Greg (ocgreg34) 2025 Reading Lisy

Happy New Year!

Intros first... My name is Greg, and this is my ninth 75 Books Challenge and managed to read 131 books last year. I'm an avid reader, movie-watcher, and gamer, currently living in Laguna Niguel, CA, with my partner of 19 years and our two cats. I've also had a few short stories published in anthologies and am trying to convince myself that I have a book rattling around inside my brain wanting desperately to come out.

As for additional reading challenges, two of them are posted below, but I'm also working my way through reading something by all the recipients of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Looking forward to a lot of reading in 2025, so let's get reading!!

Completed in January

1. Smithy by Amanda Desiree -- 395 p.
2. Disquiet by Zülfü Livaneli (Turkey) -- 163 p.
3. Foster by Claire Keegan (Ireland) -- 92 p.
4. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe gn 🏳️‍🌈 -- 256 p.
5. The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill -- 120 p.
6. Twelve Nights at Rotter House by J.W. Ocker -- 271 p.
7. Trust by Hernan Diaz PP, KP -- 402 p.
8. The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey by Mrs. Carver (England) -- 192 p.
9. The Doom of the Griffiths by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (England) -- 49 p.
10. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (Mexico) nf -- 136 p.
11. The Removed by Brandon Hobson -- 271 p.
12. Guilt and Ginataan by Mia P. Manansala 🏳️‍🌈 -- 255 p.
13. The House That Horror Built by Christina Henry -- 315 p.

Completed in February

14. A New Age of Reason: Harnessing the Power of Tech for Good by Larry Weber nf -- 192 p.
15. Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune 🏳️‍🌈 -- 373 p.
16. Hostage by Guy Delisle (France) gn nf -- 432 p.
17. Tar Baby by Toni Morrison NL -- 306 p.
18. Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward -- 339 p.
19. The Gate by Natsume Sōseki (Japan) -- 214 p.
20. The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo 🏳️‍🌈 -- 111 p.
21. The Reformatory by Tananarive Due -- 565 p.
22. Guillotine by Delilah S. Dawson -- 204 p.
23. The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ode Utomi -- 87 p.
24. Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez -- 405 p.
25. Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead -- 316 p.

Completed in March

26. The Murdered Banker by Augusto de Angelis (Italy) -- 190 p.
27. Social Fiction by Chantal Montellier (France) gn -- 191 p.
28. It's Darker This Way by Travis Hill 🏳️‍🌈 -- 251 p.
29. The Only One Left by Riley Sager 🏳️‍🌈 -- 385 p.
30. Nothing But the Rain by Naomi Salman (France) -- 96 p.
31. Middle of the Night by Riley Sager 🏳️‍🌈 -- 365 p.
32. Lock In by John Scalzi -- 336 p.
33. Model Home by Rivers Solomon 🏳️‍🌈 -- 286 p.
34. Ten Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby (Australia) 🏳️‍🌈 nf -- 377 p.
35. Lock Every Door by Riley Sager -- 371 p.
36. James by Percival Everett PP KP -- 307 p.
37. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver WPF -- 399 p.

Continued in post 21

* = re-read
gn = graphic novel
🏳️‍🌈 = lgbtqia+
NL = Nobel Prize for Literature
nf = non-fiction
PP = Pulitzer Prize
WPF = Women's Prize for Fiction
KP = Kirkus Prize

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Reading Challenge (bolded books have been read):

