Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Use this thread to discuss your reading in the month of December, or to talk about your year in general.

I have 3 books I plan to read (but maybe not finish):
The Wandering Earth by Liu Cixin
Elbows Up!: Canadian Voices of Resilience and Resistance
Our Daily War by Andrey Kurkov

I'm also hoping to read a few more stories by Graham Greene.

I have half a dozen books to read this month to finish Round 2 of the 2025 challenge, including
The Lost World
The Last Animal
Lady Audley's Secret
Little, Big
Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year
The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves
I already completed the challenge once, so I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't make it through my second round. I would like to if I can, though!

I'm also starting my 53rd annual reading of The Lord of the Rings, a winter tradition since I was 13 years old.

For the first time this year, I don't really have much planned. I'm a little over 1/3 into Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. Considering it is a 1200+ page book, it'll take a few days. :) This other group I am in is reading Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner this month. I don't normally do many of the group reads, but this one has been on my TBR for a while, so why not? :) I might read The Hong Kong Widow by Kristen Loesch.

I talked in the monthly discussion thread about my annual reading resolutions, and how many of them are still outstanding (finishing 4 books a friend loaned me, finishing ATY with bonuses, reading the 9 top books from my Goodreads TBR, and reading 24 more books from my physical TBR piles).

I want to focus on those, but I also have 4 books out from the library that don't really fit into any of them.

Currently reading The Back of the Turtle, which is the last prompt for regular ATY but I'm a little conflicted - I started reading it last weekend, and then the news broke this week that although the author has presented himself as an Indigenous author throughout his career, he's just discovered / admitted that he isn't. I'm going to finish it, particularly as it's for one of the two parter prompts, but every time I pick it up to read, I'm thinking about him, not really engaging with it.

My other read, which I just started is Winter's Tale, off my TBR. Only a bit into it, but it's delightful so far.

Once done, I'll just have two of the bonus prompts left, which I already have (owned) books picked out for.

My next priority after that will be the books I borrowed from a friend. I've had them for so long! And she has a fantastic library which I want to borrow more from, but am not allowing myself to do so until I return the ones I have. The issue is that two of them are door-stoppers (The Priory of the Orange Tree and The Black Jewels Trilogy: Daughter of the Blood, Heir to the Shadows, Queen of the Darkness so they're hard to pick up when I'm also behind on my annual reading goal.

No book club reads this month - in one we always do a holiday gathering / year recap in December with no new book, and in the other, our November meeting got postponed a month.

My one advantage is that I work in an education setting, so classes end this week, and then once exams are over (on Dec 16) I'll hopefully be able to devote more time to reading. Still doesn't feel like I'll get through everything I want to, but we'll see!

This month will have some Christmas reads, of course. I have two books that I read as an Advent calendar, with one chapter per day: The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder and Sju slag by Hilde Østby.

Otherwise, I will try to finish the books I have started on this year: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Iliad by Homer, The Fall of Gondolin by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien, and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

I have three books to read for book clubs and/or monthly picks from GR groups - Sophie’s Choice, Time of the Child and The Blackhouse. Then, if time, I’ll look for some Christmas themed books to finish out the year.

I have an hour left in The Impossible Factory: The Remarkable True Story of Kelly Johnson and the Lockheed Skunk Works, America's Innovation Machine and then two more books to finish the year-- one I began yesterday (The River Is Waiting) and another to start Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History, although also have August Lane that the library just gave me which I might slot in before Summer Moon to give my brain a break between NF books.

And there's a read-a-thon this month!