Honorable mentions:
2 a.m. at the Cat’s Pajamas
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
The Guardian and the Thief
Stone Yard Devotional
Wild, Dark Shore
Really just didn’t have categories to put them under. But also highly recommended.
Favorite Memoir: Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista. About the extrajudicial killings by and on behalf of the Duterte regime in the Philippines. The playbook of autocrats is all the same. Tough hang.
Favorite classic that holds up: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller: It’s like Who’s on First meets Kafka meets A Clockwork Orange.
Favorite blow-your-hair-back read (the WTF award): Audition by Katie Kitamura. I’m still not sure what the truth is. But I’d read it again.
Favorite cozy sci-fi: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz. It’s about robots who want to start a noodle shop in San Francisco after a civil war between California and the rest of the U.S.
Favorite book with spontaneously combusting children: Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson. Low sample size.
Favorite ending (tie): Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (horror) and We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezon Camara (Trans picaresque take on Spanish colonialism). Both are translated from Spanish.
Favorite debut: There There by Tommy Orange. Urban Indians in Oakland. I look forward to reading everything else Tommy writes.
Favorite overall (tie): What We Can Know by Ian McEwan. Maybe some recency bias since I finished it late in the year. It’s a slow start, but it’s worth it. I think someone described it as science fiction without the science. Another one where characters are slowly revealed.
Favorite overall (tie): Flashlight by Susan Choi. I loved how each character is different/awful/flawed depending on who was telling the story.
I’ve seen a lot of book lists in my feed the past couple of weeks. I’m not going to paste my whole reading list from 2025 here, but here were some of my favorites. #BookSky
The closing credits killed me.
Mixed vegetables and chicken wings next to nine cookies and a tiger picture, in front of today's Jeopardy episode.
#LearnedLeague #LL107 MD11 thread. Today, I try to get to three wins in a row against the great @awaygames.bsky.social !!! This will be a challenge indeed - Kelly is on a flyer this season. Luckily, I get to Factfuel with All! Nine! COOKIES!!!
52 Book Club’s Connections Challenge
Book 10. Same publisher as previous book (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Blindness by Jose Saramago
#The52BookClub #52BookClub #BookSky 📚💙
Book 44 for the 52 Book Club’s 2025 Challenge
Vera, or Faith, by Gary Shteyngart
#prompt21: Character’s name in the title
Shteyngart takes the cruel absurdities of current American life and spins them forward to make them crueler but still believable.
#The52BookClub #52BookClub #BookSky 📚💙
52 Book Club’s Connections Challenge
Book 10. A book the previous character would read at the beach - The Giver
Previous book was Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books
It’s a classic for a reason. Warm, colorful feelings about this book.
#The52BookClub #52BookClub #BookSky 📚💙
52 Book Club’s Connections Challenge
Book 9. Shares a narrative technique with previous book (multiple POVs)
Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller
If only real life could follow this model. 🤞
#The52BookClub #52BookClub #BookSky 📚💙
52 Book Club’s Connections Challenge
Book 8. Cover shares item with the previous cover (a single eye)
Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of A Fist, by Sunil Yapa
#The52BookClub #52BookClub #BookSky 📚💙
52 Book Club’s Connections Challenge
Book 7. Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone. Author shares name with character from previous book (Atmosphere)
#The52BookClub #52BookClub #BookSky 📚💙
Yes, I’m going slow. I’ll start a book and then change my mind and switch to something else. My next problem is my husband is reading my next selection. I may have to sneak it.
52 Book Club’s Connections Challenge
Book 6. Similar title font to previous book
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Previous book: Cabin)
#The52BookClub #52BookClub #BookSky 📚💙
52 Book Club’s Connections Challenge
Book 5. Cabin by Patrick Hutchison
+/- 30 pages to previous book (Big Chief)
#The52BookClub #52BookClub #BookSky 📚💙
52 Book Club’s Connections Challenge
Book 4. Big Chief by Jon Hickey
Published the same year as the previous book (Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, 2025)
#The52BookClub #52BookClub #BookSky 📚💙
It’s a page-turner! I’m halfway through my next book, but my brain is still partly living in Bury Our Bones.
52 Book Club’s Connections Challenge
Book 3: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab
Set in the country where the previous author (Joseph Heller) is from (US)
#The52BookClub #52BookClub #BookSky 📚💙
That’s awesome! Go, Josh!
Courtesy of Milo and the syndicate
52 Book Club’s Connections Challenge
Book 2: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.
Title shares a word with the previous book’s title, which was 2 a.m. at the Cat’s Pajamas
#The52BookClub #52BookClub #BookSky 📚💙
Book 43 for the 52 Book Club’s 2025 Challenge
2 a.m. at the Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino
#prompt9: Genre Four: Set in Winter - literary fiction
Great sentences. I’m also using this as book 1 of the Connections Mini-Challenge.
#The52BookClub #52BookClub #BookSky 📚💙
I love those dolphins so much!
That’s one way to look at it. Maybe I’ll save it for the end of the year.
I’m also trying to dig into East of Eden for the direction prompt. Another chonker.