Bi-monthly update of lifetime reading goal (as of August 31st, 2025):

While I’m glad that they notify you of expiring titles (included in membership), I wish Audible did a better job of 1) giving more sufficient notice and 2) enablement of push notifications of such expirations. I had several appear at once in the past day.

Congratulations to this year's Hugo winners, and to the Lodestar and Astounding winners, too! locusmag.com/2025/08/hugo...

📢 The OAH has issued a Statement on the White House Review of the Smithsonian. Read the statement: ow.ly/hgLR50WGhfQ

Listened and look forward to more. Thanks to Christine for putting the work into its creation and congratulations on launching your podcast!

Robert Caro, in his 1982 National Book Award finalist The Path to Power, describes nature’s power of the “gullywashers” of the Texas Hill Country, destroying the hard work of LBJ’s father. That was on the Pedernales River about 50 miles east of Kerrville on the Guadalupe, but similar phenomenon.

I was a boy at Camp Stewart during the 1987 flood. Waking up the next morning and seeing a huge rushing river in place of a meandering stream is a surreal experience and one that sticks with you after 40 years. I sincerely pray for those affected. www.texastribune.org/2025/07/04/t...

Bi-monthly update of lifetime reading goal at mid-year point (as of June 30th, 2025):

I’ve been looking for podcasts to help round out my reading and this looks very promising. I enjoyed my first episode and recommend. As a fan of both Cyteen and Downbelow Station (and Arkady Martine) this was great accompanying material.

And more step to a far less interesting, unremarkable history.

Congratulations to all the 2025 Locus award winners! file770.com/2025-locus-a...

Though they rightfully make fun of my reading goal (Poo-litzers, with pinky up), the family enables it as well: much appreciated 2025 Happy Father’s Day gifts of leather/ magnetic bookmarks and clip reading light:

This podcast is great; I enjoyed their take, especially with the apt reference to the movie Dave and comparison to Ignatius of A Confederacy of Dunces.

🎊 And the Nebula for Best Novel goes to... SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN by @wiswell.bsky.social (DAW; Arcadia UK). Congratulations!!! #Nebulas2025 🥳🥳🥳

While no longer using graph paper for maps, reliving the C64 days of childhood through the Bard’s Tale Trilogy, all 3 now completed. Originally, I never got past Harkyn’s Tower of BT1. Thanks to @inxile.net for remastering this gem of an RPG and @gamepass.xbox.com for its availability.

Congratulations to all the Pulitzer Prize winners announced today!

Bi-monthly update of lifetime reading goal (as of April 30th, 2025):

Great Sunday morning read.

Bi-monthly update of lifetime reading goal (as of February 28, 2025):

I don’t recall this as a feature last year of Audible but it it is a nice way of showing the only way I could read as many books as I did (long commute times and a couple long trips to and from Indiana / Chicago)

2025 Reading Book Thread - a log of the books read during the year. Monthly goal: 4 books from the Pulitzer, National Book Awards, Hugo, Nebula or Locus lists. Will also include non-goal books read. 🧵

Year-end book totals and overall numbers. Recap, along with liked / recommended 2024 books read found here: bsky.app/profile/did:...

Finished my last book of 2024 and with that, a list of my top books of the year. First, re: goal to read 4 books/mo. toward lifetime goal. In 2024, I read 72, with 68 toward goal (+20 toward yearly goal, +13 over 2023). Read over 30K pages, with a rate at almost 90 pgs / day.

Book 67 of 2024: Soldier of the Mist by Gene Wolfe (Locus Fantasy 1987, Nebula finalist). My first book by this author. Coupling with a heroic epic, its use of anterograde amnesia in the primary narrator wasn’t off-putting.

Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe by David Herbert Donald Witch King by @marthawells.com Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Restocked the TBR stack yesterday, courtesy of my local bookstore @copperfieldsbooks.bsky.social: mix of Pulitzer biographies/fiction, NBA nonfiction and a couple Hugo/Locus winners. They have a lot of great deals - I recommend them.

