Left Coast Justin’s review of 2025 on Goodreads > Likes and Comments

Happy 2026 LCJ!! Keep the faith in your gut for book selection!! Use all of the book selection tools in the tool box!! Practice does come close to perfect eventually... 😎📚

#Readon2026

Had to be YOU to put a monetary value on our friendship. I'm equal parts amused and alarmed. :D

Justin, I need to choose something from your list of favorites as I’ve read none of them! I’ll let you know what decide on. Or better yet, which one would be your top rec? Looks like your friends gave you great advice this year!

I love your recap, Justin - glad you enjoyed Get the Picture and Mailman enough to rank them as year-end favorites!

Love how you made a case for saving money by buying books, then spending said saved money on travels and the Ritz Carlton - that's #bookmath, and who would argue with scientific facts?! :-)

Very entertaining, Justin. I hope Jeff's minions are reading this and see the power of the goodreads community to influence more and more reading.
But I'm a bit confused. I was certain I'd already read and commented on your review of the year. But maybe I'm losing my apples marbles.

Brilliant summary! I added Clam Down after reading your review, so thank you. I’m looking forward to reading it. Wishing you a year full of great stories in 2026, Justin!

Thanks Monica, I don't know what I'm gonna do when this site eventually becomes unusable and/or all my friends leave. 😶

Marquise! The horror! I put a value on my reading time, while of course the friendships here are either priceless or worthless, depending on whether you have an Economics degree or not.

Ooooh, Lori, I love assignments like this!

Hmmmm.....Given your combined interests in history and human nature, then "His Devilish Art" and "Not A Soul But Us" would be great picks, though neither is particularly easy to find. I stand by any of my nonfiction picks if any of the topics interest you 🙂

Don't forget "Things Become Other Things," CatReader, which you also pointed out to me!

And you'll notice that Jerry Saltz's "Art is Life" did not make the list 😏

Well, Meike, if I ever make it to the Frankfurt Book Fair I'll be sure to let you know. You can interview me as "The most pompous Good Readser at the Fair" for your podcast.

Fionnuala, your mind is not playing tricks on you. If you'll recall, my original attempt at this had links that didn't work. To punish my hubris in trying to correct that, GR blipped my review entirely. I took that as a sign that I needed to start over. Then that one got blipped, too, so this version, I hope, is the final one.

Left Coast Justin wrote: "Well, Meike, if I ever make it to the Frankfurt Book Fair I'll be sure to let you know. You can interview me as "The most pompous Good Readser at the Fair" for your podcast."

You mean as the GoodReader who enables us all to spend even more money on book-related extravaganzas!

Of your list of best books, I had already added five, so it's with trepidation that I'll approach the ones of which I missed your reviews, Justin :). Thank you for consistently tempting us into more good reading and here's to more happy reading and book talk in 2026!

A great and very funny write-up Justin, your analysis is hilarious. Your view of the world and things often makes me guffaw with laughter, love it!!!!

On behalf of your GR friends, I would like to acknowledge your appreciation for improving your reading experience by 28%. We have met and our target for this year is 50% - so strap in for the ride buddy, and thanks for the shit and giggles, always good 😬🤗🦘🎈

Fair's fair, Ilse -- We're only a week into the new year and I've already acquired de Kerangal's The Heart based on your review.

I'm holding you to that number, El Presidente! Now that you're spending your days laying in a hammock under a palm tree while minions bring you fresh mango and coconut drinks I expect book-review production numbers to increase.

Nancy, I really hope you enjoy Clam Down, maybe it's not for everybody but I thought it was brilliant and heart-tugging both at once.

Left Coast Justin wrote: "I'm holding you to that number, El Presidente! Now that you're spending your days laying in a hammock under a palm tree while minions bring you fresh mango and coconut drinks I expect book-review p..."

Bahahahahaha 😂😂😂🦘

love all of this!! (& really enjoying being one of your new goodreads friends!) cheers!

haha 😁 I enjoyed your note about River of Teeth. You too can read terrible books. I can't believe you gave it two stars.

You are quite the international reader. I always intend to read more works in translation than I actually get to.

I have only read 3 of these despite your glowing reviews. Sigh, there are just too many GR out there looking for me.

I hope you continue to enjoy your new career, find many amazing reads (even a few on your own 😉), and make time for lots of travel. Happy 2026!

Looks like I need better GR friends (just sent you a request)! I now only have 3 trustworthy GR strangers influencing my read list. I cherish them, but it’s not enough to finance anything other than a trip to a local bookstore 😄

Wow, you did the math! Now this is some solid KPIs. My manager would love you.

I've had a lot of fun with your reviews this past few months too, Victoria Marie. May we continue enriching each others' feeds in 2026!

Warwick wrote: "Wow, you did the math! Now this is some solid KPIs. My manager would love you."

Small thing Justin, not being picky.....BUT (deep breath)......can we start a campaign to refer to "Math" as you say, as "Maths"?

I mean there's more than one "Math" surely. For example, addition and subtraction, just to name two. Okay addition, subtraction AND division (now I am showing off, but you get the picture) 🎈

I liked this wrap-up, LCJ! I can tell you're better at math than I am.
I laughed at the mysterious 100+ likes. I once lost 500 "followers" in a single night. Do robots break a sweat when they work through the night, manipulating our lives?

carol., I reserve my one-stars for authors who truly deserve to die. Gailey may be a bad writer but there's no evidence she's a terrible person.

I guess I enjoyed River of Teeth about as much as you did!

Thanks Lisa, even if we don't end up reading a lot of the same books, I always enjoy reading your reviews. And when we do read the same books, that's even better.

Hi Diane, thanks for the invitation and welcome to my network! You'll find lots of great reviewers among my friends, several of whom are multilingual global readers like yourself. I look forward to seeing what you're reading this year.

Warwick, that depends on whether your manager could detect the full-scale mockery that went into my, um, KPI. I gotta say, I don't miss the corporate world. Do you also do Kaizens? (shudder)

That's a tough one, Mark -- after all, I was raised in a country that changed all its 'Ashboroughs' to 'Ashboros,' after all, and culled the unnecessary u's from 'favourite'.

Here's my compromise suggestion: I'll just never think about math(s) again.

500 followers in a single night? What did you do?!?

For me to do that, I'd need to invent 'negative followers,' which sounds like the sort of math(s) problem that keeps Mark P. awake at night!

And why did I think of so-called 'marital aids' when you talked about robots manipulating our lives at night? 😯

Do you know what's weird, Justin? I had a dream last night where a woman introduced me to her "one-year-old," who was a robot. She looked humanoid, except was all silver. Like a metal baby mannequin. I woke up and was like, "What now?"

What a great year in review complete with statistics, Justin. It looks like a wonderful reading year. And keep on planning for those book festivals. Happy New Year! 🎈

You speak to the invaluable aspect of GR -- its readers, their reviews and camaraderie, how they lead you to good stuff you otherwise would have never seen.

@Justin.....'awake at night' too funny 🤣🤣

A metallic baby, Julie? Hey, you're a novelist, aren't you? So much you could do with that!

Thanks Lorna! If I make it to Frankfurt or Wye I'll bring you back a book-festival scarf. 😊

Ken, that is of course the *only* reason I keep coming back to this site. It sure isn't for the Amazon-robot book recommendations. (view spoiler)[My all-time favorite was, "Because you liked 'Green Eggs and Ham,' you might like 'Penis Genius,'" the latter of which featured a lipstick-covered banana on the cover. Hey, they both had food on the cover. Thanks Amazon!) (hide spoiler)]

My 'maths' campaign isn't picking up much traction, Mark. 🥺