1918 His Family by Ernest Poole
1919 The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
1921 The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
1922 Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
1923 One of Ours by Willa Cather
1924 The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
1925 So Big by Edna Ferber
1926 Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (declined)
1927 Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady by Louis Bromfield
1928 The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
1929 Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
1930 Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge
1931 Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
1932 The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
1933 The Store by T.S. Stribling
1934 Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
1935 Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
1936 Honey in the Horn by H.L. Davis
1937 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
1938 The Late George Apley: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir by J.P. Marquand
1939 The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1940 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
1942 In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
1943 Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair
1944 Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
1945 A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
1947 All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
1948 Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
1949 Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
1950 The Way West by A.B. Guthrie, Jr.
1951 The Town by Conrad Richter
1952 The Caine Mutiny: A Novel of World War II by Herman Wouk
1953 The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
1955 A Fable by William Faulkner
1956 Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
1958 A Death in the Family by James Agee
1959 The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
1960 Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
1961 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
1962 The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
1963 The Reivers: A Reminiscence by William Faulkner
1965 The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
1966 The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
1967 The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1968 The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
1969 House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
1970 The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford
1972 Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
1973 The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
1975 The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
1976 Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
1978 Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
1979 The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
1980 The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
1981 A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
1982 Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
1983 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1984 Ironweed by William Kennedy
1985 Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
1986 Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
1987 A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
1988 Beloved by Toni Morrison
1989 Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
1990 The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
1991 Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
1992 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1993 A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain: Stories by Robert Olen Butler
1994 The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
1995 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
1996 Independence Day by Richard Ford
1997 Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
1998 American Pastoral by Philip Roth
1999 The Hours by Michael Cunningham
2000 Interpreter of Maladies: Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
2001 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
2002 Empire Falls by Richard Russo
2003 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
2004 The Known World by Edward P. Jones
2005 Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
2006 March by Geraldine Brooks
2007 The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2008 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
2009 Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
2010 Tinkers by Paul Harding
2011 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
2013 The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
2014 The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
2015 All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
2016 The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
2017 The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
2018 Less by Andrew Sean Greer
2019 The Overstory by Richard Powers
2020 The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
2021 The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
2022 The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen
2023 Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
2023 Trust by Hernan Diaz
2024 Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
2025 James by Percival Everett

Another self-imposed reading challenge...

The Women's Prize for Fiction (previously, the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Bailey's Prize for Fiction) -- bolded books have been read:

1996 A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore
1997 Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
1998 Larry's Party by Carol Shields
1999 A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne
2000 When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant
2001 The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville
2002 Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
2003 Property by Valerie Martin
2004 Small Island by Andrea Levy
2005 We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
2006 On Beauty by Zadie Smith
2007 Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2008 The Road Home by Rose Tremain
2009 Home by Marilynne Robinson
2010 The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
2011 The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht
2012 The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
2013 May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes
2014 A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride
2015 How to Be Both by Ali Smith
2016 The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney
2017 The Power by Naomi Alderman
2018 Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
2019 An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
2020 Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
2021 Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
2022 The Book of Form & Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
2023 Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
2024 Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan
2025 The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden

My ten favorite reads from 2024...in no particular order:

Drood by Dan Simmons (2009)
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (2020)
The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo (2019)
The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard (2024)
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (2009)
Black Girl Unlimited by Echo Brown (2020)
How To Find Your Way in the Dark by Derek B. Miller (2021)
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle (2024)
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (2021)
The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal (2020)

Hi Greg, first time following your thread, hoping it is a good year for both of us.

Happy 2025, Greg.

Nice to see you back my friend.

Welcome back, Greg!

Welcome back, Greg!

Hope you have a great year of reading!

Adding a new reading challenge to my list...winners of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. The prize was established in 2014 by Kirkus Reviews, and they also award prizes for non-fiction and young readers' literature.

2014 Euphoria by Lily King
2015 A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
2016 The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan
2017 What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
2018 Severance by Ling Ma
2019 The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
2020 Luster by Raven Leilani
2021 Harrow by Joy Williams
2022 Trust by Hernan Diaz
2023 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
2024 James by Percival Everett
2025 The Slip by Lucas Schaefer

Hi, Greg! Happy New Year!

I’m curious about your interest in gaming. Tell me more about it.

My older son is an IT professional, and gaming is his favorite hobby. He travels to Japan yearly to enjoy at least one gaming festival. This year (and last), it was the Gran Blu Fest.

I remember doing all of the vintage games when video games first came out in the 1980s. We used to play with our kids all the time. Now I only play Pokemon Go, but I’ve been playing for 9 years and am now level 40. I don’t do any other games because they are a time sink, but I love jigsaw puzzling — another time sink (as is LT). :D

My current read is about gaming: the novel Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow which I already love although I’ve only finished half of it. It’s one of those books I want to savor instead of rushing through it. I also loved Ready Player One and was recently given its sequel, Ready Player Two by a fellow BookCrossing friend.

Happy New Year, Greg! Have a wonderful year!

