Teaching on the Run

Another year gone. I tried to be more intentional about how much I was reading in 2025. With so much time being dedicated to the tasks of parenting, my hobbies were taking a hit. Parenting requires sacrifice, and time is the most frequent of those sacrifices. Running and exercise are non-negotiables to me, and this year officially marked video games being the next thing in my life to go. I do miss them, I’ll admit. Alas, reading has become my other major hobby, and a refuge during a very LOUD part of my life.

I completed 35 books this year, which is 5 more than I planned on. I don’t know that I can say I “read” them all. Most of these were a 70-30 split between physical copy & audiobook. I listen when I drive and when I run. If you want to say that I can’t count them as “read”, that’s fine. I still haven’t made up my mind on how I feel about that yet, since reading and listening are two very different acts. But… I still interacted with the words and story by visualizing them. Alas, I will still use “read” as my primary verb until someone convinces me to stop doing so. 

Completed Books:

• The Dragon Republic – RF Kuang (Poppy Wars Book 2) (1/5)
• The Burning God – RF Kuang (Poppy War Book 3) (1/13)
• All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr (1/14)
• Little Women – Louisa May Alcott (1/21)
• The Hunger of the Gods – John Gwynne (2/10)
• The Fury of the Gods – John Gwynne (3/1)
• No Country for Old Men – Cormac McCarthy (3/16)
• Slewfoot – Brom (3/31) 
• The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky  (4/11)
• American Prometheus – Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin (5/1)
• Sunrise on the Reaping – Suzanne Collins (5/26)
• World War Z – Max Brooks (5/31)
• Jurassic Park – Michael Crichton (reread #16, completed 6/5)
• The Hunger Games Trilogy – Suzanne Collins (reread #2, completed 6/14)
• The Martian – Andy Weir (reread #10, completed 6/18)
• Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir (reread #2, completed 6/29 ) 
• Whalefall – Daniel Krause (reread #2, completed 7/7)
• Novelette Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck (7/10)
• The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown (7/21)
• The Bully Pulpit – Doris Kearns Goodwin (7/31)
• Angels and Demons – Dan Brown (8/4)
• The Lost Symbol – Dan Brown (8/17)
• The Divine Comedy – Dante Alghieri (9/01)
• Inferno – Dan Brown (9/10)
• The Ground Truth – John Farmer (9/24)
• Grendel – John Gardener (10/1)
• Horror Movie – Paul Tremblay (10/5)
• Fall and Rise – Mitchell Zuckoff (10/6)
• The Assassin’s Apprentice – Robin Hobb (11/3)
• Royal Assassin – Robin Hobb (11/29)
• Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut (12/7)
• The Assassin’s Quest – Robin Hobb (12/15)
• Pet Semetary – Stephen King (12/29)

I’ve taken my books and sorted some of the notables into categories below, with some select quotes.

“Never again.” 

• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. 

I’ve wanted to read this since I saw the film adaptation in 2015. It is a classic. It was worth reading. But… it wasn’t written for me. As charming as I find March girls, it is a story that I found myself really struggling to stay invested in; which makes sense, because it primarily deals with period specific social dynamics and struggles. It’s also a story that is primarily about being a woman and having three sisters. There are larger themes and lessons at play, of course, but none that stuck to me. I wanted to like this one so much…but it turns out I just like Timothee Chalamet and Florence Pugh…I’ll stick to that from now on. 

• Horror Movie – Paul Tremblay 

Horror is one of my favorite genres because authors have the license to take really big creative swings. Sometimes they are a revelation, like The Exorcist or House of Leaves, and other times they are Horror Movie. It was an addicting read, but not a particularly deep or compelling one. 

• Poppy Wars Novels 2&3 – R.F. Kuang 

I appreciate authors who take inspiration from history in their work, but RF Kuang misses the mark in her series. It reads like an 17 year old writing her first fantasy book after taking a military history class. Much of the story beats are inspired by the Sino-Japanese War, but she clearly had no idea where to go once she introduced those horrors. If you want to know more about that war, I’d recommend Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang (what I think Kuang read to inspire her plot choices, if I had to guess). Kuang was young when she wrote this and she deserves some grace. I will still pick up her other novels this upcoming year and see how much she grew as an author because the potential is still definitely there. 

• Fall and Rise – Mitchell Zuckoff.

Fall and Rise concerns itself primarily with the stories of 9/11 victims and their families. I combined this read with The Ground Truth before I visited the 9/11 museum I’m NYC this year while I was there for the marathon. Doing this allowed me to have a micro and macro view of the 9/11. I got to know the day itself, the years leading up to it, the choices of the years that followed, and most of all? The grief and pain of those who survived. It was necessary, heavy, and made me feel like a true American. 

“In their Connecticut home, Lee and Eunice Hanson watched the televised explosion of the plane carrying their son, Peter, daughter-in-law, Sue Kim, and granddaughter, Christine. The strike into the South Tower ended the Airfone call between Peter and Lee. Later, Eunice realized: ‘We heard his first cries and his last cries.’ They endured the unspeakable, and yet they endured.”

