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2025 Book Reviews, Part II

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Books 13-22 for the year. Have I mentioned that my goal of just reading books that I have sitting on my “to be read” shelf has mostly gone by the wayside? Part of the problem is that I keep falling down rabbit holes when listening to podcasts and discovering the books that people recommend are available at the library. The other problem I’m encountering is that many of the books I haven’t read are meant to be used rather than just read. You have to do things as you read rather than sitting peacefully and reading them cover to cover.

Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater by Peggy Orenstein: I’m leery of pandemic memoirs, or even books that reference the pandemic, but I was surprised to enjoy this one. One reason was that I was reading The Living Mountain at the same time, and I was missing a human protagonist. I also have a strange fascination with sheep after reading Hit by a Barn and Sheepish by Catherine Friend last year, and I’ve been learning to crochet. The title pretty much says it all–the author set out to make a sweater from start to finish: shearing, cleaning, spinning, dyeing, and knitting. I really enjoyed this book, but I was left with an overall sadness at the huge amount of waste in wool–sheep need to be sheared, but the wool is often just thrown away because its value is less than the cost to make something out of it. I wasn’t inspired to knit a sweater, but I kept remembering little tidbits from the book in the weeks that followed. For example, in the section about dyeing and indigo, she mentions that the Japanese word for “green” (midori) appeared much later than we might think–many things we’d consider to be green are called “blue.” One instance that I remember from my two years of Japanese is ao ringo (青リンゴ), which means “green apple,” but “ao” means “blue.”

Root Beer Lady: The Story of Dorothy Molter by Bob Cary: I already wrote a whole post about Dorothy Molter, and this book was a major source for the one-woman play written about her. It was a bit confusing, though, since it followed themes rather than being chronological, so I wasn’t ever sure where the book was going next. I enjoyed learning more about Dorothy (and was a bit disappointed that she wasn’t the completely self-reliant powerhouse I’d built her up to be), but I had to push a bit to get through the book.

The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd: Robert Macfarlane really loves this book. According to his book The Gifts of Reading, it’s one of the five books he’s constantly giving away to people. And yet I really struggled with it. Though the writing is beautiful, I kept searching for a human protagonist, or, since this is nonfiction, a human center to the book through which I could better understand the mountain. But, as is noted in the title, the mountain (the Cairngorms in Scotland) is the protagonist. There were a few bits about people living in the mountain’s shadow that inspired a few story ideas, but after having read the book, I’m perversely less interested in traveling to see that corner of the world.

I Must Be Dreaming and Going into Town: A Love Letter to New York by Roz Chast: I picked these up because I recognized the name (I read Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? last year) and read them quickly. Not a lot stuck with me except the idea that comics can be messy (not just perfectly rendered black lines), which was later reinforced by Lynda Barry’s book.

In Praise of Idleness: The Classic Essay with a New Introduction by Bradley Trevor Greive by Bertrand Russell: Most of what was interesting in this essay was summarized in Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. This particular version had an introduction, a follow-up essay about Russell’s life, and illustrations by Bradley Trevor Greive.

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren: I loved her discovery that the pit of a hackberry had a lattice of opal, especially since I’ve crunched a few between my teeth after taking a foraging class a few years ago. And I’m envious of those who are driven by the need to know why things are as they are. But I didn’t want to experience the fallout from her manic episodes, so I stepped away from the audiobook (narrated by the author, who always sounded sad) after finishing a bit over half of it.

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey: I’d been rewatching episodes of Ask a Mortician and come across Caitlyn’s reference to this book. I’ve been ghost hunting a few times with a semi-professional wrestler (long story), but though other people I’ve gone with have experienced things and I’ve managed to creep myself out severely, I can’t say I have seen any proof of ghosts existing. This book was fascinating, but it completely ruined ghost hunting for me. I had thought it was lovely, at the very least, that the craze was keeping local history alive. One of the points Dickey makes, however, is that many of the stories about the events surrounding the locations are skewed or completely made up by those hoping to make money off the “hauntings.” One major example he cites is that of Sarah Winchester, owner of the “Winchester Mystery House” who supposedly was inspired by ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles to keep building on to the house in order to avoid their vengeance. Not true, according to Dickey’s research. (And yes, this blew my mind a bit, since I’ve heard the stories over and over and even been on a tour.) He pointed out that many of the places described within the house, such as the seance room, don’t exist. Many of these stories were credited to an anonymous source in one newspaper article and later debunked by those who knew Winchester, though they were eventually built up and elaborated upon by the person who purchased the house and made money by giving tours. So why did she have such a bizarre house? Perhaps she simply enjoyed experimenting with architecture and had the funds to do so. Similar examples, such as the question of why there are so few Black ghosts, made me rethink a lot of the lore about hauntings.

