Ecce Sigum

Immanentize the Empathy

Tag: Ivan Turgenev

December 2025 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

December was a surprisingly book-heavy month, fueled in large part by me taking a full two weeks off from work. This is the first vacation in a long time where I didn’t have to go anywhere or do anything for the entire break. So I read. A lot. And I wrote in my journal. And I slept a lot.

I didn’t set out to pick up so many books in December, but opportunities to increase my collection just kept appearing.

If you look at the dates where I completed reading books, you will see that they start at the beginning of my time off. And they continue right through to the end of the year. I am still reading, and will likely complete at least one more book before I return to work on Monday.

One additional note: Two of the books i read – The Crying of Lot 49 and The Poppy War – I picked up from the Grand Rapids Public Library. One of my goals for the new year is to spend a lot more time at the library. I love acquiring new books, but collecting is expensive and the library is only a few blocks from my house.

Acquisitions

Reading material I acquired in the month of December, 2025
Reading material I acquired in the month of December, 2025
  1. Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, Let This Radicalize You (Haymarket Books) [2025.12.07]
  2. New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine #5 [2025.12.11]
  3. New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine #6 [2025.12.11]
  4. New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine #7 [2025.12.11]
  5. Katelyn Millett, From the Stillness Within [2025.12.20] – Kate is a local poet and for a time was a student in the Tai Chi class. She has some serious talent.
  6. David Day, An Atlas of Tolkien [2025.12.22] – Received as a Christmas gift from my wonderful partner.
  7. Scott Krieger, Certain Lightnings (Grand River Poetry Press) [2025.12.23] -Received as a gift from the author.
  8. Arthur Waley (translator), The Books of Songs [2025.12.23] – Received as a gift from Scott K.
  9. Wu-chi Liu, Irving Lo (editors), Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry (Indiana University Press) [2025.12.23] – Received as a gift from Scott K.
  10. Pat Thomas, Evergreen Review: Dispatches from the Literary Underground: Covers & Essays 1957 – 1973 (Fantagraphics) [2025.12.29] – A Christmas present to myself, to complete my collection of Evergreen Review anthologies.
  11. Varlam Shalamov (Donald Rayfield, translator), Sketches of the Criminal World: Further Kolyma Stories (New York Review Books) [2025.12.30] – A Christmas present to myself, to go along with Kolyma Stories, which I picked up a few years back. I had no idea there was a second volume to this set.

Reading List

Books

Books I read in the month of December 2025.
Books I read in the month of December 2025.
  1. Ivan Turgenev (Charles and Natasha Hepburn, translators), A Sportsman’s Notebook [2025.12.22]
  2. Christine Stephens-Krieger, Love Garden at the End of the World [2025.12.23]
  3. Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 [2025.12.27]
  4. Scott Krieger, Certain Lightnings [2025.12.28]
  5. R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War [2025.12.29]

Short Prose

  1. Jim C. Hines, “Images of Death” [2025.12.01]
  2. Kameron Hurley, “Mother” [2025.12.04]
  3. Jim C. Hines, “Crimson Frost” [2025.12.28]

November 2025 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

November is ostensibly the Month of Writing, and to be fair I did more writing this month than in all of the past year including last November. However life, as usual, had its way, so the amount of time and energy I had available for writing dwindled away to nothing. Unfortunately so did my time for reading, though I did manage to finish two books.

Acquisitions

Book I acquired in the month of November 2025.
Book I acquired in the month of November 2025.
  1. David Steffen, Chelle Parker, Hal Y. Zhang (editors), The Long List Anthology, volume 9 (Diabolical Plots, L.L.C.) [2025.11.12]
  2. Ivan Turgenev (Charles and Natasha Hepburn, translators), A Sportsman’s Notebook [2025.11.15] – I ordered this book from Books & Mortar back in May of this year, and then promptly forgot about it when life suddenly went sideways. Turns out the book had been on back-order with the publisher for months. I had recently ordered another book from Books & Mortar, and on a whim stopped in to see if it had arrived yet. The clerk said it hadn’t but this one from six months ago had suddenly appeared. And the best part was I had already paid for it!
  3. Todd Goddard, Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer’s Life [2025.11.20] – purchased from Books & Mortar. I had no idea this book was even in the works until about the end of September, and since then I have been awaiting it eagerly. And here it is.

Reading List

Books I read in the month of November 2025.
Books I read in the month of November 2025.

Books

  1. Efraín Kristal, Invisible Work: Borges and Translation [2025.11.26] – I will straight-up say I loved this book! Kristal discusses Borges’ approach to translation – his own translations, translations of his works, and translation as a subject in his fiction and nonfiction. I came out the other side of Invisible Work feeling compelled to re-learn Russian so I could finally read some of the books I picked up in Saint Petersburg back in 1994.
  2. Barbara Saunier, There is Room in a Horse for the Whole Boy [2025.11.28] – One of my recent acquisitions from the Grand River Poetry Collective. The poetry within is excellent, and – perhaps because like the author I too grew up on a farm – made me feel a sense of nostalgia.

Short Prose

  1. Kameron Hurley, “The Safe House” [2025.11.02]