100+ Books in 2025 discussion

My actual goal is closer to 1 book per week, but we'll see how I do!

1. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
This book was quirky and annoyingly dogmatic - her hard-and-fast rules for organization sometimes showed little connection to my reality. But there were still some ideas that struck a chord with me, and I finished the book shaking my head at the author (Your socks need a vacation!) while wanting to get rid of a whole lot of shit.

2-7. Slightly series by Mary Balogh
This partly spanned a California trip, and was the perfect fun series for that.

8. Love in the Time of Scandal
This one not as much, but airplane...

9. My American Duchess
So charming and fun - an excellent regency :)

10. God Is Disappointed in You
Who wouldn't love a snarky Cliffs-notes version of the Bible?

11. Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
I had read a few of Allie Brosh's blogs and always loved them. This was more of the same. She covers many thoughts about dogs (many!), as well as life philosophy, stories from her life, depression, etc., and makes everything so hilarious, even while some of it is heartbreaking.

12. The Intern's Handbook
This was like reading Commando - violent, mindless, and entertaining.

13. And When She Was Good
I learned much about what not to do as a madam. Enjoyed it.

14. The Color Purple
I hadn't read this in 20 years or so, but reread it because of a book club. Loved it still! I read it in about 12 hours, 6 of which I was sleeping... I cried through half of it. I found it just as wonderful at 45 as I did at 20. And for such a short book and easy read, she covered so much about patriarchy, racism, colonialism, and more.

15. Counting Coup: Becoming a Crow Chief on the Reservation and Beyond

Oops, kids' book - but fascinating...

My friend Amy had posted about this man, who she met while working on a reservation, and had mentioned that there was actually a book about him. (It was a National Geographic book.) I believe he is the last living Crow chief. The book was much more about his life growing up, the battle between the traditional nomadic culture and the new life they were given on the reservation, touching lightly on the racism he encountered.

Becoming a chief was traditionally done by carrying out 4 tasks against their enemies, but with the move to the reservation and the forced culture change, most opportunities were lost. But Joseph Medicine Crow fought bravely in WWII, and actually did his war deeds on the battlefields of Germany, stealing an enemy's horse, touching a fallen enemy, taking an enemy's weapon, and leading a war party.

16. How to Lie with Statistics
Nope, not trying to figure out how to get away with things... My old boss had recommended this book once, I believe as an example of communicating with non-scientists about statistics. What I don't think he mentioned was that the book was from 1954! Which made it so much more fun, but so much less useful. The examples were all hilarious - they would talk about an annual salary of $25,000, and I would have to read on to figure out whether I was supposed to be impressed. (A: yes) But then I believe that there must have been no standards in place as to the use of statistics at that time, since many of their warnings were against things that do not commonly occur now. And it seemed to even be written before the regular use of the standard deviation :S

17. Gone Girl
Well played, Gillian Flynn! In the 2 1/2 days it took me to finish the book, I became a mere shell of my former self - unable to sleep or work, muttering incoherently to myself as I tried to figure out how it would all end... And I would never have predicted how it did! (Which means a lot, since I either find all spoilers or just predict really well, so I get giddy when someone stumps me :) )

18. Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found
Heartbreaking memoir. What's the term - the parentalized child? Everything kept getting taken from her. The only part I wasn't sure about was the "childhood found" of the title. Perhaps we were supposed to assume that going to her grandparents assured that?

19. The Fire Next Time
Wow. This was written 54 years ago. I wasn't sure how it would translate into today's society, but it was still disturbingly appropriate. There have been some changes, to be sure - and Robert Kennedy's prediction that we could actually have a Black man as president in 40 years was only a few years off. But I'm afraid that we didn't manage to make the changes Baldwin said were necessary to avoid "the fire next time", and that's exactly where we are now.

Some parts that affected me: Baldwin's description of growing up in Harlem and his subsequent relationship with the Christian church; his meeting with Elijah Mohammed, explanation of the Nation of Islam's opinions including the role of women in the movement, and analysis of what he thought separatists were overlooking and how they fell in with the wishes of the far right; and his blunt assertion that integration has only been working by black people trying to be like white people, when it's hubris on the part of white people to assume that they should be the standard, and that a different standard has to be established in order to make it work.

20. Everything I Never Told You
I enjoyed this book all the way through. But about halfway through, the mother morphed into my mother, and I into the daughter. A little later, the daughter was a close friend of mine instead. It's a book that really resonated, and had me in tears a lot.

21. The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture

22. The Blondes
I enjoyed this book, but it was both too much and too little in certain ways. I felt like it tried to cover all of the author's many ideas of how her (far-fetched but entertaining) plague would affect society, and missed some chances for social commentary. I missed the back stories of some of the characters, even while it seemed to add something to the narrative by showing the isolation.

23. Seven Year Switch
Fun and light. I would probably enjoy others of her books.

24. The Giver
This was a quick read. I started off thinking it was a little too much like all the other dystopian books out there. But it predates them all!

25. Because of Miss Bridgerton
A new Julia Quinn series :)

26. A Night to Surrender
Anne recommended Tessa Dare for when I wanted a good romance - I wasn't disappointed by this one :) (Might be my favorite of the series - there is mathy banter!)

27. A Week to Be Wicked
#2 in the Spindle Cove series. (I read 1.5 too, but it wasn't a full book.)

28. A Lady by Midnight
#3

29. Any Duchess Will Do
#4, and now I want to read some William Blake.

30. Luck Is No Lady
I stumbled upon this series and like it!

31. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
I'm so happy that WCC had Isabel Wilkerson as their speaker this year, because otherwise I don't know if I would have found this book. It was incredibly powerful, both epic and deeply personal. Her writing style was great. And the story she told was consciousness-shifting. The sheer scale of 6 million people leaving one part of the country over about 5 decades... the detailed account of what it was they were leaving... the further difficulties and triumphs in their new homes... and the 3 people she allowed us to know so well.

