Another annual reading list I’m putting up without much commentary, but there were some bangers in 2025. “The point seems to be this,” Kate Briggs writes, “left to its own devices, the path of reading is very rarely chronologically ordered, thematically coherent, limited by language or respectful of borders. Books open out onto, they cross with and follow haphazardly on from one another. Left to its own devices, the path of reading strays all over the place.”

(Previously: 2024 in Reading, 2023 in Reading, 2022 in Reading, 2021 in Reading, 2020 in Reading)

1. 📓 A Month in Siena – Hisham Matar ❤︎❤︎❤︎
2. 🎙️ / 📓 This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed – Charles E. Cobb Jr.
3. 📖 Sisters – Daisy Johnson ❤︎
4. 📓 Come Together – Emily Nagoski
5. 🎙️ / 📖 His Majesty’s Dragon – Naomi Novik
6. 🔄 / 🎙️ / 📖 Sabriel – Garth Nix
7. 📖 The Captain of the Polestar – Arthur Conan Doyle
8. 💬 / 📖 As the Crow Flies – Melanie Gilman
9. 💬 / 📖 Skip – Molly Mendoza
10. 🔄 / 🎙️ / 📖 Lirael – Garth Nix
11. 📖 The Diary of Mr. Poynter – M.R. James
12. 📖 The Morgan Trust – R. Bridgeman
13. 💬 / 📖 Sunhead – Alex Assan
14. 📖 Creation Lake – Rachel Kushner ❤︎
15. 📓 Inciting Joy – Ross Gay ❤︎❤︎❤︎
16. 💬 / 📖 Across a Field of Starlight – Blue Delliquanti ❤︎❤︎❤︎
17. 🎙️ / 📖 Abhorsen – Garth Nix
18. 📖 Martyr! – Kaveh Akbar ❤︎
19. 📖 Memorial – Bryan Washington ❤︎❤︎
20. 📖 The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett ❤︎
21. 💬 / 📖 Squire – Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas
22. 🔄 / 💬 / 📖 Giant Days Vol. 3 – John Allison & Max Sarin
23. 📓 The Noble Approach – Tod Polson & Maurice Noble ❤︎❤︎
24. 🎙️ / 📓 ADHD 2.0 – Edward M. Hallowell, M.D.
25. 📖 Madness is Better than Defeat – Ned Beauman
26. 📓 The Drummer and the Great Mountain – Michael Joseph Ferguson
27. 📖 Return to Sender – Vera Brosgol
28. 🔄 / 🎙️ / 📖 The Republic of Thieves – Scott Lynch
29. 📓 The Creative Act: a Way of Being – Rick Rubin and Neil Strauss ❤︎
30. 💬 / 📖 Rare Flavors – Ram V & Filipe Andrade ❤︎❤︎❤︎
31. 📓 The Saviors of God – Nikos Kazantzakis
32. 🎙️ / 🎭 Arcadia – Tom Stoppard
33. 📓 I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself – Glynnis MacNicol ❤︎
34. 📓 The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street – Helene Hanff
35. 💬 / 📖 The Many Deaths of Laila Starr – Ram V and Filipe Andrade ❤︎
36. 💬 / 📖 Boys Weekend – Mattie Lubchansky
37. 💬 / 📖 The Jellyfish – Boum
38. 💬 / 📓 Offhand – Yuko Ota
39. 🔄 / 📖 Finn Family Moomintroll – Tove Jansson ❤︎❤︎
40. 💬 / 📖 Witchlight- Jessi Zabarsky
41. 📓 Gift from the Sea – Anne Morrow Lindbergh ❤︎❤︎
42. 💬 / 📖 Sunburn – Andi Watson and Simon Gane
43. 💬 / 📖 The Book Tour – Andi Watson ❤︎
44. 🔄 📓 Unmastered – Katherine Angel ❤︎❤︎
45. 🎙️ / 📖 The Thief – Megan Whalen Turner
46. 📖 Art & Lies – Jeanette Winterson ❤︎❤︎❤︎
47. 📝 The Inferno – Dante (trans. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
48. 💬 / 📖 Fly by Night – Tara O’Connor
49. 🎙️ / 📓 Catching the Big Fish – David Lynch
50. 📓 Eros the Bittersweet – Anne Carson ❤︎❤︎❤︎
51. 📓 Art [Objects] – Jeanette Winterson ❤︎❤︎❤︎
52. 📓 Power of Gentleness – Anne Dufourmantelle ❤︎❤︎
53. 📓 / 💬 / 📓 One Bite at a Time – Ryan Claytor ❤︎
54. 📓 A Year in Practice – Jacqueline Suskin ❤︎
55. 🔄 📖 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon ❤︎❤︎
56. 📖 We Play Ourselves – Jen Silverman ❤︎❤︎❤︎
57. 📓 Think Little – Wendell Berry ❤︎❤︎❤︎
58. 🎙️ / 📖 The Heart in Winter – Kevin Barry
59. 📓 No Bad Parts – Richard C. Schwartz ❤︎❤︎
60. 💬 / 📓 Past Tense – Sacha Mardou ❤︎
61. 💬 / 📖 Fresh Start – Gale Galligan ❤︎❤︎❤︎
62. 💬 / 📖 A Girl on the Shore – Inio Asano
63. 🎙️ / 📓 / 📖 Pathemata – Maggie Nelson
64. 🔄 / 💬 / 📓 It’s Okay That It’s Not Okay – Christina Tran ❤︎❤︎
65. 💬 / 📓 Home/World – Ben Hatke ❤︎❤︎❤︎
66. 📓 The Light of the World – Elizabeth Alexander ❤︎❤︎❤︎
67. 🔄 / 📖 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – C. S. Lewis ❤︎
68. 📓 Faith, Hope, and Carnage – Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan ❤︎❤︎

