I think I read the least amount of books last year than any previous year I can remember. It was a very busy year for us and I barely kept up with reading my magazines and emails. Here is my annual list, for what it is worth. Here are some previous lists.

First Kisses and Other Miracles By Herb Benham

The Mysteries By Bill Watterson and John Kascht

The History of Farting By Dr. Benjamin Bart

Titanic Belfast – Souvenir Guidebook

The Black Book of Colors By Cottin and Faria

Blankets By Craig Thompson

I’m hoping to compile a much larger list for 2026.

Happy Reading!

The Foxfire Book Edited By Eliot Wigginton

Foxfire 2 Edited By Eliot Wigginton

American Stories By Calvin Trillin

Composed By Rosanne Cash

The Walking Dead Vols. 13, 14, 15, 16 By Kirkman, Adlard, Rathburn

Here’s Negan! By Kirkman, Adlard, Rathburn

The Book of Leviathan By Peter Blegvad

The Contract With God Trilogy By Will Eisner

Through the Woods, Stories By Emily Carroll

The Plot By Will Eisner

Watchmen By Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

As you can tell the beginning of last year was devoted to graphic novels. I finally finished the Walking Dead series (very enjoyable, and different from the never ending TV series) I reread some Will Eisner and a few others, then on to some finance and history books.

Living Well on a Shoestring By the Editors of Yankee Magazine

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Wealth By Ric Edelman

The Americanization of Edward Bok By Edward W. Bok

Iowa, Land Across the River By Don Doyle Brown

Remembering Santa Fe By Willard F. Clark

Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons By Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Vonnegut was one of my favorites growing up, and I have decided to reread some of his stuff during 2025.

Other than newspapers, magazines and online articles that was it for 2024.

May 2025 be a good reading year for both you and me.

Another year of wide variety in my reading, which is what I aim for. My Dad passes on to me several magazines to read, along with Smithsonian and the Sunday edition of The Wall Street Journal. (I really enjoy the Review section) As I have written before I am usually reading 8 to 10 books at a time, which is why it takes me so long to complete one. I took the time to count this year, and I am currently involved with 13 books right now. My wife Shelly is perfectly happy reading one book at a time, bless her. Anyhow, here is what I completed in 2023. A few comments follow some on the list.

A Death In The Family By James Agee

A meditation on death and loss, with some interesting character studies on the side. For me this was not at all a sad read.

Bigger Secrets By William Poundstone

The Strange Career of Jim Crow By C. Vann Woodward

In Our Time By Ernest Hemingway

With a couple of exceptions Papas short stories have proven a better read for me than his novels. This, his first collection of short stories, is a masterpiece.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test By Tom Wolfe

I could barely make it through this one. Wolfe can get so caught up in trying to relay the hippy-dippy mystical nonsense that was going on that I sometimes did not know what I was reading. I have read short pieces by him over the years that I really enjoyed, and I think I will try some more of his stuff despite this experience.

Crazy Horse And Custer By Stephen E. Ambrose

This might have been my most enjoyable read of the year. If you are interested I wrote about it here earlier this year.

I Was The Nuremberg Jailer By Col. Burton C. Andrus (Ret.)

Includes profiles of all the prisoners, the most interesting being Reichsmarschall Goring, who in the end cheated the hangman with cyanide.

Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas By Hunter S. Thompson

I got the idea while reading this that Hunter didn’t think some of the crazy things he does in this book were all that crazy.

All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Things Wise and Wonderful, The Lord God Made Them All, Every Living Thing By James Herriot

I enjoyed his five main books very much. I was surprised by how much humor they contain.

Rocks All Around Us By Anne Terry White

An enchanting little book written for young people.

How To Live In The Country Without Farming By Milton Wend

One-Night Stands with American History By Richard Shenkman and Kurt Reiger

If you like to read about American history this is a fun book to dip into.

The Hunt For Martin Bormann By Charles S. Whiting

Sometimes it seemed the author went on a bit long in some places, but otherwise I enjoyed this probe into what happened to the missing Nazi Reichsleiter. Turns out after searching the world over it was discovered he never made it out of Berlin.

Eyewitness To America Edited By David Colbert

The subtitle to this book is “500 Years of America in the Words of Those Who Saw It Happen.” Very enjoyable and addictive.

Wisdom Edited By James Nelson

A 1950s documentary film project of interviews of prominent elders of that time by NBC are transcribed in this book. I found it fascinating.

Once again I kept track of all my reading for a year. The reading goal for 2021 was pretty much the same as for 2020, to make my way through the large library of unread books I have accumulated over the years. There were just a few books I started and decided not to finish, but all the rest made it on the list. My nine favorites are in bold.

One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding By Robert Glover

Narrative of My Captivity among the Sioux Indians By Fanny Kelly

One Man’s Meat By E.B. White

Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph By Doon Arbus

The Bridge of San Luis Rey By Thornton Wilder

The World Without Us By Alan Weisman

The Magic Never Ends By John Ryan Duncan

Natural Cures They Don’t Want You To Know About By Kevin Trudeau

The World of the American Indian By National Geographic Society

The First Century By William K. Klingaman

Hermann Hesse Poems Translated By James Wright

The Greatest Presidential Stories Never Told By Rick Beyer

The Greatest Stories Never Told By Rick Beyer

Six Short Masterpieces By Tolstoy Translated By Margaret Wettlin

Schott’s Original Miscellany By Ben Schott

American Scripture By Pauline Maier

We Pointed Them North By “Teddy Blue” Abbott and Helena Huntington Smith

Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson By Alan Pell Crawford

Historical Viewpoints, Notable Articles from American Heritage, John A. Garraty, Editor Vol. 1 to 1877, 4^th Ed.

The Road To Wellville By T. Coraghessan Boyle

365 Four-Star Videos By Leslie Hamilton

An E.B. White Reader Edited By Watt and Bradford

Best Known Works Of Robert Louis Stevenson

From Mexican Days to the Gold Rush By Marshall and Buffum

The Walking Drum By Louis L’Amour

One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich By Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Telling Writing By Ken Macrorie

Folklore Myths And Legends Of Britain By Reader’s Digest

The Rockefellers By Peter Collier and David Horowitz

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter By Carson McCullers

Any Survivors? By Martin Freud

Selected Tales And sketches By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Soldier’s Pay By William Faulkner