Reading List for 2025

 Now that I've completed my goal of reading 25 books in '24, for 2025 I'll return to my often-pursued goal of dividing up my reading between novels, poetry books,  collections of short fiction, and non-fiction books, ten of each over the next twelve  months. I've also included a category of books that maybe aren't meant to be "read" so much as "consumed" and some childhood memories that can be stirred up once again. Of course this list is not locked in, and there may be changes as 2025 unfolds. My 2024 list ended up with three different books taking the place of three on my original list.

Ten novels, largely made up of books I started in grade school but never finished:

1.  The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

2.  All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

3.  Kim by Rudyard Kipling

4.  The Prince of Orange County by Kareem Tayyar 

5.  It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

6.  No Time For Sergeants by Mac Hyman

7.  Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

8.  The Chosen by Chaim Potok

9.  Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

10.  Sugar Cage by Connie May Fowler

And one alternate choice: There There by Tommy Orange

Ten collections of short fiction:

1.  The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories

2.  Other Fires:  Short Fiction by Latin American Women

3. This Year it will be Different by Maeve Binchy

4. A Leo Tolstoy collection that includes The Kreutzer Sonata

5.  A Richard Matheson collection that Includes "Duel"

6.  Women on the Case ed. by Sara Paretsky

7. Emperor of the Air: Stories by Ethan Canin

8.  Family Dancing: Stories by David Levitt

9.  Slaves of New York by Tama Janowitz

10. Either a Daphne Du Maurier collection that includes "The Birds" or a Saki collection

Ten collections of poetry:

1. The Best American Poetry 2000

2.  The Best American Poetry 1993

3.  Rose Quartz: Poems by Sasha La Pointe

4.  A Christmas Treasury of Yuletide Stories and Poems 

5.  Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

6.  The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

7.  Vagabond's House by Don Blanding

8.  Quarterly Selections by Danny Licten

9. and 10. To be determined.

Ten works of non-fiction:  

1.  Spark Joy by Marie Kondo

2. Kurashi at Home: How to Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life by Marie Kondo

3.  Finish Strong:  Putting Your Priorities First at Life's End by Barbara Coombs Lee

4. Great Speeches by Native Americans ed. by Bob Blaisdell

5. Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions by Todd Rose

6.  Roots by Alex Haley

7.  Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen (first up!)

8.  Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye

9. Teamworks: Building Support Groups that Guarantee Success by Barbara Sher

10.  The Worst Years of Our Lives by Barbara Ehrenreich

Ten books that are difficult to categorize as material for "reading goals" but are good for researching life goals, or simply for browsing in the "reading area" of the house on a rainy or lazy day:

1. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die ed. by Peter Boxall

2.  New Mexico Kicks on Route 66 by Martin A. Link

3.  Arizona Kicks on Route 66 by Roger Naylor

4.  ABA/AARP Checklist for My Family: A Guide to my History, Financial Plans, and Final Wishes by Sally Balch Hurme

5.  ABA/AARP Wise Moves: Checklist for Where to Live, What to Consider, and Whether to Stay or Go by Lawrence A. Frolik

6. The Western ed. by Phil Hardy

7. The Encyclopedia of Westerns by Herb Fagen

8.  The Great Central Valley: California's Heartland by Stephen Johnson, Gerald Haslam, and Robert Dawson

9.  #Still With Her: Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Moments that Sparked a Movement by Barbara Kinney

10.  U2 by U2

And may I include here a few children's books I'd like to pay another visit to?

1. A Pussycat's Christmas by Margaret Wise Brown (illustrated by Anne Mortimer)

2. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson

3. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

4. Bambi by Felix Salten

5. Heidi by Johanna Spyri

6. Little Men by Louisa May Alcott