2025 Reading List

King's take on the small-town vampire story. The town itself is the best character — he takes his time introducing everyone, and it pays off once things start going wrong.

A haunted-building story where the building is stranger than any ghost. Not Koontz's warmest cast, but the mystery of the Pendleton kept me turning pages.

More Far Side. The cow panels are some of Larson's best work, and that is a high bar.

A Koontz thriller that moves at full speed from the first chapter. Not his deepest, but the good people in it are genuinely good, which is why I keep coming back to him.

Sagan on how human intelligence came to be. Some of the science has aged, but the wonder hasn't — this was a re-read and it held up.

Larson at his weird best. A few panels got a proper laugh out of me, which is rare for a cartoon book.

Classic Larson absurdity. I read it slowly to make it last.

Koontz with a stranger-than-usual mystery — a man afraid of his own sleep. The Dakotas are easy to root for, and Thomas might be the most wholesome character Koontz ever wrote.

You'd think the Far Side formula would wear thin by now. It doesn't.

Late-era Far Side, still sharp. Perfect bedtime reading, two pages at a time.

Diamond on why societies fail, from Easter Island to Greenland. The case studies are built like engineering post-mortems, which is how I like my history.

Abercrombie's characters are all broken in interesting ways, which is not my usual taste — but the writing is so direct and alive that I didn't mind. Logen Ninefingers won me over.

The next Abercrombie generation, with the industrial revolution arriving. Harsher than my usual fare, but the multi-viewpoint structure is handled with real skill.