Book #203 of 2025: Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith (The Ripliad #5) Author Patricia Highsmith’s final novel about the amoral Tom Ripley is unfortunately also her weakest. The only thing driving the plot this time is that a new couple has moved into town, seemingly with the express purpose of tormenting the antihero whom …
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Book #202 of 2025: The Bride Wore Black Leather by Simon R. Green (Nightside #12) And so the Nightside series comes to an end, more or less. (There’s still a collection of short stories in the setting, which I’ll be rereading next, and a few crossovers with some of author Simon R. Green’s other works …
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TV #58 of 2025: 12 Monkeys, season 2 The debut year of this program offered an uneven but promising sci-fi premise of a dystopian soldier and a contemporary doctor working together to try to prevent the pandemic that’s ravaged the planet by his era. It’s a loose reboot of the 1995 Terry Gilliam movie, less …
Book #201 of 2025: Superboy: A Celebration of 75 Years by various This 2020 anthology commemorates three-quarters of a century of the titular junior superhero via a selection of comic book issues from across that span. In fact, it turns out that four different Kryptonians have each worn the mantle of Superboy at one point …
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Book #200 of 2025: A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #6) Another short but immersive tale of Cleric Chih on their wanderings around this East Asian-inspired fantasy land, recording local stories and trying to sift fact from legend. As usual it’s a fairly standalone adventure that doesn’t rely on readers …
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Book #199 of 2025: We Could Be Magic by Marissa Meyer and Joelle Murray I don’t read a ton of graphic novels, but this one came so highly recommended that I wanted to make a point to check it out. And it is super cute — less so for the romance, which is fine but …
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Book #198 of 2025: The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia An excellent horror novel that unfolds across three quasi-related timelines. Primarily we’re following a graduate student in 1998 as she pursues research on her thesis topic, which concerns a lesser-known (fictional) female contemporary of H. P. Lovecraft. She’s investigating a rumor that one of the author’s …
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I’m still hoping to hit 200 books by the end of the year, which is why I haven’t posted my top reads yet. (Three more to go!) But for now, here are the authors I read the most in 2025: (Honorable mention to Stephen King, who would be x5 if I included the Dark Tower …
Book #197 of 2025: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann An interesting nonfiction account of a 1740s maritime disaster, in which the British vessel HMS Wager was shipwrecked in the South Pacific, near modern Chile. The incident occurred during the so-called “War of Jenkins’ Ear” conflict with Spain — …
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Book #196 of 2025: Doctor Who: Transit by Ben Aaronovitch (Virgin New Adventures #10) This cyberpunk / cosmic horror mashup is big on worldbuilding texture but light on plot and character work. The worst thing about it, though, stems from its place in the Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures series, as the first installment with …
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