I write this at the end of 2025. I reckon if I were to do the year in reading ’25 I would remember my December reading too well: my main criteria for judging if a book was good are whether i) I can remember it at all and ii) I still think about it. I guess a criterion iii) is whether I hated reading it or not (see note on War and Peace to be published in Dec. ’26).
I don’t include every book from ’24; only books I have something to say about. A book isn’t necessarily bad if I leave it out.
In terms of dry weight Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa can compete with any Russian classic, but it is a very pleasant read. Perhaps part of the reason is because it is structured in shortish “episodes” more or less. It’s anyway definitely in the “still thinking about it” category for me.
Musashi’s journey from crude and primitive murderer to conscientious and spiritually well-developed murderer makes a very good and in some ways inspirational story. I will most likely reread this at some point.
I guess there isn’t so much to say about Melville’s Moby Dick, it’s kind of well known? You might have heard about it? I really liked it. Having read Patrick O’Brian for many years I am more or less immune to seafaring jargon.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky is also well-known. I read it on a whim, mostly because I could get it on Project Gutenberg and I was desperate for something to read. I expected not to like it but I really did. I was skeptical because I read Crime and Punishment many years ago and hated it. I don’t think I’d have liked Karamazov in my early 20s either, but I’m not revisiting C&P.
The Machinery of Life by David S Goodsell is a short book about cell biology. It has very good illustrations.
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman has its main premise in the title. I think this book is at its best when Norman rants about bad design.
I read two books by Nabokov, both excellent: Pale Fire and Pnin. Pale fire is a strong contender for the If I had to choose a favorite category. It’s not a straight-forward read: it’s a long poem with the entire story hidden in the narrator’s critical apparatus for said poem. I suspect you’d get a lot out of rereading this one.
Another strong contender for If I had to choose is Watership Down by Richard Adams. I don’t actually have so much to say about it, it’s just good.
I read a couple of Ursula K. Le Guin collections. They were good but I don’t remember exactly which pieces were in them. I don’t think I ever disliked anything I read by Le Guin.
I wanted to like Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. Or rather I expected to like it, because I really liked Secret History. But I did not like Goldfinch. It’s probably a good book but for some reason I couldn’t care about the characters nor what happened to them nor what happened to the Goldfinch itself.
Two nonfiction books:
I reread Hogfather by Terry Pratchett in December. It’s the only Christmas book I own. Pratchett for me is beyond good and bad. I have read and reread the Discworld books regularly for like 20 years at this point.
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