2025

4,885,656 words; 51 books and 22 short stories

January - 359,639 words; 4 books

• The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell by Unknown, translated by JRR Tolkien - interesting, kind of funny. 7/10; 5,574 words.
• A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift - eat children. eat children. eat children. Seriously, however, it is an interesting satire and effecitive in its purposes. 8/10; 3,456 words.
• The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas - really slow start but it got better as it went on. I did end up enjoying it. 7/10; 234,205 words.
• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy - dark but quite lovely! 8/10; 116,404 words.

February - 475,666 words; 4 books.

• Qu'ran translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali - a fascinating look at Islam. 7/10; 157,935 words.
• The Fall of Númenor by JRR Tolkien - excellent. Aldarion and Erendis are so fascinating. 9/10; 120,000 words.
• Passenger by Cormac McCarthy - I like the style, even if it's slightly confusing. 8/10; 120,962 words.
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - quite good. 7/10; 76,769 words.

March - 559,850 words; 6 books.

• Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood - AHHHH. excellent. 10/10; 130,882 words.
• The Nature of Middle-Earth by JRR Tolkien - quite interesting! 8/10; 116,000 words.
• Beren and Lúthien by JRR Tolkien - the evolution was interesting, but it dragged on. 6/10; 70,152 words.
• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin - kind of interesting, but not very. 5/10; 68.510 words.
• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - very literal and heavy-handed. 5/10; 51,289 words.
• The Book of Lost Tales pt. I by JRR Tolkien - fascinating! I really enjoyed it. 7/10; 123,017 words.

April - 426,500 words; 4 books.

• Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood - I love the particular ambiguity of it, and how real Grace seems. 9/10; 169,865 words.
• Obasan by Joy Kogawa - really heartbreaking and beautiful. 9/10; 88,230 words.
• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - probably one of my favourite books I've ever read. 10/10; 104,120 words.
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe - deeply fascinating portrayal of Igbo colonization. I especially enjoyed the criticism of Igbo society with the maintanence of the injustices of colonization. 8/10; 64,285 words.

May - 329,380 words; 3 books.

• Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut - I hate Kurt Vonnegut. I hate his writing. Die. 2/10; 90,597 words.
• The Book of Lost Tales, pt. II by JRR Tolkien - also fascinating! Took me longer because it's kind of a headache. 6/10; 138,783 words.
• Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy - good except for the sexism and the bad music theory takes. Also, the incest caught me off guard because I forgot about it. 7/10; 100,000 words.

June - 654,253 words; 6 books and 11 short stories.

• Poetry for Modern Youth compiled by Adolph Gillis and William Rose Benét - poetry my beloved. 8/10; unknown word count.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke - HAL HAL HAL HAL HAL. fascinating take on humanity but HAL HAL HAL HAL HAL. 7/10 (not enough Hal); 56,119 words.
• In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez - very humanizing; Patria is especially fascinating. 6/10; 111,619 words.
• The Lays of Beleriand by JRR Tolkien - also a fascinating read! Poetry!!! Made me think a lot more about Beren and Lúthien which is meh because I don't really care about them. 6/10; 156,622 words.
• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - Mary Crawford my beloved. I enjoy Austen very much; it was a good read. 8/10; 159,868 words.
• Various short stories by HP Lovecraft:
• Dagon - what the hell??? what the hell??? what the hell??? 8/10; 2,216 words.
• Nyarlathotep - I don't care about this guy like at all. Oh, a being of chaos is wreaking havoc in various cities? I don't care. 5/10; 1,149 words.
• The Nameless City - beautiful descriptions, honestly, and I like the way that it slowly dawns on you. 7/10; 5,025 words.
• Azathoth - Honestly, beautiful writing. Just gorgeous descriptions. 8/10; 476 words.
• The Hound - hey guys me and the bestie stole an amulet from a tomb and now an invisible dog is chasing after us. AITA? 9/10; 2,984 words.
• The Festival - mediocre compared to the rest; still better than Nyarlathotep. 6/10; 3,652 words.
• The Colour Out of Space - cool! very good ending :). 8/10; 12,457 words.
• The Call of Cthulu - very neat, I like the science and slow discovery. 8/10; 11,905 words.
• History of the Necronomicon - fascinating. Yog-Sothoth threw me for a loop (as a Mechanisms fan). 6/10; 698 words.
• The Curse of Yig - hmm. Snakes. 8/10; 6,926 words.
• The Horror of Dunwich - not as good as The Curse of Yig or the Call of Cthulu but I did enjoy it. 7/10; 17,524 words.
• The Complete Nondramatic Poetry by William Shakespeare - some were very good, others not so much. 6/10; 58,003 (estimate) words.
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - Excellent! I can see why this is studied; it has a lot of pretty obvious references and ideas to talk about. 8/10; 86,878 words.
• The Shaping of Middle-Earth by JRR Tolkien - really cool to see how the main story of the First Age evolved over time. 7/10; 120,000 words.

