Hundreds: Weetzie Bat finishes the first and the Desert Prophet begins the second

.

I try very hard not to care how many books I read in a year.

But the nature of recording all the books I read (a sin I've been committing since 2007) is that I've very aware of the number and, being very aware of it, I must care a little bit. And I do. But I think I've managed to hold it to the pleasure of passing #100. Which, this year, I now have done.

Thanks for travelling with me.

Do you have a favorite book, so far, from your 2025? 

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097) Math for English Majors: A Human Take on the Universal Language by Ben Orlin, finished November 13

I was delighted by this book but I still think Math with Bad Drawings is the best entrypoint to his helpful world of relearning how to like math.

Everyone learning to be an elementary-school teacher should read that book. Then this one, why not? 

about ten weeks

☞

098) This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki, finished November 14

I came across this a couple months ago via my friend Jake.

I trust Jake's taste and I was compelled by his breakdown so I picked it up from the library. It is just as he says, an excellent slice-of-life comic beautifully paced. I found it stronger than their follow-up (which I've already read), fwiw.

It's the story of two girls. The year-and-a-half gap in their age begins to matter in new ways this summer as the older is getting new (and perplexing) feeling about (very much the wrong) boys. The spend the summer playing at the beach and discovering horror movies and watching teenagers and the adults in their houses. It's measured. It's smart. It doesn't push. It's very well made.

Jake was right. 

a couple weeks maybe

☞

099) The Things You Have to Do Before I Buy You a Phone by Adam Ferguson, finished November 14

We didn't have a great policy for our kids when it comes to phones. The main thing was we're not going to get you one so earn it yourself. The first one did this and got it, if I remember correctly, as a high-school sophomore. The other two had friends with phones lying around their house who fell sorry for them. There are so many superfluous phones in the world now that the old policy's a bad policy.

I think the daughter, so far behind her brothers, needs a different policy. I was thinking about getting her a cool dumb phone and that still might be the best solution but this book is also a pretty great solution.

Some of the things are obvious (earn the money) or sensible (navigate a drive without a phone) but some are surprising if you're taking getting-a-phone as life's purpose. Why should I write a letter or attend a religious service or visit the fire station or build a fire? But that's the genius of the book. It's so easy to disappear into a phone, never to return. This is sort of like The Dangerous Book for Boys only with a pretty good carrot hanging from the end to keep a kid motivated to live a little.

I was tempted to try and get copies of this book to teach—this would be an excellent semester-long project: do, say, four of the items (I might need to give them point values so they don't just do the easy ones) then write about some, present to the class about others.

It's a great idea but more appropriate to a junior high. Some of the stuff in the book (and the book's general rhetorical stance—I mean, #50 is Turn Fourteen) just skews younger. But it's a good idea and it would be cool if this became a textbook in, say, a seventh-grade English class. 

Regardless! It's a cool book and I may well use it for my daughter. If you're trying to figure out how to navigate this now-universal step in growing up, check it out. You might like what you find.

It might work particularly well for an entire friendgroup? Dunno. If you try it, let me know. 

maybe seven days over three or four weeks

☞

100) Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block, finished November 17

I love this book. It's been sixteen years since my first (and only prior) read. That read opened up an aspect of my style I'd tamped down by trying to be an adult and allowed me to start writing Curses and Llew, a book I'd been trying to write for four years. Since 2009, I've worked on COLl (its abbreviation in my notes) in starts and spurts. Rereading Weetzie Bat is a bit startling because things in my book have parallels to things in Weetzie Bat that I had completely forgotten. We share, it seems, an attitude on sex and death and art's intersections.

Anyway, still haven't finished COLl. But I will! I've finished what I think of as the first third, but maybe I've set it down (again) because it's now (roughly) the length of Weetzie Bat? Something to think about.

Anyway, sometimes it's a mistake to reread something you loved long ago. But not today. Love this book. 

probably three days two weeks apart

☞

101) The Desert Prophet by Camilla Stark, finished November 18

 I'm not sure I've read a comic book that behaves quite this way. Camilla draws the Desert Prophet and his friends with the casual certainty of a daily strip artist. She displays them in different ways at different scales and under different emotions like manga. She's deeply literate (I planned to get more into this, but there's an appendix laying out most of the references, so I guess I won't.) It's picaresque in a sacred way ala Piers Plowman or any Everyman story (or, as she says in the notes, the Little Prince). Yet it's deeply contemporary, concerned with contemporary crises. And deeply Mormon, casually conversant with our sacred rites and movement. It is, in short, mystical. A holy work. A work that proposes that the temporal is spiritual, whether you're paying attention or not; a work that provides a form of nihilistic optimism; a work that encourages moving forward no matter no matter no matter what. Plus, it's beautifully drawn and humorously drawn in striking chiaroscuro that rewards attention but does not allow the eye to rest.

two days

☞

Previous books of 2025
(and years more distant)

Bro! Tell me we still know how to speak of kings!

