rabbitprincess reads off the shelf in 2025

In 2025, I will be writing a thesis to complete my master's degree, which I started last year. But that doesn't mean I won't be reading for fun! In fact, I will probably end up reading for fun as a procrastination tool ;)

I define a ROOT as "any book I own". Whether I bought it last week or last decade, whether I've read it once or 50 times, if I read it this year, it's a 2025 ROOT.
Last year I lowered my goal to 40, which proved to be an easy goal to meet when I included all of the journal articles I read for school in my definition of a ROOT. So I'll be a bit more ambitious and try for 50.



As in previous years, I'm running what I call the "2-for-1 TBR". I keep a list of all books I buy and for every book I buy, I have to read two books I already own to "pay it off". Rereads don't count *for* me, but gifts (including books bought with gift cards), duplicate copies of books I own (e.g., buying the audio version of a book I already have in print), books I have borrowed and read but am now buying my own copy of, and freebies don't count *against* me.

I started 2024 with 160 books to pay off. I'm starting 2025 with 153. A very slight reduction, but I'll take it!
My ticker broke sometime in November or December, and the debt-reduction tickers don't seem to work at all on my computer, so I had to make a regular ticker. Annoying.

2025 Reading List
Italics = books off the shelf. Bold = Favourite book of the month. (Parenthetical notes) = audio, rereads, and other relevant information.

January
1. The Inshore Squadron, by Alexander Kent
2. Dalek Empire 3.4: The Demons, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
3. Eye of Heaven, by Jim Mortimore
4. Cat Massage Therapy, Vol. 1, by Haru Hisakawa (translated by Anh Kiet Ngo)
5. Treasure Hunt, by Molly Keane
6. The Siege: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World, by Ben Macintyre
7. A Man and His Cat, Vol. 12, by Umi Sakurai (translated by Taylor Engel)
8. Article for school
9. Article for school
10. Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson

February
11. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, by Wizards of the Coast
12. Because Somebody Asked Me To: Observations on History, Literature, and the Passing Scene, by Guy Vanderhaeghe
13. Adulthood is a Gift, by Sarah Andersen
14. Article for school
15. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, by Wizards of the Coast
16. Forgive and Remember: Managing Medical Failure, by Charles L. Bosk
17. The Well of Ascension, by Brandon Sanderson
18. Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, by Wizards of the Coast
19. Article for school

March
20. Cat Massage Therapy, Vol. 2, by Haru Hisakawa (translated by Anh Kiet Ngo)
21. Article for school
22. Tapestry of the Boar, by Nigel Tranter
23. Volo’s Guide to Monsters, by Wizards of the Coast
24. Article for school
25. Article for school
26. Dalek Empire 3.5: The Warriors, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
27. Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons, by Wizards of the Coast
28. Article for school
29. Eberron: Rising from the Last War, by Wizards of the Coast
30. Article for school

April
31. The Hero of Ages, by Brandon Sanderson
32. We Oughta Know: How Céline, Shania, Alanis, and Sarah Ruled the ‘90s and Changed Music, by Andrea Warner
33. Skelton’s Guide to Domestic Poisons, by David Stafford
34. Dalek Empire 3.6: The Future, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
35. Article for school
36. Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, by Wizards of the Coast
37. Article for school (article)
38. Article for school
39. Article for school
40. Article for school
41. Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica, by Wizards of the Coast
42. Article for school
43. Warbreaker, by Brandon Sanderson

May
44. A Man and His Cat, Vol. 13, by Umi Sakurai (translated by Taylor Engel)
45. Raising Hare: A Memoir, by Chloe Dalton
46. Article for school
47. The ETTO Principle: Efficiency-Thoroughness Trade-Off, by Erik Hollnagel
48. The Public Servant’s Guide to Government in Canada, by Alex Marland and Jared J. Weasley
49. My Hero Academia, Vol. 1, by Kohei Horikoshi (translated by Caleb D. Cook)
50. The Lady Killer, by Masako Togawa (translated by Simon Grove)
51. Article for school
52. Article for school
53. Doctor Who: Supremacy of the Cybermen, by George Mann, Cavan Scott, and Alessandro Vitti
54. Horror of Glam Rock, by Paul Magrs (Big Finish audio drama)

June
55. The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
56. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, by Juliet M. Corbin
57. Phenomenological Research Methods, by Clark Moustakas
58. Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Archives, Vol. 2, by Tony Lee

July
59. Storm King’s Thunder, by Wizards of the Coast
60. The Kamogawa Food Detectives, by Hisashi Kashiwai (translated by Jesse Kirkwood)
61. Words of Radiance, by Brandon Sanderson
62. Thunder Bay, by William Kent Krueger

