Here’s everything I read since the last installment – so, May 1 – August 31, or, the second third of 2025, and mostly over my summer vacation from teaching, including two chaotic, wonderful, sleep-deprived weeks in Japan as a little family. The list is roughly in the order in which I read these. Green books are ones I loved and recommend. Purple books are ones I disliked (and either didn’t finish or wished I hadn’t.) Black books are somewhere in between!

• The Three Coffins / The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr (F) – A classic early British detective story (originally published in 1935) that was fun and satisfying if not particularly memorable. (Diff titles in the US and the UK.)
• A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston (F) – A cutesy little rom-com in a lovely little setting that really leaned in to all the romance novel tropes in a self-aware way (that seems to be the thing for romance novels lately.)
• Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson (F) – I liked his “Nothing to See Here” a bit more than this one, but still really enjoyed his writing and the characters – in this case, some “teenage misfit” artists and the grownups they become and the weird art they created that takes off in an unexpected way.
• The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia (F) – Read on the long flight to Tokyo; a fast-paced thriller about two women that didn’t take a lot of brain power to track and was fine for several hours in a seat with a sleeping toddler on top of me!
• Only If You’re Lucky by Stacy Willingham (F) – Another Japan read, mostly in the middle of the night, very tired, with a kiddo who was very not tired. A sort of mystery, sort of campus female friendship tale. I feel like it was entertaining but not very good.
• A Death at the Party by Amy Stuart (F) – I was clearly on a string of medicore mystery/thrillers. This one is sort of Ms. Dalloway-esque, except not well-written and kind of annoying.
• The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji (F) – I finally actually read a Japanese author while in Japan! This is one of the classic Japanese detective novels, published the year I was born. It was pretty creepy and interesting, and far more memorable than the three previous reads. Very atmospheric, lots of crashing waves, a weird little house.
• The Displacements by Bruce Holsinger (F) – Ooh I’d forgotten about this book and I really liked it. A very wealthy family winds up in a big government tent encampment in the US for internal “refugees” after their home and neighborhood are destroyed by a huge hurricane. Sort of a literary thriller/adventure story/commentary on Current Affairs.
• Anna O by Matthew Blake (F) – This is one of the ridiculously bad books that I skim-read the second half of and wish I hadn’t.
• Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld (F) – Turns out I love everything Sittenfeld writes. I’m not normally a short story person but this collection was So Good: funny, relatable, entertaining, hopeful, reflective.
• Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave (F) – I liked this book a LOT for the first couple chapters – I was like, oooh, interesting characters, set in this beautiful California vineyard, this is going to be perfect to read on these summer evenings with a glass of red wine. But a lot of its steam wore off and it got a bit tedious and repetitive.
• Swept Away by Beth O’Leary (F) – Loved this fun little rom com. Also boats! And survival at sea! I am making it green because I am not a Book Snob and romances can be wonderful.
• Everyone on This Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson (F) – In a sort of rarity, I actually liked this sequel more than his first book. It was fun, especially the setting. Can’t go wrong with a murder mystery on a moving train in an exotic setting!
• Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns, and the Future of Chasing Snow by Heather Hansman (NF) – A well-written piece that really captures the complexity of ski towns; the mix of outdoor recreation, the joy of the sport, classism and racism and sexism, climate change and national forests, community and lack thereof, insiders and outsiders, hidden runs and quiet mountains. Both entertaining and informative; I would recommend to any alpine skier/boarder.
• James by Percival Everett (F) – A re-telling of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of James (Jim), the once-slave who escapes. It’s part entertaining adventure story, part very grim and sobering recounting of slavery in America. I found it a fast read and compelling and I’d recommend.
• The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (F) – Wow so many books I enjoyed in a row. This is a beautifully written, gripping book about a very beautiful, hot, sad, secret, queer relationship between two women in the Netherlands in the 1960s; and also about the Holocaust, history, relationships between mothers and daughters, and the meaning of home.
• Vantage Point by Sara Sligar (F) – This book is about deepfake videos, rich family drama, and many other things. I’m not sure what to write about it here, but if you read it I want to talk about it with you.
• Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez (F) – A sweet, meh romance with a couple likable doctor characters and some medical/neurodivergence stuff.
• The Secret Language of Maps by Carissa Carter (F/NF) – An odd mish-mash of fictional murder mystery solved via hidden maps+graphs, and some nonfiction analysis by data visualizer nerds about the different ways to effectively and engagingly tell stories through visualizations of data (the author considers any visualization of data a “map,” which is weird and not how I define maps.) If you like data and maps and graphs though, I recommend.
• An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (F) – I was surprised by how much I liked this book, about a young woman who finds an enormous robot on the streets in NYC that turns out to be So Much More Than a Robot.