"There are many little ways to enlarge your world.
Love of books is the best of all."
attributed to JACQUELINE KENNEDY
Books Read in 2025 = 44 (so far)
I'm more than ready for a new year of books and reading. And my reading goal for 2025 is simple and loose-knit. I want to read from my own bookshelves as much as possible before acquiring more... but please don't hold me to that 😉. Specifically, I want to tackle the roughly 130 to 150 books currently on my shelves that have never yet been read. They include brand new acquisitions, gifts, library sale books, and thrift store finds. My shelves also include hundreds of books I have read—some are longtime favourites, others are newer to the roster—I hope to revisit some of these as well.
I enjoy memoirs, biographies, and inspirational/spiritual books. I like poetry, children's books, anthology collections, and artsy/creative books. Fairy tales and a bit of fantasy. Books on writing. I like books that tell stories, even when they are nonfiction or full of facts and data. I like to know how authors relate to the material they're sharing and how they work it out in their own lives. I read a lot of novels, including historical fiction—novels based on historical figures and events but told with artistic license. And, of course, mysteries and whodunits continue to be a staple in my reading diet. Since my youth, I have loved a good mystery.
Some years I'm a slow reader, taking my time with books to savour them, reading but a few. Other years I read voraciously, as I did in 2024, almost as if I were starving for the next adventure into another world. We'll see how my reading journey unfolds in 2025. Hence, no goals of how many to read by December 31st.
To start it all off, below is a short list, most from my unread shelves with a few titles I want to reread. Oh, and here is my simple rate list of books I have enjoyed at some level—I don't keep track of the books I didn't care for or finish. The list is in the order read - a kind of diary for me of what I was reading at the time.
**** = Forever Favourite. Loved it. A keeper. With unforgettable characters, a great storyline or message, beautifully written.
*** = Enjoyed very much. Enough to reread down the road. Great writing, great story, relatable characters.
** = Enjoyed the book enough but don't need to read again.
Read in January to March (34)
1. The Winter Mystery by Faith Martin (mystery, 2018) ***
2. An Irish Country Family by Patrick Taylor (novel, 2019) ***
2. An Irish Country Family by Patrick Taylor (novel, 2019) ***
3. If I Knew Then, Finding wisdom in failure and power in aging by Jann Arden (memoir, 2022) ***
4. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (mystery, 2020) *** (Christmas gift)
5. Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan by Deborah Reed (novel, 2020) *** (library book)
6. Forever and a Day by Anthony Horowitz (novel, 2018 - prequel to Fleming's 007 novels) ***
7. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (mystery) ***
8. Nature Tales for Winter Nights, ed. by Nancy Campbell (essays and excerpts, 2024) ***
9. The Rose Arbor by Rhys Bowen (historical mystery novel) ***
10. When the World Fell Silent, A Novel of the 1917 Halifax Explosion by Donna Jones Alward ***
11. The Piper on the Mountain by Ellis Peters (crime novel, 1966) **
12. A Thousand Feasts by Nigel Slater (memoir, short essays) ***
13. Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman (art, 2022) ***
14. Still Life with Remorse by Maira Kalman (art, family stories, 2024) ***
15. The Splendid and the Vile, A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson (history, nonfiction, 2022) ***
16. Midsummer Mysteries by Agatha Christie (short stories) ***
17. Write It All Down, How to put your life on the page by Cathy Rentzenbrink (2022) ***
18. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Shijie (novel, English translation 2001) **
19. The Chancellor, The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel by Kati Marton (biography, 2022) ***
20. The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie *** (Miss Marple mystery)
21. The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods (novel) ***
22. Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin (on habits, self-help, 2015) - library book, enjoyed it, got a few good ideas from it, she's a good writer/researcher, but I probably won't read again**
23. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (amazing story but I probably won't read again)**