Banner month in October: nine books read (a new monthly record). Here is the bi-monthly update of lifetime reading goal (October 31,2024):

Bi-monthly update of lifetime reading goal (August 31, 2024):

Bi-monthly update of lifetime reading goal (June 30, 2024):

Saw others enumerate their annual book reads, so I will do the same in this thread. My goal for each year is to read at least 4 books per month from my lifetime goal list.

Bi-monthly totals (end of April 2024)

In the past four days, I completed the following: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner (Hugo 1969) Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (Nebula 1967) History of the American Frontier by Frederic Paxson (Pulitzer History (1925) Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien (NBA 1979)

Like the solar eclipse, I had a convergence of sorts, completing four books this past week (all recommended): Age of Jackson by Schlesinger (Pulitzer History 1946) NBA fiction winners Cold Mountain by Frazier (1997) and Invisible Man by Ellison (1953) The Speed of Dark by Moon (Nebula 2004)

Finished and recommend Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son (Pulitzer 2013).

Over vacation, finished Toni Morrison’s Beloved (Pulitzer 1988), my first by that author. The hit rate of the 1980s winners has been solid so far: Morrison, Mailer, McMurtry and Updike all with recommended reads.

Completed Rabbit is Rich by John Updike (Pulitzer Fiction 1982). Two things: you don’t need to read the tetrarchy in order (I started with Rabbit at Rest) because two, the writing is just too damn good.

I've been reading this since July of last year, but finally finished this morning. While facile at times, William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is nonetheless a recommended read. Spoiler alert: it has a happy ending.

End of February 2024 overall book goal totals:

Quick update: finished Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg (Locus Fantasy 1981, Hugo finalist) on Monday and The Echo Maker by Richard Powers (NBA, 2006) on the way to work today.

Finished Charles McIlwain’s The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation (Pulitzer History 1924) Somewhat of a prequel to Gordon Wood’s 1993 winner, McIlwain focuses more on whether Americans had UK constitutional leg to stand on before the revolution began, arguing that they did.

Finished Mating by Norman Rush (NBA 1991). The setting / concept of Tsau reminded me of something from a Kim Stanley Robinson novel. While I liked the prose and humor of Rush’s book, I was somewhat disappointed with the ending and how things developed with the main protagonist.

Non book goal, finished Ian McGuire’s The North Water (long listed for the Booker Prize). Nasty, brutish and short, I nonetheless liked the book. Sort of reminded me of Joe Abercrombie but with killing polar mammals across the taxonomic class. Henry Drax is a memorable character.

Finished Richard Ford’s Independence Day (Pulitzer 1996), my first by this author. I found the character of Frank Bascombe’s conversations with his son a touch strange: do dads expect to relate to sons through the use of Emerson? Maybe I’m doing it wrong.

Finished Joan Vinge’s The Snow Queen (1981 Hugo/Locus winner, Nebula finalist). Solid science fiction with great world building. Personally garnered a mini-achievement as well, having completed every Hugo winner from the 1980s.

Unrelated to my goal, finished a friend-authored book, Upon The Arrival of Dawn. Credit to Joseph on his first book and for a creative world and readable story.

Filling my SciFi / Fantasy queue, I’ve started Robert Silverberg’s Lord Valentine’s Castle (Locus Fantasy 1981, Hugo finalist). This is my 3rd novel by the author.

Finished Greg Bear’s Moving Mars (Nebula 1995, Finalist for Hugo and Locus). I think it was fairly solid. It was a little slow at first but picked up pace in the second half of the book. This was my first Greg Bear novel.

Finished volume 2 this afternoon. Now starting Charles Warren's final volume (vol 3) of his 1923 Pulitzer-winning The Supreme Court in US History. It begins w/ the Dred Scott case and continues through 1918. This book is part of the public domain and are on IA and the LoC: www.loc.gov/item/22011303/

Year-end book totals and overall numbers. Recap, along with top 2023 books read found here: bsky.app/profile/john...

I have likely finished my last book and game of 2023 and with that, I'll wrap up of my top books/games of 2023. First, a recap: goal to read 4 books/mo. toward lifetime goal. Read 60, with 55 toward goal (+7 toward yearly goal). Read a little less than 30K pages, with a rate of 80+ pgs / day. (1/6)