Books read in 2025

Still having weird, unsolvable issues with accent marks, but it barely matters because I didn't read many books in Portuguese this year.

January

Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly, Peter Cole (1.11.25)
Fletcher was an IWW organizer and leader of Marine Transport Workers Local 8 in Philadelphia. This collection does his legacy justice, and is especially impressive given how sparse the day-to-day details of Fletcher's life are.

Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church, Gareth Gore (1.18.25)
Opus Dei is a sketchy, fine-with-fascists outfit I've known of for years, but didn't actually know much about. This account does not spare them, and should be read by anyone interested in/terrified of the reactionary turn of the Catholic church in the US, which owes much to Opus Dei.

February

Mensagem, Fernando Pessoa (2.2.25)
Achei inesperadamente esta copia do poema na livraria Kaboom Books. Nao sou portugues, mas posso entender a importancia deste poema na historia literaria do seculo XX em Portugal. Fascinante, meditativo, poderoso.

And the Wolf Finally Came: The Decline of the American Steel Industry, John P. Hoerr (2.9.25)
Even though it's 620 pages of what could've been pretty dry discussions of industrial relations, this was so engrossing that I basically read nothing else while I was reading this.

Wage-Labour and Capital/Value, Price and Profit, Karl Marx (2.23.25)
Aside from this International Publishers edition not having translator credits listed, I actually enjoyed reading this. The brevity of it went a long way towards that- it's pretty dry- as did Marx being capable of the occasional great turn of phrase.

Haunted House and Other Strange Tales, Katherine Kerestman (2.?.25)
S.T. Joshi's foreword primed me for some great weird tales, but instead everything was underwhelming. There were a few standout stories, but overall I found this collection disappointing.

March

Come My Fanatics: A Journey Into the World of Electric Wizard, Dan Franklin (3.7.25)
I've been an Electric Wizard fan for 25+ years, so naturally I had to read this. It was a fun read, though I wouldn't call it crucial.

Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America, Talia Lavin (3.9.25)
A nightmarish account of widespread abuse, ignorance, repellent theology, and fascism. Evangelical Christianity has poisoned America, and I'm not sure we'll survive.

Grass, Sheri S. Tepper (3.30.25)
Natalia's sci-fi book club pick. A fantastic read, in the tradition of really original sci-fi that can stand the test of time. An interesting setting, pretty good characters, big questions, enough similarities to a certain other sci-fi novel about a unique planet to make you think. I loved this.

April

Rednecks, Taylor Brown (4.17.25)
In the vein of Denise Giardina's novels about coal country, but focused on the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921. Solid writing, memorable characters, good pacing- just all around enjoyable, and a fine (fictionalized) history lesson to boot.

Ring Shout, or Hunting Ku Kluxes in the End Times, P. Djl Clark (4.18.25)
This was on my hold list at the library for months, and I can't remember how I heard of it. Glad I read it, though. I liked everything about it, down to the character smoking Chesterfields (my old favorite brand) and the subtitle, which is as good as they come.

We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big, Eric Blanc (4.26.25)
Blanc's first book, Red State Revolt, was great, and I bought a bunch of copies to give out to teachers when I worked at HFT. This book is exactly what we need right now in the labor movement, so I'm gonna try to get people to read this as well.

May

A Palace Near the Wind, Ai Jiang (5.10.25)
This caught my eye on Bluesky, and the library was in the process of acquiring it, so hey, pleasant coincidence. Alas, while nicely written, this wasn't for me.

Awakening From the Daydream: Reimagining the Buddha's Wheel of Life, David Nichtern (5.14.25)
I read this for a class on karma I took at the Houston Zen Center. I didn't finish it in time, but found it to still be an approachable introduction to some basic Buddhist concepts, which I feel like I still don't always grasp even after 17 years of practice.

Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 1848-1861, Durwood Ball (5.23.25)
I picked this up at the Western New Mexico University Museum a few years ago. I didn't know much about the US Army in the West (aside from what I learned in Megan Kate Nelson's The Three-Cornered War), so this was quite informative. A little dry, maybe, but worth the time.

June

The Averoigne Chronicles, Clark Ashton Smith (6.1.25)
Finally read this since Tracey's going to run Castle Amber, the old D&D module based (apparently very loosely) on these stories. CAS never disappoints, of course.

What you are looking for is in the library, Michiko Aoyama (Alison Watts, trans.) (6.1.25)
Tracey bought me this because of the title, and because there's a cat on the cover. (There are no cats in the book that I can recall.) It turned out to be just what I needed to read right now, and I really enjoyed it.

