Books Read (and listened to!) in 2025

Posted by BLD in MT January 09, 2026

Books Read (and listened to!) in 2025

This is one of the "outtakes" from a photoshoot with Matt in the backyard. I needed a photo for the webpage at my new job, but was having a hard time controlling my crazy left eyebrow. 9/16/2025

Writing this annual book report is the most consistent part of my blogging year these days. It was a pretty light year for me in the space with just 20 posts. I’ve shared a reading recap every January since 2011 though. It’s a rare blogging constant for me.

A photo taken through my stained glass kaleidoscope. 2/24/2025

I didn’t reach my book goal for a second year in a row. Not even close! My goal was 85 books and I only finished 46. Europe made me take a couple of weeks off from reading. I started a new job where reading isn’t part of the work day. I’ve been distracted by nostalgic rom-com movies on Youtube. But, still. 46 books isn’t bad for a year’s work. I'm cool with that number.

Matt, my stepmother, and I reading about the history of the Broadwater Natatorium. Photo credit to my dad. 4/5/2025

My Top Ten Reads (in no particular order) of 2025 were:

Strange Weather (Joe Hill)
Fourteen Days (Margaret Atwood, ed)
Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home (Chris La Tray)
Dirty Job/Second Hand Souls (Christopher Moore)
Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens)
Dress Your Family in Corduroy (David Sedaris)
To Gaze Upon Their Loveliness by Cara Chamberlain
Christmas: A Biography (Judith Flanders)
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (Michael Pollan)
Gulliver’s Travels (Johnathan Swift)

Ginger doing her yoga-bathing routine. 3/28/2025

The best book was Fourteen Days a collaborative novel set in a New York tenement during the pandemic lockdown of 2020. The collection was written by 36 different authors running the gamut from John Grisham to Celeste Ng, R.L. Stine to Luis Alberto Urrea. It was edited by the incredibly talented Margaret Atwood. She is one of my favorite authors. I read four of her books this year which is second only to Christopher Moore (with five). My love of Margaret Atwood’s work is how I stumbled upon Fourteen Days. It came up in a search for her books in the public library catalog.

A view from the air during my flight up to the Hi-Line. 1/15/2025

2025 Annual Stats

Number of young adult or children’s books: 15
Number of adult books: 18
Number of audiobooks (both adult and YA/children’s): 13
46 total books (50 less than in 2024)

Shepherd's Pie excitement! 2/26/2025

I am again pleased to report another reading year without any one-star books! Two years in a row! There were only six two-star (it-was-okay) books, 12 three-star (it-was-good) books, a delightful 19 four-star (it-was-pretty-great) books, and nine five-star (it-was-amazing) books. I am pretty satisfied with that balance. Definitely trending toward higher quality reading. It is my “assigned reading” that drags me down. Between the Banned Book Club at the library and screening books for the High Plains Book Award judges I end up reading things that are well outside my personal reading palate.

Matt and I were over the moon about this December snow. 12/12/2025

I thought it was sort of hilarious. My five-star books consisted of four Christmas books, four Margaret Atwood books, and a David Sedaris collection. I have a type, what can I say?

We got a little milk foamer whisk thingee to fancy up our coffee. 2/8/2025

My average rating for the year was 3.7-stars (which is a teensy bit better than last year).

On a hike with friends near Missoula, MT 8/31/2025

I failed to reach my goal of reading five German children’s books aloud because…well…I guess I just forgot that was even something I wanted to do. So consider that one a complete goal-setting fail. I was mildly successful with emphasizing non-fiction titles in my reading, but only 36% of my 2025 books fall into that category. It was 48% in 2024 so I clearly didn’t emphasize it enough last year. Oh well.

Ginger thinks I am the best piece of furniture in the house. 1/9/2025

I set my 2026 book number goal at 52 books. One per week. This is my lowest goal number yet, but seems more realistic at this particular point in my life.

Ice cream drumsticks and a game of Ticket to Ride Europe. 11/17/2025

My broader reading goal for 2026 is to continue to participate as a reader (four nominated books) and judge (four finalist books) for the High Plains Books Awards. This was fairly easy when I could seasonally incorporate all that reading into my workplan at the library. Now that I’m just a civilian, so to speak, instead of a librarian...all the reading is gonna fitted into my personal time. The High Plains Book Awards is a really cool subcommunity to be a part of though and I want to stay involved.

Lots of laughs with the pals in a steamy winter hot tub at Jessica's house. 1/25/2025

My other 2026 reading goal is to finish the books that have been lingering half-finished on my Currently Reading list...forever. Like, for real, I started reading one book on my Currently Reading list on July 31, 2023!!! Another I started on January 5, 2025…but then I didn’t want to take it to Europe in May and never picked it up again on my return. And so on. Matt suggests that I quit these books instead, but I think that’s what I’ll do if they’re STILL on my Currently Reading list a year from now.

Heading into a Terrapin Flyer show with a couple of my favorite Deadheads. Jason drove us there in his crazy cool VW bus. It was really cool...even if I was leery of the brakes. 6/3/2025

Below is the complete list of books I read or listened to during 2025. An asterisk indicates that it was an audiobook. They are in chronological reading order.

Christmas: A Biography (Judith Flanders)
Tenth of December (George Saunders)
Secret Life: An Adaptation of the Story By Jeff VanderMeer (Theo Ellsworth)
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (Christopher Moore)
All Aboard (Carolyn Bracken & Doris Stuart)
Strange Weather (Joe Hill)*
The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World (Matt Kracht)
Shakespeare for Squirrels (Christopher Moore)*
To Gaze Upon Their Loveliness: Poems (Cara Chamberlain)
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (David Sedaris)*
True Stories of Censorship Battles in America's Libraries (Kathy Barco &Valerie Nye)
A Dirty Job (Christopher Moore)*
Getting Along in German: The Essential Phrase Book for Travelers (Mario Pei)
Crank (Ellen Hopkins)
The Dreamcatcher in the Wry (Tiffany Midge)
The Bat House: A Montana Memoir (Michael B Riley)
Hush of the Land: A Lifetime in the Bob Marshall Wilderness (Arnold "Smoke" Elser & Eva-Maria Maggi)
Looking for Alaska (John Green)
The Year of the Flood (Margaret Atwood)
All Boys Aren't Blue (George M. Johnson)
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (Michael Pollan)*
Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood)*
Birding for Boomers: And Everyone Else Brave Enough to Embrace the World's Most Rewarding and Frustrating Activity (Sneed B. Collard III)
MaddAddam (Margaret Atwood)
Secondhand Souls (Christopher Moore)*
The Book Censor's Library (Bothayna Al-Essa)
Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen)*
Most Ardently: A Pride & Prejudice Remix (Gabe Cole Novoa)
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life (Scott Adams)
Island of the Sequined Love Nun (Christopher Moore)*
Becoming Little Shell: Returning Home to the Landless Indians of Montana (Chris La Tray)*
Elk Love: A Montana Memoir (Lynne Spriggs O'Connor)
Fourteen Days (Margaret Atwood)*
Pigs (Johanna Stoberock)
Snow, Glass, Apples (Neil Gaiman)
Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens)*
Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift)
The Cat That Climbed the Christmas Tree (Susanne Santoro Whayne)
Merry Christmas, Amelia Bedelia (Peggy Parish)
The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats)
It's Christmas (Jack Prelutsky)
Once Upon a Christmas Time (Various)
The Sweet Smell of Christmas (Patricia M. Scarry)
Olive, the Other Reindeer (J. Otto Seibold)
The Gingerbread Man (Patricia Martin Zens)
A Town Divided By Christmas (Orson Scott Card)*