August
63. True to You: A Therapist’s Guide to Stop Pleasing Others and Start Being Yourself, by Kathleen Smith
64. Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson
65. Hooligans at the Table: The Concept of Male Preserves in Tabletop Role-playing Games, by Steven L. Dashiell (article)
66. Arcanum Unbounded, by Brandon Sanderson

September
67. The Fallen Sparrow, by Dorothy B. Hughes
68. Clever Girl: Jurassic Park, by Hannah McGregor
69. The Game Master’s Book of Astonishing Random Tables, by Ben Egloff

October
70. With a Dog AND a Cat, Every Day is Fun, by Hidekichi Matsumoto (translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian)
71. Oathbringer, by Brandon Sanderson
72. Dawnshard, by Brandon Sanderson
73. Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, by Wizards of the Coast
74. The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide: Prompts and Activities to Create the Most Interesting Story for Your Character, by James D’Amato
75. Six Words You Never Knew Had Something to Do With Pigs, by Katherine Barber

November
76. Article for school
77. Article for school
78. Article for school
79. Article for school
80. Article for school
81. Article for school
82. Article for school
83. Article for school
84. Skye and the Inner Hebrides, by Katie Featherstone
85. The Game Master's Book of Instant Towns and Cities, by Jeff Ashworth

December
86. Article for school
87. Article for school
88. Article for school
89. Article for school
90. Article for school
91. Article for school
92. Article for school
93. Article for school
94. Article for school
95. Article for school
96. Article for school
97. Article for school
98. Rhythm of War, by Brandon Sanderson
99. Silent Bones, by Val McDermid
100. Alloy of Law, by Brandon Sanderson
101. Rebus’s Scotland: A Personal Journey, by Ian Rankin
102. Suddenly at His Residence, by Christianna Brand
103. Dungeons & Dragons Worlds & Realms: Adventures from Greyhawk to Faerûn and Beyond, by Adam Lee
104. The Time Monster, by Terrance Dicks

Glad you are with us again! Good luck on the thesis!

Happy New Year, and good luck with the thesis, RP.

Hi RP, good to see you back for another year. Starred your thread. Happy new year.

Good luck with your thesis!

Happy ROOTing this year!

Happy reading in 2025! What's your thesis about? I got my MA in Creative Writing, so my thesis was a collection of short stories. Lots of work, but no research!

>3 cyderry: Thanks, Chèli! Glad to be back. And thank you as always for organizing the group!

>4 Robertgreaves: Thanks, Robert!

>5 connie53: Hi Connie! Thanks for stopping by :)

>6 Cecilturtle: Merci, Cécile!

>7 mstrust: Thanks, Jennifer, and to you as well!

>8 rocketjk: Thanks, Jerry! My program is a master of science, so there will definitely be a lot of research. That's so cool that you wrote a collection of short stories for your thesis! Did they share characters, or were they all stand-alone stories?

They were stand alones. A lot of young man angst, though, so they had that in common! :) I've been on an off-again, on-again project since retiring of giving them touch ups as needed and then self publishing them, just for the fun of it. I've run up against one or two that are fighting me tooth and nail, however.

Welcome back! -- wishes for happy reading and success with the research and writing.

>10 rocketjk: That's a fun retirement project! Good luck with those difficult ones.

>11 detailmuse: Thanks, and happy reading to you as well!

ROOT 1 of 50: Dalek Empire 3.4: The Demons, by Nicholas Briggs.

This full-cast audio drama from Big Finish is part of what has become my favourite series of Dalek Empire. The story is consistently suspenseful and fast-paced, and having David Tennant in a main role (using what would become his Tenth Doctor accent, no less) doesn't hurt either.

If I judge my favourite audio drama series by how quickly I listen to them, the top 3 might be as follows:
3. Dalek Empire series 3, beginning with Dalek Empire 3.1: The Exterminators
2. I, Davros, beginning with I, Davros: Innocence
1. The Diary of River Song, Series 1

Glad to see you here again this year! And good luck on the thesis!

Happy 2025 and happy reading, RP! Good luck with the thesis :)

>14 atozgrl: >15 curioussquared: Thank you both! Glad to be back. Hope you have a great reading year!

ROOT 2 of 50: Eye of Heaven, by Jim Mortimore.

A Fourth Doctor and Leela adventure set on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Leela's narrative voice was pretty good for the most part, although I didn't think her effortless descriptions of all the sails and masts of a ship were quite plausible.

Welcome back, RP, and I wish you many opportunities for procrastination!