>12 SqueakyChu: Good morning!

I call myself a video gamer, but I prefer playing alone. I'm not connected online or play co-op games. I enjoy the stories and the action, especially if it involves puzzle solving. Recently, I finished the main story/game for The Talos Principle 2, which is just puzzle solving. However, I also enjoy some franchises, like Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Far Cry, Tomb Raider, Dead Island, Red Dead Redemption (great story lines), and Bio-Shock, as well as some standalone games, like Control and Stray. Games like Call of Duty don't hold my interest, though I have tried.

My very first gaming system was an Atari 2600 way back in the day, and now, I have two PlayStations. :-)

As for reading, I have read some books based upon the games. Two of the best, in my opinion, are BioShock: Rapture by John Shirley and Uncharted: The Fourth Labyrinth by Christopher Golden (which has nothing to do with the recent Uncharted movie...). Ready Player One is in my TBR stack, so I will get to it eventually.

>13 atozgrl: Thank you! Happy New Year to you, too!

>14 ocgreg34: We had an Atari! My older son still has it. I wonder if he plays it ever? When he was a kid, he wanted a Nintendo, but we said no because the set was too expensive and we didn't want him sitting in front of a screen gaming. However, I told him he could save his allowance for it. He saved his $2 a week allowance until he had enough money to buy it, and then I could not rightly say no. He is now an IT professional, as I told you previously.

I'll wishlist the books you mentioned. Thanks for the recs.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, Greg. I don't play video games, or any kind of games, except occasionally cards, but I remember when my younger brothers played Atari. My two now adult sons used to play Nintendo, but I don't think they ever had PlayStation.

>17 vancouverdeb: I loved playing the Atari. But, I have to admit that today's games can be fun. Most of the ones I play have an ever-evolving story that can change depending upon choices that you make during the game or how you respond during in-game conversations. They're like interactive novels, in a way.

February already, and I just realized that I forgot to add one of my reading lists: at least one book (play, novel, poetry, essays, etc.) from each of the Nobel Prize for Literature winners, dating back to René-François Sully Prudhomme (1901). This may prove difficult as I can't find English translations of many of the early winners.

1901 Sully Prudhomme
1902 Theodor Mommsen
1903 Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
1904 Frédéric Mistral
1904 José Echegaray y Eizaquirre
1905 Henryk Sienkiewicz
1906 Giosuè Carducci
1907 Rudyard Kipling
1908 Rudolf Christoph Eucken
1909 Selma Lagerlöf
1910 Paul Heyse
1911 Count Maurice Maeterlinck
1912 Gerhart Hauptmann
1913 Rabindranath Tagore
1915 Romain Rolland
1916 Verner von Heidenstam
1917 Karl Adolph Gjellerup
1917 Henrik Pontoppidan
1919 Carl Spitteler
1920 Knut Hamsun
1921 Anatole France
1922 Jacinto Benavente
1923 William Butler Yeats
1924 Wladyslaw Reymont
1925 George Bernard Shaw
1926 Grazia Deledda
1927 Henri Bergson
1928 Sigrid Undset
1929 Thomas Mann
1930 Sinclair Lewis
1931 Erik Axel Karlfeldt
1932 John Galsworthy
1933 Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin
1934 Luigi Pirandello
1936 Eugene O'Neill
1937 Roger Martin du Gard
1938 Pearl S. Buck
1939 Frans Eemil Sillanpää
1944 Johannes Vilhelm Jensen
1945 Gabriela Mistral
1946 Hermann Hesse
1947 André Gide
1948 T.S. Elliot
1949 William Faulkner
1950 Bertrand Russell
1951 Pär Lagerkvist
1952 François Mauriac
1953 Sir Winston Churchill
1954 Ernest Hemingway
1955 Halldór Laxness
1956 Juan Ramón Jiménez
1957 Albert Camus
1958 Boris Pasternak (declined the prize)
1959 Salvatore Quasimodo
1960 Saint-John Perse
1961 Ivo Andrić
1962 John Steinbeck
1963 Giorgos Seferis
1964 Jean-Paul Sartre (declined the prize)
1965 Michail Sholokhov
1966 Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 Nelly Sachs
1967 Miguel Ángel Asturias
1968 Yasunari Kawabata
1969 Samuel Beckett
1970 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1971 Pablo Neruda
1972 Heinrich Böll
1973 Patrick White
1974 Eyvind Johnson
1974 Harry Martinson
1975 Eugenio Montale
1976 Saul Bellow
1977 Vincente Aleixandre
1978 Isaac Bashevis Singer
1979 Odysseas Elytis
1980 Czeslaw Milosz
1981 Elias Canetti
1982 Gabriel García Márquez
1983 William Golding
1984 Jaroslav Seifert
1985 Claude Simon
1986 Akinwande Ouwoe Soyinka
1987 Joseph Brodsky
1988 Naguib Mahfouz
1989 Camilo José Cela
1990 Octavio Paz
1991 Nadine Gordimer
1992 Derek Walcott
1993 Toni Morrison
1994 Kenzaburo Oe
1995 Seamus Heaney
1996 Wislawa Szymborska
1997 Dario Fo
1998 José Saramago
1999 Günter Grass
2000 Gao Xingjian
2001 Vidiadhar Surjprasad Naipaul
2002 Imre Kertész
2003 John Maxwell Coetzee
2004 Elfriede Jelinek
2005 Harold Pinter
2006 Orhan Pamuk
2007 Doris Lessing
2008 J.M.G. Le Clézio
2009 Herta Müller
2010 Mario Vargas Llosa
2011 Tomas Tranströmer
2012 Mo Yan
2013 Alice Munro
2014 Patrick Modiano
2015 Svetlana Alexievich
2016 Bob Dylan
2017 Kazuo Ishiguro
2018 Olga Tokarczuk
2019 Peter Handke
2020 Louise Glück
2021 Abdulrazak Gurnah
2022 Annie Ernaux
2023 Jon Fosse
2024 Han Kang
2025 László Krasznahorkai