24. A Rare Benedictine by Ellis Peters (3 short stories Bro. Cadfael mystery) ***
25. Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan (historical novel, 2018) ****
26. An Excellent Mystery by Ellis Peters (Bro. Cadfael mystery) ***
27. Doctored Evidence by Donna Leon (Brunetti mystery in Venice) ***
28. Saint Peter's Fair by Ellis Peters (Bro. Cadfael mystery) ***
29. The Leper of Saint Giles by Ellis Peters (Bro. Cadfael mystery) ***
30. Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp (English novel, 1944) ***
31. Pond'rings, a writer's memoir by Marcia Lee Laycock (2024) ***
32. The Devil's Novice by Ellis Peters (Br. Cadfael mystery) ***
33. Vet in a Spin by James Herriot (autobiography/humour, 1971) ***
34. The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (humour, 1923) ***
Read in April to June (10)
35. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (novel, 1853) **
36. Signal Moon by Kate Quinn (WWII time travel short story, 2022) ***
37. Bedtime Stories for Stressed Out Adults, Tales to Soothe Tired Souls, Intro by Lucy Mangan (2018)***
38. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (children's fiction, 1911) ****
39. Somehow, Thoughts on Love by Anne Lamott (nonfiction, wellbeing, 2024) **
40. An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden (children's fiction, 1946) **
41. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (fiction 1922) ***
42. From Grandma by Linda Bienert (her life story, 2025) ***
43. Spring Anthology, edited by Melissa Harrison (Nature essays, 2016) ***
44. You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith (divorce memoir, 2023) ***
Some Spring Reading Selections
- Leaning Toward Light, Poems for Gardens and the Hands that Tend Them, edited by Tess Taylor (garden poetry anthology, 2023)
- The Comfort of Crows, A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl (Nature, the Spring section, 2023)
- Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim (fiction 1898)
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Selected from my 'never been read' shelves for 20251. The Winter Mystery by Faith Martin (mystery, 2018)2. A Thousand Feasts, Small moments of joy...a memoir of sorts by Nigel Slater (nonfiction, publ. 2024)3.Life of Pi by Yann Martel (a novel on the list from the novel The Reading List)4. Nature Tales for Winter Nights edited by Nancy Campbell (nature tales, 2024)5. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (novel, 1853)6. Write It All Down, How to put your life on the page by Cathy Rentzenbrink (2022)7. An Irish Country Family by Patrick Taylor (novel, 2019)8. Forever and a Day by Anthony Horowitz (novel, 2018)9. Vet in a Spin by James Herriot (autobiography/humour, 1971)10. The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (fiction/humour, 1924)
11. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (classic, fiction, 1925)
12. Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit (Biography/Nature, 2021)
13. 1984 by George Orwell (novel, 1949)
14. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (novel, 1980)
15. The Secret War of Julia Child by Diana R Chambers (novel, 2024)
16. A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle (nonfiction, 1972)
17. Rewriting Adam by Connie Mae Inglis (novel, 2021)
18. The Third Grace by Deb Elkink (novel, 2011)
19. Louisa May Alcott, A Personal Biography by Susan Cheever (biography, 2010)
20. The Royal Librarian by Daisy Wood (historical novel, 2024)
21. Apples on a Windowsill by Shawna Lemay (meditations on still life, photography, beauty, marriage, 2024)22. You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith (memoir, 2023)
23. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (novel, 1891)
24. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (novel, 2012)
25. Portrait of a Marriage by Nigel Nicolson (biography, 1973)
26. Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson (fictionalized autobiography, 1945)
27. Why People Photograph by Robert Adams (photography, essays, 1994)
28. Beauty in Photography by Robert Adams (photography, essays, 1996)
29. Deep Play by Diane Ackerman (essays, 1999)
30. Windswept: Life, Nature and Deep Time in the Scottish Highlands by Annie Worsley (nature, 2023)
31. Pictures at an Exhibition by Sara Houghteling (historical novel, 2009)
32. The Call of the Red-Winged Blackbird, essays on the common and extraordinary by Tim Bowling (2022)
33. Jane Austen at Home, A Biography by Lucy Worsley (biography, 2017)
34. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (also from the list on The Reading List)