Hi RP! Belated Happy New Year!

>1 rabbitprincess: Best wishes on writing your thesis, and good luck on your personal reading.

Good luck with your thesis and your ROOTing. I think reading for pleasure counts as a productivity break rather than procrastination!

Good to see you still at it RP. Best of luck with your thesis and your ROOTs!

>18 MissWatson: Thanks, Birgit! I shall take them as often as I can!

>19 karenmarie: Thanks, Karen! Happy new year to you as well! It's either a belated Gregorian happy new year or an early happy lunar new year ;)

>20 Rebeki: Thanks, Rebeki! Good point -- and one that reinforces the advice given our class by students who just completed the program. Can't be go-go-go all the time!

>21 Familyhistorian: Thanks, Meg! Luckily I'm still counting articles as ROOTs ;)

ROOT 3 of 50: Treasure Hunt, by Molly Keane.

I picked this up on impulse because the edition I found was a Virago Modern Classic. The story was originally a play, and the long, descriptive beginning is very much an Act 1, Scene 1 stage direction. Once people enter the stage, the story becomes much more lively. There's a love triangle I found a bit disagreeable, but apart from that it's good.

ROOT 4 of 50 is an article for school. I'll be skim-reading a lot more articles this year as preparation for my thesis, so I won't count every article I look at, just the ones that I find useful enough to incorporate into an assignment or the thesis itself.

ROOT 5 of 50 is also an article.

ROOT 6 of 50: Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson.

I'd been somewhat curious about trying Brandon Sanderson's work, and thanks to the Cosmere Buddy Read on Litsy, I finally got started with Mistborn. What a ride! This world is amazing, and I was constantly surprised by what happened next. I already have Well of Ascension ready to go.

(We'll gloss over the fact that I created six more ROOTS for myself by buying the first three Mistborn books, AND the first three Stormlight Archive books, solely for this buddy read...)

January recap: 6 ROOTS pulled (YTD: 6)

Dalek Empire 3.4: The Demons, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
Eye of Heaven, by Jim Mortimore
Treasure Hunt, by Molly Keane
A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies, by M.J. Grant and A. Booth
Agentive language in accident investigation: Why language matters in learning from events, by C. Vesel
Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson

ROOT of the month was definitely Mistborn!

Glad you discovered Sanderson. He is amazing isn't he?

>27 connie53: He is! I don't think I've exclaimed out loud with surprise at a book so much in my life. It was a good surprised, though :)

ROOT 7 of 50 is an article for school.

ROOT 8 of 50: Forgive and Remember: Managing Medical Failure, by Charles L. Bosk. I've been working on this one for over six months and finally finished it this past weekend.

Edited to test out the new "attach review to Talk posts" feature. Very cool!

ROOT 9 of 50: The Well of Ascension, by Brandon Sanderson.

ROOT 10 of 50 is an article for school.

Belated February recap. 4 ROOTS pulled (YTD: 10)

Analytic autoethnography, by L. Anderson (article)
Forgive and Remember: Managing Medical Failure, by Charles L. Bosk
The Well of Ascension, by Brandon Sanderson
SAGE Research Methods Foundations: Phenomenology, by T. S. Eberle and B. Schnettler (article)

ROOT of the month: The Well of Ascension. I sense a trend :)

March is off to an OK start.

ROOT 11 of 50 is an article for school. I need to add a few more to the tally this weekend.

ROOT 12 of 50 is Tapestry of the Boar, by Nigel Tranter, a book I've had on the go for a while but kept putting down for Mistborn, haha.

ROOTs 13 and 14 of 50 are articles for school.

ROOT 15 of 50 is an audiobook: Dalek Empire 3.5

ROOT 16 of 50 is an article for school.

ROOT 17 of 50 is also an article for school.

You remind me that I read a Sanderson book recently and really should read another. The book was The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England one of the Secret Projects series but I think I'll try a different series for the next one. There are so many to choose from!

>36 Familyhistorian: That one's on my to-read list, and I think it was from your review! It looked great. I've been really enjoying the first Mistborn trilogy; they're not as chunky as the Stormlight Archives, which the Litsy group read I'm in will start tackling later this year.

ROOT 18 of 50 is The Hero of Ages, by Brandon Sanderson.

>37 rabbitprincess: I’ll have to have a look for the Mistborn trilogy. Thanks for the tip.

>39 Familyhistorian: Enjoy!

****

Did some cleaning on the weekend and listened to an audio drama while I worked: Dalek Empire 3.6: The Future. (ROOT 19 of 50)

ROOT 20 of 50, meanwhile, is an article for school.

