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
- Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, Let This Radicalize You (Haymarket Books) [2025.12.07]
- New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine #5 [2025.12.11]
- New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine #6 [2025.12.11]
- New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine #7 [2025.12.11]
- 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.
- David Day, An Atlas of Tolkien [2025.12.22] – Received as a Christmas gift from my wonderful partner.
- Scott Krieger, Certain Lightnings (Grand River Poetry Press) [2025.12.23] -Received as a gift from the author.
- Arthur Waley (translator), The Books of Songs [2025.12.23] – Received as a gift from Scott K.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- Ivan Turgenev (Charles and Natasha Hepburn, translators), A Sportsman’s Notebook [2025.12.22]
- Christine Stephens-Krieger, Love Garden at the End of the World [2025.12.23]
- Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 [2025.12.27]
- Scott Krieger, Certain Lightnings [2025.12.28]
- R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War [2025.12.29]
Short Prose
- Jim C. Hines, “Images of Death” [2025.12.01]
- Kameron Hurley, “Mother” [2025.12.04]
- Jim C. Hines, “Crimson Frost” [2025.12.28]