Soren Kierkegaard and the Common Man, Jorgen Bukdahl (Bruce H. Kirmmse, trans.) (6.20.25)
I bought this in 2006 and finally read it. I've always found Kierkegaard interesting, if somewhat over my head, and I haven't read any of his work in a long while. This was a nice re-introduction to certain elements of his thinking and the world he lived in (ecclesiastical disputes in mid-19th century Denmark aren't something I spend much time with).

Cage of Souls, Adrian Tchaikovsky (6.24.25)
Tracey's sci-fi book club pick. This was a blast to read, even at 602 pages, but that comes as no surprise; I loved the other Tchaikovsky novel I read (Children of Time) and it was long too. This had echoes of China Miville's Bas-Lag books and Clark Ashton Smith, among other things, and tackled a whole lot of ideas quite successfully.

Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream, Megan Greenwell (6.7.25)
Anyone seeking to understand one of the biggest sources of the rot at the heart of the United States needs to read this. Clear and powerful, it not only details the awfulness of private equity, but gives readers stories of real-life resistance to it.

July

Hell In A Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu, Bernard B. Fall (7.12.25)
I've been meaning to read this for years, and finally bought a first-edition paperback copy at Kaboom. An absolutely incredible read, as several generations already know; I barely picked up another book while I was reading this.

The Tindalos Asset, Caitln R. Kiernan (7.20.25)
I chose this for sci-fi book club. It's been even longer than I thought since I read any of Kiernan's stuff, so when I learned about this book, book club gave me an excuse to get it from the library, even if I've got a million other things I'm either reading or should read. Anyway, I liked it!

The Mothman Prophecies, John A. Keel (7.30.25)
I started this a couple years ago and couldn't get into it, despite it being the kind of book I wanted to get into. I finally picked it back up, and still didn't love it, but liked it enough to finish it. Keel's jaded take on the "superspectrum" and the nature of UFO phenomena maps strangely well to the mundane world of today.

August

Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, Brian Merchant (8.16.25)
An outstanding book. I'm already philosophically in line with Luddism, but Merchant laid out the movement's historical origins in a way that, as he intended, really connected the machine-breakers of the early 19th century to what we're facing today. Everyone should read this.

The Cognitive Challenge of War: Prussia 1806, Peter Paret (8.16.25)
A number of people I find interesting on Bluesky talk about Clausewitz a lot. I've never read his work, and this is the only thing related to it that I found in the library. It made me more interested in checking him out, and taught me something about a time period, and field of study, of which I know little, so it was a fortuitous discovery. I also found the physical text itself very satisfying to read.

The Shamshine Blind, Paz Pardo (8.24.25)
A cool detective story, imaginative sci-fi/alternate history elements, solid writing. I really dug this. Wish I'd thought about it for sci-fi book club, since I think everyone else would like it, too.

Their Example Will Inspire Us: Five Black Communist Women, Melissa Ford (8.26.25)
An interesting, well-researched book on an understudied topic. The writing is pretty dry, alas, and the book desperately needs proofreading and editing, something I've noticed in other International Publishers titles. Still worth it.

September

Thick Skin: Field Notes From a Sister in the Brotherhood, Hilary Peach (9.1.25)
I got this a couple years ago, and always looked forward to reading it, whenever that time came. When it did, I read it in a little over two days. Peach is a great storyteller and writer, and her own story as a welder in the Boilermakers Union is fascinating. Definitely read this.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers (9.7.25)
What a read. I spent most of the day reading this. Asks deep questions about humanity's place in the grand scheme of things and how we relate to the universe and each other as a species. Great stuff.

Coal Miners On Strike: Articles from The Militant, Nancy Cole, Andy Rose, Stu Singer (9.21.25)
I got this at the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum. I should've known it wouldn't be all that deep, or focused on firsthand stories from striking miners, since it's exactly what it says it is: articles from The Militant, the paper of the Socialist Workers Party. In that respect, it's fine, but nevertheless disappointing.

Wildcat, William Trent Pancoast (9.21.25)
This was a raffle prize at Camp Solidarity, but I didn't win it, so I bought a Kindle edition. A harsh novella about life in a GM plant in 1970, it was a quick read, and Pancoast's personal experience as a blue-collar worker gave it a solid foundation. Nothing romantic about factory life at all.

October

On Strike at Hormel: The Struggle for a Democratic Labor Movement, Hardy Green (10.10.25)
An account of the 1985-6 Hormel strike in Austin, Minnesota, by someone who was there. While not at all neutral, Green is still even-handed, and does a solid job of describing what led to the strike, the strike itself, and the aftermath. Sadly, it seems the lessons of Local P-9's fight against the company still haven't been digested by the wider labor movement.