Still chewing on it…

• The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others…A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. it sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn’t it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked up on a word and made a mountain out of a pea…”

This book is among the most tedious, overlong, and infuriating books I have ever read. And yet? It is profound. I think about it weekly at least. Every 50 pages or so there will be a passage that is on par with the most insightful philosophy I have ever read. This might be the greatest novel ever written, and is certainly among the most common that people lie about having read. Dostoevsky addresses many parts of human nature in this novel, but really nails how we view the injustices in society and in our own relationships. I loved the quote above, having witnessed this specific delusion among my extended family for the past few years. Dostoevsky did what great authors do, and gave words to something I couldn’t explain myself.

• No Country For Old Men – Cormac McCarthy.

This book scares me. The “kids these days” adage is one that I find to be ignorant and played-out. It is the refrain of people who don’t even try to understand the youth of today. But this book speaks to existing in a world you don’t understand anymore. One that doesn’t share your values and is entering a darker age that you can’t control and can barely conceive of. Being a teacher and a father of young people puts me on the frontline of generational changes, and I see them coming in the same way the Sheriff does in this story. There are times I feel dread at the thought of what’s coming. McCarthy explores those fears with a cutting poignancy. His novels come across as bleak to some, and they very much are at times. But… if you look. Really look. There is something inspires and kindles hope. His prose is just so unique, and his ideas so thought provoking, that every time I read him I come away freshly convinced he was the greatest American Author in the last 100 years. 

“…I was on horseback goin through the mountains of a night. Goin through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin. Never said nothin. He just rode on past and he had this blanket wrapped around him and he had his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.”

• The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism – Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Goodwin is probably the greatest biographer of US presidents. What stings about this book is that it reveals just how much politics has changed. Yes, there was definitely partisan pettiness in terms of 19th and early 20th century, but there was also respect, dignity, and a sense of service among our highest politicians that I fear is never coming back. William Howard Taft should be remembered as an all time great Ohioan, but he’s remembered as the “fat president”. Roosevelt’s relationship to the press is something we should learn from and emulate, but instead we have 24 hour cable news. History can be very unkind to some of its best subjects. Rumor also has it that if you say “privatize national parks” three times in the mirror, Teddy Roosevelt will appear and throw you through the nearest window.

• Pet Semetery – Stephen King.

I see why this one sat unpublished in a desk for years. And I see why it scared King so deeply that he felt the need to hide it there. It was written when King was fresh to fatherhood and felt powerless to prevent bad things from happening to his young family. Pet Semetery goes to that place, and puts those fears into prose. I’m in the same place in life that King was when he wrote this book, and I had a hard time reading this and letting it go when I put the book down. I’d be lying next to my youngest while he fell asleep, and this book would claw at my consciousness. It would find me, and fill those moments with dread instead of joy. I am more aware than before, and hopefully I’m wiser, but… I find myself deeply disturbed by the themes and conclusions reached in this book. All parents question it, but King answers. “What would I become under the biblical weight of grief?” No more, thanks. 

“I get it now.”

• The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown.

I was so eager to pick this one up. I remember thinking “I wonder why people got so mad about this book when I was younger?” Took me less than 100 pages to figure it out. Blaspheming Christianity? That’ll do it. Killer book, and even if you disregard its big reveal? It’s still fiction, but it makes some interesting (and correct) points about how we view the history of Christianity in the text. Not to mention, it’s rare you get an author that loves art and architecture as much as this guy. It was an addicting read with some real quality. 

• Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck.

I never read this one in high school and that’s a darn shame. I finally got tired of missing the references so it became a priority. It is tour de force in how to write compelling characters. Steinbeck understands being a poor American better than almost anyone, and writes about the dream and desperation that come with being here. Steinbeck is awesome and this book should remain required reading. Get Z and Gen Alpha lack empathy, and this book is the antidote to that. It’s engaging and powerful.

“Guy don’t need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus’ works the other way around. Take a real smart guy and he ain’t hardly ever a nice fella.”

• The Assassin’s Trilogy – Robin Hobb.

I have been slowly burning myself out of fantasy for the last few years. It was time for a new author, and Robin Hobb is widely regarded to be among the best. I can see why. Her world building, plot, characters, and themes are a revelation. When I came to the conclusion of this trilogy, I found myself filled with a deep appreciation and sadness that it had to end. 

“I healed. Not completely. A scar is never the same as good flesh, but it stops the bleeding.”

Epilogue

I tend to have very eclectic reading tastes, so there is a good mix of fiction, nonfiction, and various genres in my list. I like horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. I usually do not like romance unless it is written by Jane Austen. I just like reading. A little more every year.

I want to teach literature one day, and I strive to make my reading list a reflection of that. With that in mind, I make it a priority to become widely read and to engage deeply with the classics. Therefore, I try to read the classics as much as I can handle, both historical and contemporary. They are rarely page turners, though, so I don’t read too many back-to-back or I lose interest. They are the best books, lauded with praise for a reason, and I like to give them my full attention. The old adage says “variety is the spice of life”. I believe that to be true for reading. While I believe any reading is good, I am standing firm on the fact that some books are better than others and not all are created equal. 

I came away from this year feeling confident in my process, and grateful for the stories these authors have given us. Reading should considered among the most rewarding of hobbies, and I thank it for helping me make sense of a senseless world.

– Godspeed, Christian