Akregator - KDE Applications

https://apps.kde.org/akregator/

Akregator is a news feed reader. It enables you to follow news sites, blogs and other RSS/Atom-enabled websites without the need to manually check for updates using a web browser. Akregator is designed to be both easy to use and to be powerful enough to read hundreds of news sources conveniently. It comes with a fast search, advanced archiving functionality and an internal browser for easy news reading.

#linux #news #reading #webdev

SideBooks - PDF, Comic viewer

https://sidebooks.en.aptoide.com/app

SideBooks is a high-performance PDF and comic viewer designed for users who seek a reading experience that closely resembles the feel of actual paper.

Helps reading digital documents.

SideBooks caters to those who appreciate reading in different formats, including PDFs, ZIP files, CBZ, RAR, and CBR files.

#books #reading #apk #freebee #app

Carl Anderson's Henry

https://archive.org/embed/henry_202405

#beehappy #comics #cartoon #reading

Okular - The Universal Document Viewer

https://okular.kde.org

Multi-platform, fast and packed with features, Okular allows you to read PDF documents, comics and EPub books, browse images, visualize Markdown documents, and much more.

Okular supports many formats, including PDF, EPub, DjVU and MD for documents; JPEG, PNG, GIF, Tiff, WebP for images; CBR and CBZ for comics; and many, many more.

#linux #pdf #comics #reading #books

All the Harvey Comics Cartoon Characters

Unlike Disney, Harvey Comics had stories of real life situations. It was a type of Edutainment. 80

#comics #cartoons #reading #PepoPimento

All the Harvey Comics Cartoon Characters

Unlike Disney, Harvey Comics had stories of real life situations. It was a type of Edutainment. 80

#comics #cartoons #reading #PepoPimento

Turns out I’m two years behind on these so I’m getting ’em up! No commentary because I gotta run out the door to ink more pages of Seacritters, but hopefully I’ll come back to this down the line.

(Previously: 2023 in Reading, 2022 in Reading, 2021 in Reading, 2020 in Reading)