July - 494,503 words; 5 books and 2 short stories.

• Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad - I liked the prose but it wasn't super good. 7/10; 60,620 (estimate) words.
• The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne - quite good!! 9/10; 195,828 words.
• Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee - I also enjoyed this one, although the prose wasn't my favourite. 7/10; 64,000 words.
• Surfacing by Margaret Atwood - another Atwood book; I always enjoy them. 8/10; 18,750 words.
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - I really really enjoyed this one! 10/10; 99,121 words.
• Various short stories by HP Lovecraft:
• The Whisperer in Darkness - incredibly chilling, no clue how I slept that night. 9/10; 26,624 words.
• The Mound - kind of confusing and fascinating but ultimately uninteresting compared to the others. 6/10; 29,560 words.

August - 340,255 words; 4 books and 5 short stories.

• Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy - typical McCarthy - musings on human madness and a little bit of incest. 7/10; 57,531 words.
• Love and Freindship and Other Youthful Writings by Jane Austen - I really liked the evolution of Austen's works, and Lady Susan was delightful to read. 8/10; 48,000 words.
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen - my new favourite Austen! 9/10; 81,242 words.
• The Wartime Sisters by Lynda Cohen Loigman - beautiful musings on sibling relationships and how war affects us. 7/10; 53,000 words (estimate).
• Various short stories by HP Lovecraft:
• At the Mountains of Madness - it's cool. Not as good as the others. 6/10; 40,881 words.
• The Shadow Over Innsmouth - I liked it better. 7/10; 27,026 words.
• The Dreams in the Witch House - yeah that's just geometry. 8/10; 14,789 words.
• The Man of Stone - instant concrete! 6/10; 6,441 words.
• The Horror in the Museum - what the hell oh my god. 9/10; 11,345 words.

September - 209,678 words; 2 books and 4 short stories

• Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence - really like the imagery and symbolism in the sex. 8/10; 96,000 words.
• Lady Susan; The Watsons; Sanditon by Jane Austen - delightful, although I wish she had continued with Sanditon. 8/10; 64,609 words.
• Various short stories by HP Lovecraft:
• Out of the Aeons - good, not very notable though. 7/10; 10,177 words.
• The Tree on the Hill - interesting, but not notable. 7/10; 4,249 words.
• The Shadow Out of Time - time travel! 8/10; 25,323 words.
• The Haunter of the Dark - good too, but I'm getting tired of Lovecraft. This is the last story in the book. 8/10; 9,320 words.

October - 353,416 words; 4 books

• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood - Crake fascinates me, and so does Jimmy in a way. 6/10; 94,500 words.
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy - brain-altering book. 10/10; 58,744 words.
• No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy - deeply interesting. However, not as good as The Road. 8/10; 69,922 words.
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood - my favourite Atwood so far. 10/10; 130,250 words.

November - 303,764 words; 5 books

• From the Lost and Found Department by Joy Kogawa - beautiful poems, but not always my thing. 7/10; ~5,000 words.
• The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - beautiful and thought-provoking. 10/10; 154,000 words.
• An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Oritz - really interesting, things I definitely have to keep in mind. 8/10; 48,764 words.
• The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood - Atwood is at her best when not writing men; I think this book vs. Oryx and Crake exemplifies that. 8/10; ~96,000 words.

December - 378,752 words; 4 books.

• MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood - Not my favourite series, I'll admit. Ending is, unique for Atwood, unsatisfying. 7/10; ~93,000 words.
• The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White - I can tell why it is very popular, and I liked it! 8/10; 91,969 words.
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston - beautifully written. I really enjoyed Janie's journey towards her individuality. 8/10; 63,783 words.
• Art and Gwen Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher - really annoying because no actual problem is actually solved. 6/10; unknown word count.
• The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien - reread! 130,000 words.