Horror Movie, Paul Tremblay (10.11.25)
This was part of the excellent Halloween display at Good On Paper. Creepy, thoughtful, and well-written, though I'm not sure how much of an impression it'll leave. I'm curious to find out; even if I forget most of it, it was a good seasonal read.

The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Gene Wolfe (10.12.25)
Scott's sci-fi book club pick. Really good, though I found the second novella somewhat tiresome. I find myself thinking less about the colonialism angle than the depiction of government power over individuals (though obviously those are connected), which undermines my initial sense that this wasn't the book I was supposed to be reading right now, because it's extremely timely.

This Is My Body, Lindsay King-Miller (10.21.25)
Another Halloween season pick from Good On Paper. A slightly different take on possession and familial and religious guilt, I found it pretty compelling.

Play the Fool, Lina Chern (10.22.25)
Picked this up at Murder By the Book last year. Not bad for a first novel. I've found that many mysteries don't stick with me very long after I read them, which is fine, because I enjoy the time I spend reading them. Even if I spend zero effort trying to figure out whodunit.

I Saw the Pink Light Glow, Josephine Riesman and D Moses (10.25.25)
This book is a series of conversations between two trans women about Philip K. Dick's VALIS novels, which are my favorite PKD novels. Their discussions of Judaism, being trans, the current state of things in the US and the world (we live under Ferris Fremont now), and more are fascinating and hopeful, and I loved reading how they see each of these things through the lenses of the other things. I've been feeling like my intellectual capacity has frozen or atrophied lately, and reading this book felt like the first step towards breaking through thata veritable beam of pink light, if you will.

November

The Odd Fellows' Primer, Michael Greenzeiger (11.9.25)
I joined the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (Heights Lodge #225) this fall, and promptly bought this to get a better understanding of how the Order functions. I'd recommend it to any relatively new Odd Fellow, and to anyone interested in how a fraternal organization works and what it does. I loved the tone of this book, which took a lot from 19th-century Odd Fellows manuals without feeling too old-fashioned.

Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon (11.11.25)
I didn't expect another novel out of Pynchon this late in the game, but I think I said the same thing when Inherent Vice came out, or maybe even Against the Day. Not sure what to make of this one; I liked a lot about it, but it felt unfocused, maybe deliberately and in a way I could mostly but not totally get with. Gonna have to mull it over for a while.

Azorean Suite: A poem of the moment/Suite Aoriana: Um poema do momento, Scott Edward Anderson (11.15.25)
A free-flowing meditation on ancestry, place, the sea, and identity, presented in English and Portuguese. I loved this poem, and especially enjoyed drifting between the two versions as I saw fit.

The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi, Les Leopold (11.29.25)
Man, this was great. I picked this up a couple years back because of my interest in Mazzocchi's work with the Labor Party in the '90s, which turned out to be a mere fraction of a fascinating, militant career. One of those books everyone in the labor movement should read.

December

Yellow Earth, John Sayles (12.15.25)
It should come as no surprise that this is a great novel. Much as he did in his novel Union Dues, Sayles portrays working people and the systems they inhabit with a very keen eye, but here the subject matterfracking on a Native American reservation in North Dakotaadded a lingering sense of dread. A tremendous read.

Insurgent Labor: The Vermont AFL-CIO 2017-2023, David Van Deusen (12.22.25)
I heard bits and pieces about the rise of left unionists in Vermont a couple years ago, but that was it. This book documents how a rank-and-file driven slate took power in the state labor federation (which is tiny; the area labor federation in my area is six times bigger) and clashed with the national AFL-CIO. I have no clue if what they did in Vermont can be replicated elsewhere, but it's worth studying and learning from. Van Deusen is a pretty good writer, too.

VALIS, Philip K. Dick (12.24.25) (reread)
Reading I Saw the Pink Light Glow made me want to reread PKD's VALIS novels. I reread Radio Free Albemuth fairly recently, but hadn't picked up the other books since college, I think. There was a lot to like about this novel, but plenty to dislike, such as PKD's casual misogny and the threadbare plot. Still, worth revisiting.

Working and Thinking on the Waterfront, Eric Hoffer (12.31.25)
I found this at Kaboom, not knowing who Hoffer was (or rather, not remembering, since his name eventually rang a bell despite having not read any of his work) but very intrigued by the title. Turns out that I don't agree with most of Hoffer's opinions, but I did appreciate the way he wrote about work, daily life, and the life of the mind.


home