1. 📖 The Raven Tower – Ann Leckie
2. 📖 The Night Manager – John Le Carré
3. 💬 / 📓 It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth – Zoe Thorogood
4. 📖 Network Effect – Martha Wells
5. 📓 The Beauty in Breaking – Michele Harper
6. 💬 / 📓 The Five Lives of Hilma Af Kilnt – Philipp Deines
7. 📖 The Fermata – Nicholson Baker
8. 📖 Birnam Wood – Eleanor Catton ❤︎❤︎
9. 📖 The Luminaries – Eleanor Catton
10. 🎙️ / 📖 Lightning Rods – Helen DeWitt
11. 📖 Prophet – Sin Blaché & Helen Macdonald ❤︎
12. 📓 Holy the Firm – Annie Dillard ❤︎❤︎
13. 🎙️ / 📖 Making Money – Terry Pratchett
14. 📖 Excession – Ian M. Banks
15. 📓 Your Money or Your Life – Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez
16. 📓 Subculture Vulture – Moshe Kasher
17. 📖 The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi – Shannon Chakraborty ❤︎
18. 📝 The Peace of Wild Things – Wendell Berry ❤︎❤︎❤︎
19. 📓 The Liars’ Club – Mary Karr ❤︎❤︎
20. 🎙️ / 📖 The Lies of Locke Lamora – Scott Lynch
21. 💬 / 📓 And Now I Spill the Family Secrets – Margaret Kimball
22. 💬 / 📖 Sex Criminals Vols. 1-6 – Matt Fraction & Chip Zdarsky ❤︎❤︎
23. 🎙️ / 📖 Red Seas Under Red Skies – Scott Lynch
24. 📓 Travelers to Unimaginable Lands – Dasha Kiper ❤︎
25. 💬 / 📖 Safari Honeymoon – Jesse Jacobs
26. 📓 What If This Were Enough? – Heather Havrilesky
27. 📖 Oliver VII – Antal Szerb
28. 💬 / 📓 How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less – Sarah Glidden
29. 🎙️ / 📖 The Republic of Thieves – Scott Lynch
30. 📝 44 Poems for You – Sarah Ruhl
31. 📓 Wild – Cheryl Strayed
32. 📓 Saving Time – Jenny Odell ❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎
33. 🎙️/📖 The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman
34. 📓 The Wild Edge of Sorrow – Francis Weller ❤︎❤︎
35. 🎙️ / 📖 Nothing to See Here – Kevin Wilson
36. 🎙️ / 📖 The City of Brass – S.A. Chakraborty
37. 💬 / 📓 The Worst Journey in the World: Vol. 1 – Sarah Airriess, adapted from Apsley Cherry-Garrard ❤︎
38. 📓 Smile: The Story of a Face – Sarah Ruhl ❤︎❤︎
39. 📓 Gender/Fucking – Florence Ashley
40. 💬 / 📖 Pixels of You – Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota, J.R. Doyle
41. 📓 Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder – Lawrence Weschler / Visitng The Museum of Jurassic Technology IRL ❤︎❤︎❤︎
42. 💬 / 📖 Waverider (Amulet Book 9) – Kazu Kibuishi
43. 📖 Women Talking – Miriam Toews
44. 🎙️ / 📖 The Kingdom of Copper – S.A. Chakraborty
45. 📓 Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism – Premilla Nadasen ❤︎❤︎
46. 🔄 📓 Steal Like an Artist – Austin Kleon
47. 💬 / 📖 Danger and Other Unknown Risks – Ryan North & Erica Henderson ❤︎❤︎❤︎
48. 💬 / 📖 Lightfall: The Dark Times – Tim Probert
49. 🎙️ / 📖 The Empire of Gold – S. A. Chakraborty
50. 🎙️ / 📖 Night Boat to Tangier – Kevin Barry ❤︎❤︎❤︎
51. 📖 Funny Story – Emily Henry
52. 💬 / 📖 Stargazing – Jen Wang
53. 💬 / 📓 In Limbo – Deb JJ Lee
54. 🎙️ / 📖 The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
55. 📓 Four Thousand Weeks – Oliver Burkeman ❤︎
56. 💬 / 📓 Coma – Zara Slattery
57. 📓 The Long Run: A Creative Inquiry – Stacey D’Erasmo ❤︎❤︎
58. 📓 Mutual Aid – Dean Spade
59. 🎙️ / 📖 The Book of Love – Kelly Link
60. 📖 Red, White, and Royal Blue – Casey McQuiston
61. 🎙️ / 📖 Godkiller – Hannah Kaner
62. 📖 Whoever You Are, Honey – Olivia Gatwood ❤︎
63. 🎙️ / 📖 Sunbringer – Hannah Kaner
64. 🎙️ / 📓 Driven to Distraction – Edward M. Hallowell & John J. Ratey
65. 🎙️ / 📓 A Heart That Works – Rob Delaney ❤︎
66. 📖 Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
67. 📓 Slouching Towards Bethlehem – Joan Didion ❤︎❤︎