001) Beowulf translated by Maria Dahvana Headley, finished January 1
002) Cthulhu Is Hard to Spell: Volume Three, finished January 1
003) Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin (translated by Megan McDowell), finished January 8
004) My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris, finished January 11
005) You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown, finished January 12
005) Into the Headwinds: Why Belief Has Always Been Hard—and Still Is by Terryl Givens and Nathaniel Givens, finished January 24
006) My Favorite Thing Is Monsters: Book Two by Emil Ferris, finished January 25

Maybe we should just pretend this set begins and ends with Wednesday Addams

007) Chas. Addams Half-Baked Cookbook, finished January 29
008) Monica by Daniel Clowes, finished February 3
009) The Unexpurgated French Edition of Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland, finished February 19
010) Peach and the Isle of Monsters by Franco Aureliani and Agnes Garbowska, finished February 20
011) Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, finished February 28
012) Comic Poems edited by Peter Washington, finished March 7

Love, Beauty, and a complete lack of sasquatch 

013) Love that Dog by Sharon Creech, finished March 11
014) Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper, finished March 21
015) Antelope Spring by John Bennion, finished March 24
016) Shelley Frankenstein by Colleen Madden, finished March 28
017) Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew #21: Double Take, finished April 5
018) The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clark, finshed April 8
019) Rave by Jessica Campbell, finished April 13
020) The Creeps: A Deep Dark Fears Collection by Fran Krause, finished April 14

Do not ask what she does with the babies.

027) Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito, finished April 21
028) Somna: A Bedtime Story by Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay, finished April 23
029) Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto and Ann Xu, finished April 24
030&031) The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, finished April 25
032) Raised by Ghosts by Briana Loewinsohn, finished April 26
033) Ephemera by Briana Loewinsohn, finished April 26

Brighter and brighter until we all get our heads lopped off 

034) Brighter and Brighter until the Perfect Day by Sharlee Mullins Glenn, finished April 27
035) Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett, finished May 3
036) The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, finished May 5
037) Equus by Peter Shaffer
038) Travesties by Tom Stoppard, finished May 8
039) The Art of Intimacy: The Space Between by Stacey D'Erasmo, finished May 10
040) A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, finished May 16

Criticism & Comics

041) Arts and Inspiration: Mormon Perspectives, edited by Steven P. Sondrup, finished May 18
042) The Waiting by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, finished May 19
043) Odessa by Jonathan Hill, finished May 22
044) Barnstormers: A Ballad of Love and Murder by Tula Lotay and Scott Snyder, finished May 22
045) Bingo Baby, finished May 26 

Books on the Fourth of July

046) Final Cut by Charles Burns, finished May 28
047) Fever Beach by Carol Hiassen, finished June 12
048) How to Talk to Your Succulent by Zoe Persico, finished June 17
049) Poetry Comics from the Book of Hours by Bianca Stone, June 24
050) Night of Camp David by Fletcher Knebel, finished June 25
051) The Serial Killer's Son Takes a Wife by Michael Libling, finished July 3

An old friend makes some introductions (and more)

052) The 5th Generation by Dale Jay Dennis, finished July 7
053) To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, finished July 10
054) Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout, finished July 25
055) Meet Monster: The First Big Monster Book by Ellen Blanca and Ann Cook, illustrated by Quentin Blake, finished July 26
056) Last Pick by Jason Walz, finished July 29
057) Death Comes to Eastrepps by Francis Beeding, finished August 2

A lot of comics and then not Twain

058) Gilt Frame by Matt Kindt and Margie Kraft Kindt, finished August 2
059) Monkey Meat: The First Batch by Juni Ba, finished August 3
060) Abbott by Saladin Ahmed and Sami Kivelä and Jason Wordie, finished August 4
061) Mendel the Mess-Up by Terry LaBan, finished August 9
062) Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath, finished August 9
063) James by Percival Everett, finished August 13

The last books read before school starts

064) Stranger Planet by Nathan W Pyle, finished August 13
065) Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley, finished August 13
066) Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson, finished August 18

Two dozen is a reasonable number of eggs, too many donuts

067) Monte Cristo by Jordan Mechner and Mario Alberti, finished August 20
068) What We Don't Talk About by Charlot Kristensen, finished August 21
069) The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (translated by Lynn Solotaroff), finished August 23
070) The Village Beyond the Mist by Sachiko Kashiwaba (translated by Avery Fischer Udagawa), finished August 23 
071) Meritocracy Mingled with Scripture by Justin Pack, finished August 24
072) God's Man: A Novel in Woodcuts by Lynd Ward, finished August 27
073) He Done Her Wrong: The Great American Novel and Not a Word in It—No Music, Too by Milt Gross, finished August 27
074) The City: A Vision in Woodcuts by Frans Masereel, finished August 27
075) The Invention of Sound by Chuck Palahniuk, finished August 28
076) Destiny: A Novel in Pictures by Otto Nückel, finished August 28
077) The Piano Lesson by August Wilson, finished August 29
078) Passionate Journey: A Vision in Woodcuts by Frans Masereel, finished August 30
079) Madman's Drum by Lynd Ward, finished August 30
080) Murder Mystery Mystery Murder by Ben Abbott, finished September 3 

When you bookend with original grace and socialist revolution, things are going okay.

081) Original Grace by Adam Miller, finished September 7
082) The Skull Beneath the Skin by P.D. James, finished September 9
083) Sock Monkey Treasury by Tony Millionaire, finished September 11
084) The Sleepover by Michael Regina, finished September 16
085–087) The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare, finished September 29
088) The Iron Heel by Jack London, finished October 1 

Drunk crows, dystopian Jews,
elderly werewolves, and brooding kaiju

089) The Art of Tony Millionaire by Tony Millionaire, finished October 4
090) Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different by Chuck Palahniuk, finished October 16
091) Superman: The Harvests of Youth by Sina Grace, finished October 18
092) The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, finished October 22
093) The Third Temple by Yishai Sarid, translated by Yardenne Greenspan, finished October 23
094) Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks, finished October 25
095) The Werewolf at Dusk and Other Stories by David Small, finished November 3
096) Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi, finished November 6

 

 

 

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