Friday Reads — November 28th, 2025

It's Friday again, and time for Friday Reads!

This week, LibraryThing staff are reading:

Abby / @ablachly: Spectacular Things by Beck Dorey-Stein

Chris Catalfo / @ccatalfo: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin

Kristi / @kristilabrie: A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas

Kate / @katemcangus: My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

Lucy / @knerd.knitter: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman

Zeph / @ZephCraven: Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

What about all of you? What are you reading this Friday?

Just started Ezra Klein’s Abundance.

Reading Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith by Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer
and rereading Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
Listening to Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly (another reread)

Via Kindle:
Fairy Tale Ch 17- / Stephen King (a boy & his dog)
Via Kindle app:
Doctor Faustus / Thomas Mann; Oxford World's Classics; translation, notes, introduction Ritchie Robertson (just starting; recently finished reading the intro; curious to see how this reads after finishing the Goethe verse tragi-comedy)
A Suitable Boy 8.1- / Vikram Seth
Sodom and Gomorrah Part 2, Ch 2 / Marcel Proust (Penguin; John Sturrock translation, notes, introduction)

Bedtime reading:
Kindle: Arabian Nights volume 2 Night 386- (Penguin Classics, translation Malcolm & Ursula Lyons; notes Robert Irwin
Paperback: The Rattle Bag / edd Seamus Heaney & Ted Hughes.

Reading Perspective(s) by Laurent Binet, and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, listening to Once Upon a Tome. I'm also about to start listening to Inventing the Renaissance, which I really enjoyed in print earlier this year.

I'm reading Ring the Bells by C.K. McDonnell. Seasonal, but with a Stranger Times twist.

I'm still reading America, América:, A New History of the New World, which lemme tell you is really tricky to touchstone!

My Florida-based history education in the 90s was lacking, shall we say, on just about anything related to the rest of the Americas, once it finished with Columbus, so I'm really enjoying learning more details about Bolívar and his work to rid the Americas of Spain. Amongst other things! But that's what i was reading last night.

Commute reading: Babel by R. F. Kuang.
Bedtime reading: Mitt liv i Japan 3 by Åsa Ekström

Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure by Rhys Bowen, finished it Friday. It was... splendid.

>9 MDGentleReader: Not sure if you saw, but I interviewed Rhys Bowen about this one for the blog, back in September: https://blog.librarything.com/2025/09/author-interview-rhys-bowen/

Nearly 1/2 way through Lean, Fall, Stand by Jon McGregor, a writer I've read off and on over the years. He has tremendous command over style and writes distinctively, even if I don't like everything equally.

>10 AbigailAdams26: I did not. I enjoyed it just now. Excellent questions. Thank you for the interview and for pointing it out to me.

I saw The View from Lake Como at the library this evening. Should have checked it out.