Catching up on my new purchased books, and yes, they're mostly horror novels...

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-Zǐ
They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran
Joplin's Ghost by Tananarive Due
Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel

Continued from the first post

Completed in April

38. Galatea by Madeline Miller -- 64 p.
39. Final Girls by Riley Sager -- 342 p.
40. Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley (England) -- 203 p.
41. A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore (England) WPF -- 313 p.
42. Showtime at the Apollo: The Epic Tale of Harlem's Legendary Theater by Ted Fox/illustrated by James Otis Smith gn nf -- 224 p.
43. Five Midnights by Ann Dávila Cardinal -- 287 p.
44. Rose/House by Arkady Martine 🏳️‍🌈 -- 115 p.
45. Rizzio by Denise Mina (Scotland) 🏳️‍🌈 -- 119 p.
46. The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud -- 293 p.
47. Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster -- 82 p.
48. e by Matthew Beaumont (England) * -- 343 p.
49. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller 🏳️‍🌈 WPF -- 369 p.

Completed in May

50. Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips PP -- 276 p.
51. Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Augustina Bazterrica (Argentina) -- 153 p.
52. R. U. R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek (The Czech Republic) -- 87 p.
53. Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison -- 281 p.
54. Dream On by Shannon Hale/illustrated by Marcela Cespedes gn -- 236 p.
55. The Lehman Trilogy by Stefano Massini (Italy) -- 708 p.
56. The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke (England) -- 64 p.
57. Girl on Film by Cecil Castellucci/ illustrated by Vicky Leta, Melissa Duffy, V. Gagnon, and Ken Berg gn nf -- 160 p.
58. Passing Through a Prairie Country by Dennis E. Staples 🏳️‍🌈 -- 253 p.
59. The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell (England) NL nf -- 161 p.
60. A Brighter Flame by Christine Nolfi (audiobook)
61. The Truth of the Aleke by Moses Ose Utomi -- 101 p.
62. Bullet Train by Kōtarō Isaka (Japan) -- 415 p.
63. Stranger Danger by Maren Stoffels (The Netherlands) -- 216 p.
64. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien -- 216 p.
65. Love Is Love by Marc Andreyko 🏳️‍🌈 -- 144 p.
66. The Last Romeo by Justin Myers (England) 🏳️‍🌈 -- 290 p.