Making Comics by Lynda Barry: I keep picking up books that are meant to be used rather than just read. This book is full of illustrated examples and exercises from her comics writing course. (I’m not sure how it differs from Syllabus, which is described as the same, but I’m hoping to pick that up as well.) I read through it, skimming through the exercises, and knowing that I’ll buy a composition notebook, note cards, and felt-tipped markers at some point when I get my hands on my own copy. (This copy had to go back to the library.)

A Walk Around the Block: Stoplight Secrets, Mischievous Squirrels, Manhole Mysteries & Other Stuff You See Every Day by Spike Carlsen: My mom and I listened to this book on the way to and from Grand Island, Nebraska, where we were driving to see the sandhill cranes. As lifelong Minnesota residents, we both appreciated the references to local cities like St. Paul, Shoreview, and Stillwater. And we expressed great skepticism that the stripes flashing past us on the highway are 10 feet long and the spaces between them 40 feet long, though it’s difficult to check that out with a measuring tape. Overall, however, the various essays about different parts of local infrastructure–power stations, sewers, roads, etc.–didn’t quite gel into a coherent whole. They were fun to learn about, but I didn’t feel like the book quite earned the heavier environmental message at the end.

Next up? I’m hoping to do a sketch-a-day and poem-a-day for the month of April, which is National Poetry Month. The sketch-a-day is in preparation for getting deeper into nature journaling, which is where my interests seem to be leaning at the moment. These might get posted on Instagram. We’ll see.

Currently reading: World Enough & Time by Christian McEwen
Currently drinking: Rose tea
Currently listening: Journaling with Nature (So many rabbit holes!)

2025 Book Reviews, Part I

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Initially, I’d planned to review the books I read this year individually. Then, I thought I’d do a write a summary of the first five. Then ten. I’m up to twelve books at the moment, so I thought I’d better dive in.

The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie – This is the first Miss Marple mystery. Over the course of Christie’s books, the local authorities eventually learn to respect Miss Marple’s insights, but since I’ve been reading them out of order, I wanted to curse them out for being so blockheaded and disregarding older women. (Or maybe that’s just a reaction to the fact that things haven’t changed all that much?) In any case, the solution to the mystery was both a surprise and satisfying. And they would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for meddling old women!

Making It So by Patrick Stewart – I listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by Stewart. For the first half of the book or so, I declared that he could read the phone book, and I would be happy to listen. I really enjoyed hearing about what it was like for him to grow up in a small town in England after WWII, as well as the hard work–and lucky breaks–it took for him to become the world-famous actor he is today. Once he had joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and was well on his way, I had to return the CDs to the library. (Yes, I still have a CD player in my car. Lucky me!) By then, I’d lost interest in the recitation of works and theaters and celebrities he’d met. Not that he is anything but humble and gracious as he talks about his accomplishments, but as with fiction, the struggles in his life were much more compelling than the successes. I’d finished over half of the book by that point, so I rounded up and marked it as complete.

Here by Richard McGuire – This book was well-regarded enough to have been made into a movie starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, but I had to read it quickly as it was one of many library holds that arrived at the same time. As a result, I had a difficult time trying to disentangle and follow the storylines playing out at different times in the house/location’s history. In the end, I gave up on the story and appreciated the art. For me, North Woods by Daniel Mason did a better job telling different stories set in the same location.

