in shared KIT and CAT threads. I see what you mean. I do think it's something I will probably try to use in my own threads, though.

💀 The Long Drop by Denise Mina ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🔊 🥁 The Nightwatchman by Louise Erdrich ★ ★ ★ ★

This sounds like a fascinating read! I did not know about this Resolution. :(

🐓 Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🐶 Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🌈 Attrib. and Other Stories by Eley Williams ★ ★ ★ ★

🖼️ 🐶 Three Apples Fell from the Sky by Narine Abgaryan ★ ★ 1/2

📚🐦‍⬛🐓 The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🐶 The September House by Carissa Orlando ★ ★ ★ 1/2

You've been reading some very interesting books! I loved Martyr! too and am waiting for his next novel.

>108 RidgewayGirl: I suspect Martyr! is going to lose to James in the Tournament of Books in a couple of days, but I’m hoping it comes back in the zombie round.

Speaking of interesting books, I just had People from Oetimu pop up in my recommendations, and I suspect I have you to thank for that, since only 14 LT members have it cataloged.

>109 Charon07: We do read a lot of the same books!

🐶 The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey ★ ★ ★

>111 Charon07: I remember being extremely irritated by that book because (if I'm remembering correctly) the solution comes out of nowhere! Not fair play at all.

>112 christina_reads: Since I’m never clever enough to figure out mysteries even when I’m presented with clear clues, I suppose that doesn’t bother me so much!

🌿 The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd ★ ★ ★ ★

🐶 Flight behavior by Barbara Kingsolver ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

March Summary

March/YTD total: 12 / 35

Tree books: 2 / 8
Ebooks: 7 / 17
Audiobooks: 3 / 10

Fiction: 11 / 32
Nonfiction: 1 / 3

Author gender:
   Female: 10 / 29
   Male: 2 / 6
   Nonbinary/other: 0 / 0

Living author: 10 / 25, 0 / 8 presumed
Deceased author: 2 / 2

English: 11 / 30
Non-English: 1 / 5

Published:
   2020s: 5 / 18
   2010s: 4 / 9
   2000s: 1 / 5
   1980s: 0 / 1
   1970s: 1 / 1
   1920s: 1 / 1

Own books:
   Acquired < 2025: 3 / 12
   Acquired 2025: 2 / 4
Borrowed: 7 / 19

Best of the month: The Year of the Flood, Martyr!, Flight Behavior

Worst of the month: Three Apples Fell from the Sky

🌈 The Arrival by Shaun Tan ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

🔊 📆 Ammonite by Nicola Griffith ★ ★ ★ ★

🌿 PrairyErth (A Deep Map) by William Least Heat-Moon ★ ★ ★ ★

🔊 🌿 Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe by Carl Safina

🐶 Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green

Sounds like a sad and important book.

📆 💀 Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

📆 The Actual Star by Monica Byrne

In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, I splurged on some new books from a couple of local independent bookstores:

Dvorak in Love by Josef Škvorecký
Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky
The Militia House by John Milas

🖼️ Suppose a Sentence by Brian Dillon

>123 Charon07: Oh, I loved that one when I read it a few years ago. I'm glad you did, too!

>127 scaifea: It’s epic! Have you read The Scar or Iron Council?

>128 Charon07: I haven't read anything else of Meiville's but I really want to. Such a great combination of excellent writing and imaginative world-building. Do you recommend those two in particular?

>129 scaifea: I haven’t read them yet, but I plan to. They’re both set in the same world as Perdido Street Station but not sequels, as I understand it. I have read The City & the City, and I can recommend it if you like noirish detective stories.

April Summary

April/YTD total: 9 / 44

Tree books: 4 / 12
Ebooks: 1 / 18
Audiobooks: 4 / 14

Fiction: 4 / 36
Nonfiction: 5 / 8

Author gender:
   Female: 3 / 32
   Male: 6 / 12
   Nonbinary/other: 0 / 0

Living author: 9 / 34, 0 / 8 presumed
Deceased author: 0 / 2

English: 9 / 39
Non-English: 0 / 5

Published:
   2020s: 5 / 23
   2010s: 0 / 10
   2000s: 2 / 6
   1990s: 2 / 2
   1980s: 0 / 1
   1970s: 0 / 1
   1920s: 0 / 1

Own books:
   Acquired < 2025: 4 / 16
   Acquired 2025: 1 / 5
Borrowed: 4 / 23

Best of the month: The Arrival, Perdido Street Station

Worst of the month: Alfie and Me

I think this is probably the first month ever since I finished school that I read more nonfiction than fiction.

👵🏽 🐶 The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

🥁 🌈 The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich

🔊 💀 The Fisherman by John Langan

💀 The Willows [short story] by Algernon Blackwood

🌿 Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

>136 Charon07: I'm curious to know how you came to read this?