Unfinished but Made Progress

1. The Nature Book – Tom Comitta
2. Annals of the Former World – John McFee
3. The Divine Comedy – Dante
4. Come Together – Emily Nagoski
5. Wildwood – Roger Deakin
6. The Idle Beekeeper – Bill Anderson
7. Bear – Marian Engel
8. This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed – Charles E. Cobb Jr.
9. A Month in Siena – Hisham Matar

Okular - The Universal Document Viewer

https://okular.kde.org

Multi-platform, fast and packed with features, Okular allows you to read PDF documents, comics and EPub books, browse images, visualize Markdown documents, and much more.

Okular supports many formats, including PDF, EPub, DjVU and MD for documents; JPEG, PNG, GIF, Tiff, WebP for images; CBR and CBZ for comics; and many, many more.

#linux #pdf #comics #reading #books

One week from today (Tuesday, December 16th at 6pm) I’ll be at my beloved local outdoor bookstore, Bart’s Books, for an interactive evening with fellow Ojaian and powerhouse cartoonist Shay Mirk.

We’re celebrating the publication of Making Nonfiction Comics, a comprehensive illustrated guide for everyone who’s ever wanted to tell stories about the world around us in words and pictures. (If you can’t make the event, that link takes you to bookshop.org where you can buy the book online.)

This beast is a collaboration between Shay and fellow cartoonist Eleri Harris and it is so!! good!!! In addition to Eleri and Shay’s hard-won expertise, there are also interviews and tips from so many big names in the field. You can learn about crafting everything from on-the-ground protest reportage to deep dive historical research to authentic personal narrative. This book is going to be the gold standard for years to come.

I feel lucky to have a brief cameo talking about running a community drawing night in Portland for several years in the twenty teens. Here’s a look at that:

If you’re in the area, do come by. I’m gonna show off some kelp farming comics, Shay’s gonna talk about making the book, it’s gonna be very fun. Ojai may be 80º during the day right now, but it gets chilly after dark, so bundle up! We’ll have zine templates for folks to fill out and fun slides to share and, knowing Shay, killer snacks.

A quick one to say I’ve been thinking a lot about the different subtitles they’ve slapped on Lewis Hyde’s The Gift through the years, mostly because it was only this year I learned that the original 1983 edition looked like this:

I LOVE IT. WHY DID THEY CHANGE IT. WHAT GIVES.

The whole thing is a far cry from 2019’s:

As well as the copy I first encountered (published in 2007), which features a third option:

Which is…fine? It’s fine.

BUT WHO BURIED THE LEDE ON THE EROTIC LIFE OF PROPERTY?!

Audre Lorde originally presented “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” as a paper in 1978, but it wasn’t published in Sister Outsider until 1984—just one year after the first edition of The Gift came out.

I wonder about this post-70s literary landscape, everything still reverberating with the energy of the 60s, the explosive visibility of sexuality in American youth culture, the rising tide of queer voices—but also the broader definition of eroticism.

I just re-read Katherine Angel’s Unmastered: a Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell, which I picked up after Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again. Her exploration of eroticism veers more towards the question of what to do with desire that resists being codified, named, and negotiated in explicit terms. How do we reckon with consent culture alongside the lure of the unknown? What of discovery? What of the secret third thing?

Kate Wagner coming in at the right moment here with this essay:

A situational eroticism is what is needed now, in our literalist times. […] Arousal is a matter of the self, which takes place within the body, a space no one can see into. It is often a mystery, a surprise, a discovery. It can happen at a small scale, say, the frisson of two sets of fingers in one’s hair at once. It is beautiful, unplanned and does not judge itself because it is an inert sensation, unimbued with premeditated meaning. This should liberate rather than frighten us. Maybe what it means doesn’t matter. Maybe we don’t have to justify it even to ourselves. 

This draft has been languishing because I don’t have a neat bow to slap on the end of this. If there’s anything I’m thinking of, though, it’s that Hyde (or his publisher) wasn’t wrong to foreground eroticism in that first edition of the book. Eroticism is creativity, and neither are as much work as they are play.