Seven Brief Lessons in Physics by Carlo Rovelli – I bought Rovelli’s book The Order of Time after listening to it because I wanted to better understand some of his arguments about what time is. So I’d had high hopes for this book presenting an interesting perspective on the basics of physics, though it turned out to mostly be an overview–with a bit more about the physicists themselves, which I appreciated. I like to know more about the human faces behind the discoveries. He also included an overview of his own ideas about quantum gravity, which were new to me. But overall, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown – Eddy Hood, host of The Read Well Podcast and YouTube channel, went on and on about this book, so I bought a copy. I sat down with this book and tried applying the podcast’s mantra: “Read slowly. Take notes. Apply the ideas.” I did the first two. But by the time I reached the end, I still hadn’t gotten a lot out of it and couldn’t find much to apply in my life.

Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman – I listened to the audiobook in 2024 and bought a copy in hopes of rereading it and taking the ideas in it to heart. (It’s difficult to take notes when you’re driving.) Unlike with Essentialism, I didn’t take notes while reading, just marked passages I thought were particularly insightful. Mistake! Now I’m going back only as I make time (i.e., very rarely) and attempting to suss out what key idea I had previously identified. I’m currently still on Chapter 2 of my re-re-read, but that’s not to say the book isn’t worth reading. I very much appreciated the central idea that we’ll never get everything done that we want to do, so we need to be deliberate in our choices of how to spend our time by identifying what’s most important to us and how we can best focus our efforts to support those areas of our work and/or life.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain – By the end of this book–which was much longer than I remembered it being–I wanted to punch Tom Sawyer. He is a terror. Huck Finn isn’t a saint by comparison, but at least he tries to be a decent person, though his definition thereof is a commentary on the times. I didn’t really enjoy this book (I wished they’d drowned the king and the duke), but I finished it as background for reading James.

James by Percival Everett – I really wanted to like this book. The beginning set it up to be both witty and heartbreaking . . . but after it abandoned the source text, it didn’t work as a story on its own. If I hadn’t just read Huck Finn’s story, I would have been confused by some of the characters and set pieces (the stranded steamboat, the king and the duke, the feuding families). And while we’re told that James really wants to get home and free his wife and daughter, he seems to content to hang around with Huck on his adventure until he decides to drop his grand revelation. This is James’s story, but I didn’t feel like the book provided a strong sense of who he was and what motivated him. I understand that he didn’t have a lot of agency, but he mostly just reacted to what happened to him, which contrasted with his strong internal life (which I would have loved to see more of). People who are much more discerning readers than I am have celebrated this book, but I couldn’t find what they found in it.

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart by GennaRose Nethercott – As a lover of science (and narrative structure), I always want to know why something is happening. But slipstream? (the New Weird? magical realism? I wasn’t sure what to call this collection) laughs at such requests. The idea is that things may be unexplained/unexplainable, but the story still provides a satisfying conclusion or emotional resolution. Were they all successful in this? Not for me. Still, there were a few stories that stuck with me: “Sundown at the Eternal Staircase” (with a list of things you should and shouldn’t do on the staircase that reminded me of the first episode of Welcome to Night Vale), “A Diviner’s Abecedarian,” “Drowning Lessons,” and “A Lily Is a Lily.”

In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration by Shane O’Mara – I somehow missed the subtitle when I bought this book at Nowhere Bookshop in San Antonio (owned by the lovely Jenny Lawson), but if I was looking for a prod to get outside and walk more, this is definitely the book to read. This is very not much Thoreau’s Walking. Instead, it is a scientific exploration of the neurological, physical, psychological, social, and creative processes of walking. I enjoyed it much more than I expected to, and I learned a lot about how the brain and walking are interconnected. Random fun fact from the book: the larval sea squirt has a rudimentary brain, eye, and spinal cord until it goes from a mobile creature to a stationary one, fixed to a rock. Once it stops moving, it absorbs? consumes? these organs, becoming “a stomach with some reproductive organs attached” (p. 30). Having a brain, it seems, goes hand-in-hand with movement. Note to self: Move more!

Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science–and the World by Rachel Swaby – While I love hearing the stories of women who succeeded in STEM-related fields, their stories always make me feel like I should have pursued a career in math and/or science, BUT also remind me that I never had the drive to explore. I had a telescope and a microscope and rarely used either. I was the type of student who was most happy in subjects where the correct answer could be found by following a simple process. Breaking out of that is difficult. In any case, these women’s stories were inspiring. Even those I thought I knew–Heddy Lamar and Florence Nightingale, for example–had aspects of their stories I’d never learned about. Perhaps if I’d had these women as role models when I was younger, I might have stayed on the science path.

