{"id":2449,"date":"2025-12-31T15:49:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T22:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2449"},"modified":"2025-12-31T16:31:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T23:31:17","slug":"bookshelf-my-year-in-reading-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2449","title":{"rendered":"Bookshelf \u2013 My Year in Reading, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Two words summarize my reading in 2025: disappointment and distraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I abandoned only three books out of seventy-six, but many others left me wishing I\u2019d done something else with my time. At fault, it seems to me, is the plethora of newer authors who are not only poor storytellers but equally mediocre writers. They create books made for visual streaming, heavy on dialogue, short on exposition, absent of character depth. Publishers churn out these fast-lit titles and package them in breathless blurbs hoping to gain footing on celebrity or other \u201cbest-of\u201d lists. Too often the hype is just hyperbole.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"297\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Books_2025-297x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2450\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Books_2025-297x300.jpg 297w, http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Books_2025-1014x1024.jpg 1014w, http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Books_2025-768x775.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Books_2025-1522x1536.jpg 1522w, http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Books_2025.jpg 1802w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 297px) 100vw, 297px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Add to this an elevated state of personal distraction rooted in the perversions of the current occupant of the White House as well as homefront complications that resulted in shortened leisure time and shattered an already compressed attention span.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The result: fewer books (76 in 2025 vs. 100 in 2024) and less satisfaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nonetheless, I managed to read to a number of wonderfully written and narrated books. Five of my favorites:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Wild Dark Shore (Charlotte McConaghy)<\/strong> \u2013 an enthralling story of nature\u2019s ferocity and mankind\u2019s duplicity.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Impossible Thing (Belinda Bauer) <\/strong>\u2013 goodness and avarice clash in this tale of a treasure that survives through persistence and ingenuity.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The MightyRed (Louise Erdrich)<\/strong> \u2013 a story about the value of authenticity and acceptance disguised as a love triangle.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Vegetarian (Han Kang)<\/strong> \u2013 a very human book that is uncomfortable to read, but rewards those who find solace amid distress.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>America Was Hard to Find (Kathleen Alcott) <\/strong>\u2013 an expansive novel of the shifting cultural tectonics that ruptured America in the 1960s, part requiem, part eulogy for an epoch.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Others just as good: <strong>November Road<\/strong> (Lou Berney); <strong>Hotel Ukraine<\/strong> (Martin Cruz Smith); <strong>The Bottoms <\/strong>(Joe R. Lansdale); <strong>A Lesson Before Dying<\/strong> (Ernest Gaines); and, <strong>Leaving <\/strong>(Roxana Robinson).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I discovered audiobooks while taking long, solo walks during the Covid confinement. I still mostly listen while I walk. For me, the narrator is everything and when I discover one I like I tend to binge a series. Hence, this year:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Adrian McKinty\u2019s tales of Northern Irish cop <strong>Sean Duffy<\/strong>: The Cold Cold Ground; I Hear the Sirens in the Street; In the Morning I\u2019ll Be Gone; Rain Dogs; Police at the Station and They Don&#8217;t Look Friendly; and, The Detective Up Late.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Walter Mosely\u2019s addictive story of <strong>Joe King Oliver<\/strong>, a railroaded NYPD detective: Down the River Unto the Sea; Every Man a King; and, Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Finally, there is, to me, no finer narrator than <strong>George Guidall<\/strong>, who reads (among many other books), Craig Johnson\u2019s stories of Absaroka County sheriff <strong>Walt Longmire<\/strong>. This year I listened: An Obvious Fact; The Western Star; and, Depth of Winter.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>At my age, I set few goals (I\u2019ve already accomplished most of what I could and hold no regrets for what I couldn\u2019t). That said, here\u2019s one: I will do my best to ignore the world\u2019s noise and devote more attention to the inner tranquility I find in books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The List:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Yellowface \u2013 R.F. Kuang<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Most \u2013 Jessica Anthony<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A Lesson Before Dying \u2013 Ernest Gaines<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>As the Crow Flies &#8212; Craig Johnson *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Don\u2019t Believe It \u2013 Charlie Donlea<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Down the River Unto the Sea &#8212; Walter Mosley *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Of Women and Salt \u2013 Gabriela Garcia<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Friend \u2013 Sigrid Nunez<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Every Man a King &#8212; Walter Mosley *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray \u2013 Walter Mosely *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries \u2013 Martha Wells<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Last King of California \u2013 Jordan Harper<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Patricide: A Novella \u2013 Joyce Carol Oates<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Peace Like a River \u2013 Leif Enger **<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>All the Colors of the Dark \u2013 Chris Whitaker<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Price of Salt \u2013 Patricia Highsmith<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Drop \u2013 Michael Connelly *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Leaving \u2013 Roxana Robinson<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right \u2013 Walter Mosley *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Foregone \u2013 Russell Banks<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lazarus Man \u2013 Richard Price **<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Roseanna &#8212; Maj Sj\u00f6wall and Per Wahl\u00f6\u00f6<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Martian \u2013 Andy Weir<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Open Season \u2013 C.J. Box *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Savage Run \u2013 C.J. Box *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A Drink