Reading And Writing In 2025

Inspired by a post by Adam M., I’m returning to my long-neglected practice of reading. In an effort to keep to this, I’ll be adding a short summary of each book I read in 2025, along with a list of them in this post.

I used to read voraciously, mostly fiction. Even with a university student’s workload, I still managed a few books here and there. But ever since starting to work full-time, I found it much more accommodating to make dinner, plop down on the blue futon couch, and choose from either a movie/tv show or a video game. The mental load of working a software engineering job simply took too much out of me to do anything other than vegitate.

I was recently reminded that books are a cheat code, letting readers live multiple lives in one lifetime. It’s also one of the things they can’t take away from you. These days, more so than ever, I worry about the things they can take away from you.

Too often too am I finding that history contains lessons for our current moment that few seem to remember. Partially this may be due to our historical education halting (un)helpfully approximately 50 years ago, as in my AP US History class. I believe we talked about the 1950s and 1960s for a week at most, as it wasn’t on the test. But partially it may be that we are so focused on our current affairs and the channels through which we inform ourselves, we neglect other sources that look to the past for some context for our time. More historical context does not help our sources of news to make more money, only the drumbeat of doom that keeps us returning every day for more.

I hope to find more hope in yesterday than I do in tomorrow.