>137 purpleiris: The May NatureKIT was the instigation for me to actually pick it up, but I think it was recommended somewhere (my public library, maybe?) for those who like The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger, which I recently read. And indeed, it was a good followup to that book.

Interesting!

🖼️ Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey

🐺 🐓 🏔️ Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

👵🏽 The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

🐶 Reykjavík by Ragnar Jónasson and Katrín Jakobsdóttir

May Summary

May / YTD total: 11 / 55

Tree books: 5 / 17
Ebooks: 2 / 20
Audiobooks: 4 / 18

Fiction: 10 / 46
Nonfiction: 1 / 9

Author gender:
   Female: 5 / 37
   Male: 6 / 18
   Nonbinary/other: 0 / 0

Living author: 7 / 41, 0 / 8 presumed
Deceased author: 4 / 6

English: 8 / 47
Non-English: 3 / 8

Published:
   2020s: 4 / 27
   2010s: 2 / 12
   2000s: 2 / 8
   1990s: 0 / 2
   1980s: 0 / 1
   1970s: 2 / 3
   1920s: 0 / 1
   1900s: 1 / 1

Own books:
   Acquired < 2025: 3 / 19
   Acquired 2025: 2 / 7
Borrowed: 6 / 29

Best of the month: Observatory Mansions, Wolf Hall

Worst of the month: Reykjavík: A Crime Story

🔊 📆 The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

💀 Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath

🌈 Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell

>147 Charon07: Putting this on my TBR!!

>148 GraceCollection: Hope you enjoy it! I listened to the audiobook, read by the author, and she seemed to be having a good time reading it.

>147 Charon07: This sounds great! It's going onto my wishlist too.

>150 Jackie_K: Hope you like it too!

👵🏽 The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley

>152 Charon07: Taking a BB for this one.

>153 lowelibrary: This was the first of Mosley’s books that I’ve read, though he’s been on my radar and I’ve had a few of his books in my TBR for a while. I’m so glad I finally got around to reading him!

📆 Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart by GennaRose Nethercott

>152 Charon07: I'm making note of this one. Excellent review.

>156 RidgewayGirl: It was the first Mosley I’ve read, but I’m eager to get to the Easy Rawlins series now.

📆 The Seep by Chana Porter

💀 A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll

🌿 Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith

🐺 🐓 Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

June Summary

June / YTD total: 11 / 66

Tree books: 4 / 21
Ebooks: 2 / 22
Audiobooks: 5 / 23

Fiction: 9 / 55
Nonfiction: 2 / 11

Author gender:
    Female: 6 / 43
    Male: 4 / 22
    Nonbinary/other: 1 / 1

Living author: 8 / 49, 2 / 10 presumed
Deceased author: 1 / 7

English: 11 / 58
Non-English: 0 / 8

Published:
    2020s: 7 / 34
    2010s: 4 / 16
    2000s: 0 / 8
    1990s: 0 / 2
    1980s: 0 / 1
    1970s: 0 / 3
    1920s: 0 / 1
    1900s: 0 / 1

Own books:
    Acquired < 2025: 2 / 21
    Acquired 2025: 3 / 10
Borrowed: 6 / 35

Best of the month: The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, The Warm Hands of Ghosts, Bring Up the Bodies

Worst of the month: Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

>162 Charon07: I'm glad The Warm Hands of Ghosts made your "best of" list -- it was one of my favorites of last year when I read it!

Your reading has been incredibly varied lately.

>163 christina_reads: I’m bad about tracking the sources of recommendations, but I wouldn’t be surprised if your review last year spurred me to add it to my TBR. If so, thanks! I tend to shy away from war books, but this was exceptional.

>164 RidgewayGirl: I think that’s thanks to this year’s (and last year’s) KITs and CATs. I have read a few things this month that were outside of my usual selections, but that’s one of the benefits of the Category Challenge—getting me out of my reading ruts!

💀 The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

🌿 Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal

🌈 🖼️ Adverbs by Daniel Handler

>167 Charon07: This was my favorite kind of haunted house story. That sense of creeping unease.

🌈 🖼️ Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

>171 Charon07: I loved Patchett's Bel Canto and have been wanting to read more by her...sounds like this is one I should add to my list!

>172 christina_reads: I’ve yet to read some of her “greatest hits,” like Bel Canto and Tom Lake, but I hope to get to them soon. Maybe next year I’ll have an Ann Patchett category.

It’s my 4th Thingaversary! In anticipation, I ordered these books:

Centuria: One Hundred Ouroboric Novels by Giorgio Manganelli
The Crochet Stitch Bible by Betty Barnden
The Slave and the Free by Suzy McKee Charnas
Bats of the Republic by Zachary Thomas Dodson

I also bought these two books for Anti-Prime Day, one from a local bookstore and one from Libro.fm. I’m torn between counting one or the other as my “one to grow on” and just going ahead and buying one more book instead:

Little Weirds by Jenny Slate
By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño

Happy Thingaversary.