Before the War \u2013 Dennis Lehane<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Original Sin \u2013 Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Neon Rain \u2013 James Lee Burke *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Wager \u2013 David Grann<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Heaven&#8217;s Prisoners \u2013 James Lee Burke *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Writers &amp; Lovers \u2013 Lily King<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Winterkill \u2013 C.J. Box *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I Cheerfully Refuse \u2013 Leif Enger<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Vegetarian \u2013 Han Kang<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>33 Place Brugmann \u2013 Alice Austen<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Never Flinch \u2013 Stephen King *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We Do Not Part \u2013 Han Kang<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Gray Anarchist \u2013 Jeffrey Marcus Oshins *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Cold Cold Ground \u2013 Adrian McKinty<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An Obvious Fact \u2013 Craig Johnson *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Last Flight \u2013 Julie Clark<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I Hear the Sirens in the Street \u2013 Adrian McKinty *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Bottoms \u2013 Joe R. Lansdale<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Invention of Solitude \u2013 Paul Auster&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the Morning I\u2019ll Be Gone \u2013 Adrian McKinty *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We Had to Remove this Post \u2013 Hanna Bervoets<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Heartwood \u2013 Amity Gaige<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Desert Star \u2013 Michael Connelly *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Tattooist of Auschwitz \u2013 Heather Morris<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Emperor\u2019s Children \u2013 Claire Messud **<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>King of Ashes \u2013 S.A. Cosby<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Antes de Ser Libres \u2013 Julia Alvarez<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Tides \u2013 Sara Freeman<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>At What Cost \u2013 James L\u2019Etoile **<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The 6:20 Man \u2013 David Baldacci *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Rain Dogs \u2013 Adrian McKinty *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Mighty Red \u2013 Louise Erdrich<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Trophy Hunt \u2013 C.J. Box *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And Then There Were None \u2013 Agatha Christie *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Impossible Thing \u2013 Belinda Bauer<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Elizabeth Finch \u2013 Julian Barnes<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Police at the Station and They Don&#8217;t Look Friendly \u2013 Adrian McKinty<strong> *<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hotel Ukraine \u2013 Martin Cruz Smith<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lilith \u2013 Eric Rickstad<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Wild Dark Shore \u2013 Charlotte McConaghy<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Black Box \u2013 Michael Connelly *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>America Was Hard To Find \u2013 Kathleen Alcott<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Western Star \u2013 Craig Johnson *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>November Road \u2013 Lou Berney<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Depth of Winter \u2013 Craig Johnson *<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>After the Lights Go Out \u2013 John Vercher **<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Librarianist, Patrick deWitt<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Detective Up Late, Adrian McKinty **<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Long and Faraway Gone, Lou Berney<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Trouble Up North, Travis Mulhauser **<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Abscond: A Short Story, Abraham Verghese<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>* Audio<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>** Did Not Finish<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two words summarize my reading in 2025: disappointment and distraction. I abandoned only three books out of seventy-six, but many others left me wishing I\u2019d done something else with my time. At fault, it seems to me, is the plethora &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2449\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[770,979,859],"class_list":["post-2449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-book-review","tag-list","tag-year-in-reading"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bookshelf \u2013 My Year in Reading, 2025 - Tim Porter&#039;s Second Draft<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I abandoned only three books out of seventy-six, but many others left me wishing I\u2019d done something else with my time. At fault, it seems to me, is the plethora of newer authors who are not only poor storytellers but equally mediocre writers. They create books made for visual streaming, heavy on dialogue, short on exposition, absent of character depth. Publishers churn out these fast-lit titles and package them in breathless blurbs hoping to gain footing on celebrity or other \u201cbest-of\u201d lists. 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Publishers churn out these fast-lit titles and package them in breathless blurbs hoping to gain footing on celebrity or other \u201cbest-of\u201d lists. 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Too often the hype is just hyperbole.","og_url":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2449","og_site_name":"Tim Porter&#039;s Second Draft","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/timporterphotography","article_published_time":"2025-12-31T22:49:33+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-12-31T23:31:17+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Books_2025-297x300.jpg"}],"author":"Tim Porter","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Tim Porter","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2449","url":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2449","name":"Bookshelf \u2013 My Year in Reading, 2025 - Tim Porter&#039;s Second Draft","isPartOf":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2449#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2449#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Books_2025-297x300.jpg","datePublished":"2025-12-31T22:49:33+00:00","dateModified":"2025-12-31T23:31:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/#\/schema\/person\/efd6f6b05808f784091b582e4231621d"},"description":"I abandoned only three books out of seventy-six, but many others left me wishing I\u2019d done something else with my time. 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