The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris – I bought this book when I was on Alfred Wainwright’s coast-to-coast walk across England in 2019, inspired by reading Robert Macfarlane’s book The Old Ways. There’s video somewhere of me reading the poem “Conkers” from this book on one of the last days of the trip. While I initially bought it for the words–and the reminder, which Macfarlane echoes in his book Landmarks, that words describing the natural world are disappearing from our dictionaries and our discourse–I love it for the drawings. I aspire to write like Robert Macfarlane in his other books (Underland was amazing), but I don’t think I’m his intended audience for these poems. On the other hand, I also aspire to create art like what Jackie Morris produced for this book. I’m tempted to read The Lost Spells (another collaboration between the two) to see more of her art.

Have you read any of these books? If so, do you have a different take? If so, I’d be curious to hear what you thought of them.

Reading: Unraveling by Peggy Orenstein and The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd
Drinking: Genmaicha (toasted rice green tea) from TeaSource

Big Round Numbers

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I read more than 100 books in a year for the first time in 2023, with a grand total of 125. 2024 looks to be the second year I pass that mark: 102 books read so far, plus a few I forgot to record on Goodreads.

Sounds impressive, right? As a culture, we seem obsessed with quantifying our activities, and big round numbers (100, 1,000, etc.) are the ones deemed worth celebrating. Just look at all those zeros!

But what if I said that 37 of the books were audio books? Or that 11 of the books were picture books? Or that I didn’t actually finish 7 of the books, just finished more than half and rounded up? Or that 13 were comics or manga or illustrated short stories? Do they all still “count”? And why do big numbers matter, in the end? Looking back on the list for this year, I can barely remember what some of the books were about. (I want to say, “They went in one eye and out the other,” but that doesn’t have quite the same ring as “in one ear and out the other.”)

I often think that “my eyes are bigger than my free time,” a play on “my eyes are bigger than my stomach.” I feel greedy for words, for the experiences promised by books. There’s so much out there that I want to read, even if they’re not all worth the time I spend on them. Some, like audio books, can be helpful distractions that make the walk I didn’t want to take or the cleaning I didn’t want to do a bit easier. But others contribute to a habit of “virtuous” procrastination I’d like to stamp out: I couldn’t possibly do any writing right now! I have to finish this book before it’s due back at the library.

Out of the 100+ books I read this year, these were the ones I got the most out of reading (in order of date read):

  1. When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut (historical fiction)
  2. The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan (nonfiction)
  3. Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn by Catherine Friend (memoir)
  4. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (historical fiction)
  5. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (mystery)
  6. The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another by Ainissa Ramirez (nonfiction)
  7. Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer’s Craft by Brooks Landon (nonfiction)
  8. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman (nonfiction)
  9. At the Mountains of Madness, Volumes I and II, by H.P. Lovecraft, illustrated by Francois Baranger (horror)
  10. The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf (nonfiction)
  11. Something in the Woods Loves You by Jarod K. Anderson (memoir)

My friend Sabrina recently recommended The Read Well podcast, which has the tagline “It’s better to read well than to be well read.” In the first few episodes, Eddy Hood talks about the challenges of slowing down and focusing on a book and then doing something with the information you’ve acquired (such as writing an essay) that adds to the conversation about a particular topic. I ended up buying my own copies of some library books I read this year, including Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman and Building Great Sentences by Brooks Landon, with the intention of rereading them in order to take notes. I wanted to explore the ideas they discuss more deeply–after all, it’s hard to write things down when you’re listening to a book while driving. Here’s hoping. I’m also going to scale my reading goal back from 75 to 52 books for 2025. I don’t want to feel that I have to read books just to finish them.

At the same time, I want to use 2025 to start clearing the overflowing shelves taken up by my to-be-read pile, which grows every year because most of the books I read come from the library. I likely won’t read or finish all of them (there are somewhere around 150 books), but I want to give most of them a shot. So I’m cut off from reserving books at the library until that’s done. This is a resolution that has quickly fallen by the wayside in the past, so I need to make better use of the “For Later” button on the library’s website.

What are your 2025 reading goals? How did you finish out 2024?