Completed in June

67. An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon 🏳️‍🌈 -- 349 p.
68. Thérèse and Isabelle by Violette Leduc (France) 🏳️‍🌈 -- 101 p.
69. They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran 🏳️‍🌈 -- 277 p.
70. Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen 🏳️‍🌈 -- 240 p.
71. The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ -- 290 p.
72. The Mysterious Correspondent by Marcel Proust (France) 🏳️‍🌈 -- 138 p.
73. Oracle by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (The Netherlands) 🏳️‍🌈 -- 374 p.
74. Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang (Singapore) 🏳️‍🌈 -- 167 p.
75. Flyboy by Kasey LeBlanc 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ -- 360 p.
76. Fatal Shadows by Josh Lanyon * 🏳️‍🌈 -- 150 p.
77. We Came to Welcome You by Vincent Tirado 🏳️‍🌈 -- 409 p.
78. Family Dancing by David Leavitt 🏳️‍🌈 -- 207 p.

continued in post #24...

* = re-read
gn = graphic novel
🏳️‍🌈 = lgbtqia+
NL = Nobel Prize for Literature
nf = non-fiction
PP = Pulitzer Prize
WPF = Women's Prize for Fiction
KP = Kirkus Prize

You've read a lot of interesting books, Greg.
And again my mount tbr grows...
All the best to you.

A productive day spent at the L.A. Times Festival of Books. In spite of the morning rain, I managed to walk away with only nine books (two of which were free)...

"Clara lit Proust" by Stéphane Calier
"Small World" by Martin Suter
"Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands" by Mary Seacole (originally published in 1857... though this is a newer Penguin edition)
"Dream On" by Shannon Hale, illustrated by Marcela Cespedes
"The Manual of Detection" by Jedediah Berry
"The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins
"Black River Orchard" by Chuck Wendig
"Midnight Men" by Kevin David Anderson
"Under the Same Stars" by Libba Bray

continued from post #21...

Completed in July

79. The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager -- 370 p.
80. On a Woman's Madness by Astrid Roemer (Suriname) 🏳️‍🌈 -- 265 p.
81. Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein (Trinidad & Tobago) -- 326 p.
82. Lost Man's Lane by Scott Carson -- 513 p.
83. The Deep Rivers Solomon 🏳️‍🌈 (audiobook)
84. Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones -- 297 p.
85. Yes, I Can Say That by Judy Gold 🏳️‍🌈 nf -- 213 p.
86. East of the Mountains by David Guterson -- 254 p.
87. Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine -- 404 p.

Completed in August

88. Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes -- 334 p.
89. A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst (England) nf -- 217 p.
90. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (France) -- 325 p.
91. Common Sense by Thomas Paine nf -- 68 p.
92. Born Standing Up by Steve Martin nf -- 204 p.
93. One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware (England) -- 380 p.
94. Change Sings by Amanda Gorman (audiobook)
95. A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers 🏳️‍🌈 -- 160 p.
96. Blacking Out by Chip Mosher/illustrated by Peter Krause, Giulia Brusco, and Ed Dukeshire gn -- 64 p.
97. A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam (Sri Lanka) 🏳️‍🌈 -- 287 p.
98. The Praise Singer by Mary Renault (England) 🏳️‍🌈 -- 238 p.
99. This World Is Not Yours by Kemi Ashing-Giwa 🏳️‍🌈 -- 163 p.
100. Idle Grounds by Krystelle Bamford (Scotland) -- 193 p.
101. The Whispering Dead by Darcy Coates (Australia) -- 263 p.

Completed in September

102. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones -- 424 p.
103. Mazebook by Jeff Lemire (Canada) gn -- 256 p.
104. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride KP -- 381 p.
105. Helpmeet by Naben Ruthenium (Canada) -- 90 p.
106. The Least of My Scars by Stephen Graham Jones -- 208 p.
107. Mice 1961 by Stacey Levine -- 259 p.
108. Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley -- 124 p.
109. Cold Snap by Lindy Ryan -- 120 p.
110. Deadstream by Mar Romasco-Moore 🏳️‍🌈 -- 320 p.
111. The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas -- 337 p.