And so are ROOTS 21 to 25 of 50. (I'm counting articles or book chapters consulted individually for assignments or my thesis itself as ROOTs.)

ROOT 26 of 50 is Warbreaker, by Brandon Sanderson.

ROOT 27 of 50 is an article for school.

ROOT 28 of 50 is The ETTO Principle, by Erik Hollnagel.

ROOTs 29 and 30 of 50 are articles for school.

ROOT 31 of 50 is a comic book I read on my lunch break at home: Supremacy of the Cybermen.

ROOT 32 of 50 continues the Doctor Who trend: Horror of Glam Rock, by Paul Magrs.

Dropping in to say hi, Princess! I hope things are going well with you 🤴

>47 mstrust: Thanks, Jennifer! I'm not reading much for school because I'm working on the thesis, and my recreational reading has been big fat books. Finished only one book so far this month!

ROOT 33 of 50 is a real brick of a book: The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson. I should track page count this year to make me feel better about my reading stats ;)

ROOT 34 of 50 is a comic book that I read to get my numbers up. The Tenth Doctor Archives Omnibus Vol. 2

Hi RP. So glad you found Sanderson. There is a whole new world to uncover. I think my first Sanderson was Elantris a stand alone book that was a great read that made me want to read more. I hope you enjoy all the books by him and have time to read them with your thesis to work on too.

Enjoy your summer.

>51 connie53: Hi Connie! I'm really enjoying Sanderson's world, and especially just diving in and reading all the books one after the other rather than saving them up. Currently working on Words of Radiance but am a bit behind on the group read.

Hope you're having a good summer and staying cool!

Staying cool is not easy done right now.We had 34 - 37 degrees C recently, but now it's down to a reasonable 26C. But that is a good summer in my opinion. So I'm happy.

>53 connie53: 26 degrees sounds perfect!

ROOT 35 of 50 is yet another Sanderson novel. I regret nothing :D

ROOT 36 of 50.

>56 rabbitprincess: Good to read you liked this one too, RP

>57 connie53: I'm definitely on a roll with Brandon Sanderson!

ROOT 37 of 50 was an article for school.

ROOT 38 of 50 is, surprise surprise, another Brandon Sanderson.

ROOT 39 of 50 is yet more Brandon Sanderson.

Catching up a bit on ROOTs. Managed three more this month, mainly because one was short and the other two were books I'd been reading in small pieces for a while and happened to finish now.

ROOT 40 of 50 is the short book.

ROOT 41 of 50 is not Brandon Sanderson, but it is about fantasy fiction in a way.

ROOT 42 of 50 is about words and language.

>60 rabbitprincess:, that was a five star book for me too.

>64 connie53: Hurray!

****

At long last, another ROOT! This one took about two months to read. Limited reading time and brain capacity.

Another ROOT. Holiday reading is the best reading :)

After all those Sanderson books I was reminded of a book by him that I have on my TBR waiting to become a ROOT in 2026.

Hi RP, Happy Days for you and your family!

>67 connie53: Ooh excellent! Hope you enjoy it when you get to it :)

Doing a quick update of my ROOT counts. I wasn't reading many books as I finished up my thesis work, but I did count each article as a ROOT. So with the articles from the past two months, I'm now at 64 of 50 ROOTs! Woo hoo!

I might get to one more in the next few days, but if not, there will be plenty more ROOT reading in 2026.

Congrats on surpassing your ROOTs goal, RP! I'm currently working my way through The Way of Kings. You're right it is a brick of a book!

Congrats on reaching your goal, RP.

Happy Holidays, rp. Impressive that you reached your goal and kept right on going.

>70 Familyhistorian: Thanks, Meg! Yep, that's a weight-training book for sure. I've been reading them in paperback, which makes them pretty chunky, but hardcovers would be nearly unmanageable for me.

>71 connie53: Thanks, Connie!

>72 RidgewayGirl: Thanks, Kay! Happy holidays to you as well!

One last ROOT to close out the year.

ROOTs of the year:

• Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson
• The Well of Ascension, by Brandon Sanderson
• Dalek Empire 3.5: The Warriors, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
• The Hero of Ages, by Brandon Sanderson
• The ETTO Principle: Efficiency–Thoroughness Trade-Off, by Erik Hollnagel
• The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
• Words of Radiance, by Brandon Sanderson
• Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson
• No ROOT of the month for September (no ROOTs read)
• Oathbringer, by Brandon Sanderson
• No ROOT of the month for November (all ROOTs were articles)
• Alloy of Law, by Brandon Sanderson