2025 European Reading Challenge - My Wrap-Up

Sigh. This one was an epic fail. 

Maybe I shouldn't have picked two hefty books, but I did . . . and didn't crack even one of them.

Better luck next year, says I. Sign-up post coming soon. 

Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2025 - My Wrap-Up

So much for optimism. I should have stuck with realism.

This challenge is a good motivator and I started strong (as usual) and then faded (also pretty much as usual). Oh, well.

In 2026 I will drop back to the doable goal of Pike's Peak (12 books). It's shaping up to be a busy year for me, so a more moderate goal seems like a wise choice.

Here's what I read in 2025 from the TBR pile, though:

1. The Great Hippopotamus Hotel - Alexander McCall Smith 

2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith 

3. The Beast and the Silent Blue - David O'Connor (Florida Book Award) 

4. Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver (Pulitzer Prize)

5. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys (Radcliff's Top 100 Novels)

6. My Name is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok (Pulitzer Prize) 

7. A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan (Pulitzer Prize)

8. Half the Night is Gone - Amitabha Bagchi (DSC Prize for South Asian Literature) 

9. Matrix - Lauren Groff (Florida Book Award) 

10. The Rural Life - Verlyn Klinkenborg

11. The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons from Working Together - Twyla Tharp 

12. Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow 

13. His Lovely Wife - Elizabeth Dewberry (Florida Book Award) 

14. The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature - J. Drew Lanham 

15. Infinite Country - Patricia Engel 

Reviews can be accessed here or under the Reviews tab.

This was a mixed bag of cozy mystery, classics, award-winning fiction, random nonfiction, biography, and memoir. That's one of the charms of this challenge: because my reading taste is eclectic, so are the books!

Color Coded Reading Challenge 2025 - My Wrap-Up

 

I made it! With a flurry of December reviews and a couple of days to spare! 

I love reading by color and next year will be my 10th year of participating. I plan to sign up again as soon as I finish with 2025.

Here's what I read:

Blue: Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys (Radcliff's Top 100 Novels)

Red: A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan (Pulitzer Prize)

Yellow: The Beast and the Silent Blue - David O'Connor (Florida Book Award)

Green: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith 

Brown: My Name is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok (Pulitzer Prize)

Black: His Lovely Wife - Elizabeth Dewberry (Florida Book Award) 

White: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt (Pulitzer Prize) Substitute: The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons for Working Together - Twyla Tharp

Another color (teal): Half the Night is Gone - Amitabha Bagchi (DSC Prize for South Asian Literature) 

Implies Color: Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver (Pulitzer Prize)

Reviews can be found here or under the Reviews tab.

This was a year of variety and that's part of the fun. I started out strong and then fell into the summer doldrums, but I stayed with my goals, for the most part. The white book required a last-minute substitution when it became apparent that I would never finish the hefty first choice in time, so I opted for something sleeker. Otherwise, all good and on to 2026. 

But first, stay tuned for the report of my miserable fails on my other 2025 challenges. 

Another Set of Reviews, Quick and Dirty

I love using the phrase "quick and dirty," although I have to be careful when. Not everyone knows it comes from the early days of computers, which were also the early days of space flight. If you don't have time to do everything just right, you figure out what matters and what doesn't, ignore what doesn't matter, and meet your deadline. The result might not be perfectly elegant, but it will work.

Hence, the briefest of reviews:

In the Time of Five Pumpkins - Alexander McCall Smith: These books are the ultimate cozily gentle mysteries, with familiar characters, a soothing delivery, occasional surprises and twists, and plenty of quiet humor. I have read them all and I love them. A full review is not possible; they are simply too pleasant, familiar, and delightful to sink into and enjoy.

Matrix - Lauren Groff: Taking its inspiration from history, Groff's novel begins as young Marie de France is banished from the royal court to become the prioress of a poor abbey. Too everyone's surprise, including her own, Marie thrives there -- learning to navigate the personalities of the sisters, deal courageously with the townsfolk and those who would "manage" her authority, discover her strengths, and confront her own limits and weaknesses. Groff is a master at finding a contemporary viewpoint that illuminates historical situations.

The Rural Life - Verlyn Klinkenborg: Organized by month, this small volume reflects the passage of time amidst the changes of the natural year as they play out across various landscapes. Klinkenborg has a beautiful eye for details and an economy of expression that enlighten and never interferes. Whether he's writing about Iowa, the American West, or upstate New York, you will feel like you've been there.  

The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature - J. Drew Lanham: Lanham mixes memories of growing up close to the land in South Carolina with episodes from his career as a professor of ecology. Along the way he examines how the forces of slavery shaped his family and how his racial identity continues to affect him as a black man in a predominantly white field. This is a serious book with serious themes, infused with a love of nature and the outdoors, and affection for Lanham's family and colleagues who join him there. 

Infinite Country - Patricia Engel: This multigenerational novel follows Talia, a young Colombian girl on the lam from a juvenile correctional facility, as she tries to travel home to safety and the plane ticket that her father has waiting for her, so she can join her mother in America. Along the way we learn how her parents changed from teenaged lovers to a husband and wife divided by immigration, opportunity, and culture. Talia and her family bring life to the challenges faced by the undocumented every day.  

Note: These books all count towards the Mount TBR Reading Challenge. Which I failed miserably, by the way.

An Epic Translation

And by "translation" I mean that Lin-Manuel Miranda pulling his legendary Broadway musical Hamilton from this book is a true mark of his genius!

I don't usually read biographies and am not qualified to judge whether Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton is a good one, but the reviewers and critics say it's excellent, including The New York Times Book Review and Kirkus Reviews. It covers Hamilton's rise and fall in great detail, befitting a man who is perhaps our most interesting Founding Father. The arc of his life is truly extraordinary.

Knowing most of what I know about Hamilton from Miranda's musical, I found the details rather dry. I most enjoyed the excerpts from Hamilton's own writings and letters, and various perspectives offered by his contemporaries; they were by far the most interesting part. This reflects my own view more than Chernow's skill: biography isn't my cup of tea or -- since we're in America -- coffee.  

Clearly, Chernow's research was extensive and that must have been great fun for him; it's a secret fantasy of mine to be a well-known researcher and arrange access to certain original works of art or history. To hold the actual texts in your hands must be an extraordinary feeling! 

Chernow sought out the specifics and included them in this large volume. Miranda made those details come alive and sing -- literally. I'm not sure any source material could compete with that.

Excerpt:

Hamilton was frank about his financial travails. George Washington Parke Custis, the president's adopted grandson, told how Hamilton appeared at the presidential mansion after tendering his resignation. Washington's staff was there when Hamilton smilingly entered. "Congratulate me, my good friends," he announced, "for I am no longer a public man. The president has at length consented to accept my resignation and I am once more a private citizen." Hamilton, noting their dismay, explained, "I am not worth exceeding five hundred dollars in the world. My slender fortune and the best years of my life have been devoted to the service of my adopted country. A rising family hath its claims." Hamilton then picked up a slim volume on the table and turned it over in his hands. "Ah, this is the constitution," he said. "Now, mark my words. So long as we are a young and virtuous people, this instrument will bind us together in mutual interests, mutual welfare, and mutual happiness. But when we become old and corrupt, it will bind us no longer." This queasy view of America's future guaranteed that Hamilton wouldn't just bask in the afterglow of his Treasury success and would return to politics.   

Note: This book counts towards the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.