* = re-read
gn = graphic novel
🏳️‍🌈 = lgbtqia+
NL = Nobel Prize for Literature
nf = non-fiction
PP = Pulitzer Prize
WPF = Women's Prize for Fiction
KP = Kirkus Prize

I finally completed the Seattle Public Library's Book Bingo for 2025, managing a blackout and finding some very interesting reads along the way.



Suggested by a Library Worker: Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes
SAL Speaker (Past or Present): Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones
Grief: A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam
PNW Nature: East of the Mountains by David Guterson
Censorship: Yes, I Can Say That by Judy Gold
Author from Another Continent: The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
Suggested by an Independent Bookseller: A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst
Flower on the Cover/in the Title: Delicate Condition by Denise Valentine
Intergenerational Friendship: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
New-to-You Format: The Deep by Rivers Solomon (audiobook)
Dystopia: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
Found Family: Flyboy by Kasey LeBlanc
Resistance: Common Sense by Thomas Paine
Humor: Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Disability: Change Sings by Amanda Gorman
Great Escapes: One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware
Monsters: They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran
Read in Public: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
BIPOC Historical Fiction/Nonfiction: Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen
One Big Book: Lost Man's Lane by Scott Carson
Hope: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Gender Bender: The Thirty Names of Night by Zayn Joukhadar
Buddy Read: A Brighter Flame by Christine Nolfi

Continued from post #24...

Completed in October

112. The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft * -- 191 p.
113. The Job of the Wasp by Colin Winnette -- 178 p.
114. Straight by Chuck Tingle 🏳️‍🌈 -- 120 p.
115. 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King * -- 653 p.
116. Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel -- 340 p.
117. The Planet of the Dead and Other Stories by Clark Ashton Smith -- 263 p.
118. The Walking by Bentley Little -- 373 p.
119. This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer -- 302 p.
120. The Drowning House by Cherie Priest 🏳️‍🌈 -- 400 p.
121. We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer (Canada) 🏳️‍🌈 -- 308 p.
122. H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness Deluxe Edition adapted by Gou Tanabe (Japan) gn -- 616 p.
123. Mister Magic by Kiersten White 🏳️‍🌈 -- 288 p.

Completed in November

124. The Invisible World by Nora Fussner -- 304 p.
125. Everything's Eventual by Stephen King -- 583 p.
126. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (England) -- 104 p.
127. Shelterwood by Stephen Indrisano 🏳️‍🌈 -- fiction podcast
128. The Gospel of Z by Stephen Graham Jones -- 299 p.
129. The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig 🏳️‍🌈 -- 381 p.
130. Shy by Max Porter (England) -- 121 p.
131. Roux the Bandit by André Chamson (France) -- 106 p.
132. Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare 🏳️‍🌈 -- audiobook
133. The Bear by Andrew Krivak -- 224 p.
134. Alley: Junji Ito Story Collection by Junji Itō (Japan) gn -- 340 p.

Completed in December

135. The Lilies of the Field by William E. Barrett -- 127 p.
136. After Midnight: Thirteen Tales for the Dark Hours by Daphne du Maurier (England) -- 510 p.
137. The Greatest Sentence Ever Written by Walter Isaacson nf -- 67 p.
138. The Late George Apley by John P. Marquand PP -- 293 p.
139. The Dead of Summer by Ryan La Sala 🏳️‍🌈 -- 400 p.
140. The Human Comedy by William Saroyan -- 192 p.
141. What Remains of Teague House by Stacy Johns -- 411 p.
142. A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East by László Krasznahorkai (Hungary) NL -- 130 p.

* = re-read
gn = graphic novel
🏳️‍🌈 = lgbtqia+
NL = Nobel Prize for Literature
nf = non-fiction
PP = Pulitzer Prize
WPF = Women's Prize for Fiction
KP = Kirkus Prize

>25 ocgreg34: What a great graphic, Greg and very well done!

Wishing you a wonderful and book-filled weekend.

>27 PaulCranswick: Thank you! I bought 5 more books, so it was a very productive weekend. :-)

Have a lovely festive season, Greg

Hi Greg, Happy New Year.

New Year greetings from Kuala Lumpur. My project is at least physically completed and an addition to the city scape.

Look forward to keeping up with you in 2026