>175 lowelibrary: Thank you! It’s a great excuse to buy more books!

Happy Thingaversary! Enjoy your haul!

>177 MissWatson: Thank you!

🌈 My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

>179 Charon07: Jade is definitely the best thing about those books. I suspect someone who is a fan of slasher movies would have gotten far more out of the books than I did, but the whole trilogy is fun.

>180 RidgewayGirl: Yeah, I don’t think I’ve seen a single one of the dozens of slashers mentioned in this book, but it was still fun. And I’d definitely recommend it to slasher fans.

July Summary

July / YTD total: 8 / 74

Tree books: 2 / 23
Ebooks: 4 / 26
Audiobooks: 2 / 25

Fiction: 7 / 62
Nonfiction: 1 / 12

Author gender:
  Female: 3 / 46
  Male: 5 / 27
  Nonbinary/other: 0 / 1

Living author: 6 / 55, 1 / 11 presumed
Deceased author: 1 / 8

English: 8 / 66
Non-English: 0 / 8

Published:
  2020s: 3 / 37
  2010s: 2 / 18
  2000s: 3 / 11
  1990s: 0 / 2
  1980s: 0 / 1
  1970s: 0 / 3
  1920s: 0 / 1
  1900s: 0 / 1

Own books:
  Acquired < 2025: 2 / 23
  Acquired 2025: 0 / 10
Borrowed: 6 / 41

Best of the month: Commonwealth

Worst of the month: Why Did God Make the Tree?

>147 Charon07: This looks really interesting!

>183 purpleiris: It was fun and sort of tongue in cheek, too!

🪆 Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

🌈 💀 The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

🌿 The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

🖼️ Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming

>188 Charon07: I own a print copy of this. Bumping it up the TBR

>189 lowelibrary: If you’re a fan of Alan Cumming, like me, I think you’ll enjoy it.

August Summary

August was a terrible month for reading for me. On the plus side, I didn’t read any bad books!

August / YTD total: 5 / 79

Tree books: 2 / 25
Ebooks: 0 / 26
Audiobooks: 3 / 28

Fiction: 4 / 66
Nonfiction: 1 / 13

Author gender:
  Female: 3 / 49
  Male: 1 / 28
  Nonbinary/other: 1 / 2

Living author: 5 / 60, 0 / 11 presumed
Deceased author: 0 / 8

English: 5 / 71
Non-English: 0 / 8

Published:
  2020s: 4 / 41
  2010s: 1 / 19
  2000s: 0 / 11
  1990s: 0 / 2
  1980s: 0 / 1
  1970s: 0 / 3
  1920s: 0 / 1
  1900s: 0 / 1

Own books:
  Acquired < 2025: 2 / 25
  Acquired 2025: 2 / 12
Borrowed: 1 / 42

Best of the month: The Past Is Red

Worst of the month: None!

>191 Charon07: No bad books sounds like a good reading month to me!

I agree! No bad books is an excellent reading month!

🇧🇷 📆 We All Loved Cowboys by Carol Bensimon

📚 🏔️ 🐶 The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

>195 Charon07: Woot! My favorite book of all time - I'm glad you enjoyed it!

>196 scaifea: You just can’t go wrong with Dumas!

>197 Charon07: True!

🌈 🖼️ Kittentits by Holly Wilson

💀 🔊 The Fireman by Joe Hill

📎 🪽Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney

🌿 The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl

>201 Charon07: Heaney is wonderful, and his Beowulf translation is a favorite for me.

>203 scaifea: When this went on my TBR, it was because it was Heaney, not because I had any interest in reading Beowulf. But now I’m curious to compare Maria Dahvana Headley’s translation.

👵🏽 Two Old Women by Velma Wallis

September Summary

September / YTD total: 9 / 88

Tree books: 5 / 30
Ebooks: 2 / 28
Audiobooks: 2 / 30

Fiction: 7 / 73
Nonfiction: 2 / 15

Author gender:
   Female: 6 / 55
   Male: 3 / 31
   Nonbinary/other: 0 / 2

Living author: 7 / 67, 0 / 11 presumed
Deceased author: 2 / 10

English: 6 / 77
Non-English: 3 / 11

Published:
   2020s: 4 / 45
   2010s: 2 / 21
   2000s: 1 / 12
   1990s: 1 / 3
   1980s: 0 / 1
   1970s: 0 / 3
   1920s: 0 / 1
   1900s: 0 / 1
   1840s: 1 / 1

Own books:
   Acquired < 2025: 4 / 29
   Acquired 2025: 0 / 12
Borrowed: 5 / 47

Best of the month: Nothing more than 4* this month, but a lot of 4* books. If I had to narrow it down, I suppose my top picks would be We All Loved Cowboys, Kittentits, and The Count of Monte Cristo.

Worst of the month: None!