32. My Life on the Road
I really wanted to love this, because I've always revered Gloria Steinem. But the book felt disjointed and a little preachy, although her life has been amazing, interesting even before her rise to prominence. It added to my understanding of her, but not really of her ideas.

33. Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist
This book was beautifully done. Seven people involved in the WTO protests, with their own motivations and stories. It was a compassionate look at the different sides in a terrible story. It also had interesting comments on the American view of the issues as compared to that of other parts of the world, and the treatment of such a major event by American media.

34. How to Be a Woman
I really wanted to like this book. But I pretty much hated it. I did make it all the way through, and I must say that the last 2 chapters were worth the effort.
I'm glad Moran is so proud to be a feminist, but she doesn't seem to understand that not everything said by a feminist is necessarily a feminist statement. And actually, a lot of what she had to say reminded me of stand-up comedians' analysis of women - "Why do they go to the bathroom together?? Bridezillas - amirite? How about those shoes!"

35-37. Castles Ever After series by Tessa Dare

38. Between the World and Me
I wanted more from this book, but still found it earth-shattering and brilliant. Coates always seems to me to be the voice of angry reason. His arguments are compelling, and manage to sway the brain while definitely involving the emotions. I loved his arguments to the people who say that Black people can get ahead, but they just have to be twice as good (that this means they are only ever receiving half as much for their efforts). And simplifying (in some respects) racism to white people feeling control over the black body explains a great deal.

39. An American in Scotland
Interesting romance because it actually dealt with the issues of the American civil war and slavery. But there is some moral ambiguity to making the white woman into the real victim of slavery, and to the H/H's actions regarding North and South as opposed to what they say they think about slavery. And the book tells us more about how good H/H are, and how much they're coming to care for each other, rather than showing us in a believable way. I approve the effort though.

The Twisted Sisterhood: Unraveling the Dark Legacy of Female Friendships
This book sounded intriguing (and I enjoyed her NYT article that started her down the path), but it didn't draw me in and couldn't keep my interest. I didn't think her sampling was very random, so when she made generalizations and stated opinions - which she did a lot of - they didn't have much force. It also seemed like she was taking general research and applying it specifically to women. I made it a quarter of the way into the book and hadn't heard anything new yet. Yes, women should be nice to each other.

40. A Great and Terrible Beauty
Book 1 of a YA trilogy was flawed, but enjoyable. The main character was pretty selfish and shallow, and her BFFs kind of monstrous; but the plot was interesting enough, and I'll try the others of the series.

41. The Complete Persepolis
This was a good lesson in the politics and war of Iran in the 70s and after, and the psyche of living in a war-torn country and abroad, the isolation of not feeling like you fit in anywhere; at the same time, it's a very personal account of Satrapi's life. I'm glad I read it.

42. The Argonauts
Another recommendation from Our Shared Shelf. I was really intrigued by Nelson's thoughts on love and her relationship, but was less taken with her thoughts on motherhood. (Nothing wrong with them, but they were so much of the book.) I loved her style, though, memoir with a lot of theoretical musings on everything, and plan on checking out her other books, too. Glad I found this one!

43. All About Love: New Visions
When I started this I found some brilliant insights and thought I would love the whole book. Well, nothing could maintain at that level, I guess! Still, there were more aha moments, and definitely enough to make the book a worthwhile time investment.

44. Rebel Angels
The second of the series with A Great and Terrible Beauty. It was too long for what it was, but was better than the first of the series. Enjoyable, and I felt like the heroine actually grew up a little by the end, although I had some issues with the book.

45. Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl
I've never listened to Sleater-Kinney and have only seen a few episodes of Portlandia, so I was not very familiar with Carrie Brownstein. Now I want to be. She was a really interesting narrator, dysfunctional, often detached, and seemingly locked in her head. And it read like a love letter to a band.

46. To Have and to Hold
Light and fluffy and fast, but not my favorite.

47. Bossman
Oh no - stalker behavior as romance?? Do people still think that's hot??

48. Nuts
Romance meets food porn, and I'm sold.

49. Cream of the Crop
Not as fun as the first book.

50. Eligible
Sittenfeld did a good job bringing Pride and Prejudice into this century while remaining mostly true to the story. I enjoyed her Cincinnati setting, although I couldn't quite decide if she was treating my city fondly or disparagingly. I wasn't fond of her treatment of the Wickham story, since splitting him into two people changed the impact of the elopement. But altogether, a gratifyingly fun read!

51. The Sweet Far Thing
The second half of the book redeemed the series, but first I had to get through 400 pages of boredom and irritation. The finale was big, but it suffered from knowing that the entire crisis had been brought about by the willfulness of the main character.

52. Next To You
Sandra does banter so well - I was completely charmed by watching these two fall in love. It was an unusual HEA though.

53. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
I had a hard time getting very far in this book because the most interesting stuff happened at the end. That part was fascinating to me though - about neuroplasticity and how our brains change according to how they're used, and short- and long-term memory and how Google relates to them, and more. It makes me want to take a long media fast.

54. The Girl Who Chased the Moon
There's a baking theme to another book I read! And fittingly enough, the book was very sweet, and very light. There was a touch of quirky magic in it, too.

55. Autobiography of Us
Another book that really reminded me of my mother... The main character grew up in the same time period, with more privileges but the same restrictions and expectations.