Books in 2025

[ehyde]

I didn't keep good track of what I read in 2025, so I might be missing some things here.

• 23 books, about a 50/50 split between cnovels and non-cnovels
• Enjoyed most of them! Looking over my list, there were two that I finished but should have dropped: Evil Weapon's Self-Cultivation (Cyan Wings' so-far only miss for me, it was way too much 'watch this guy be awesome at the expense of everyone else') and Daughter of the Moon Goddess (I think I was not the right audience for this book).
• The winners of the cnovel bracket: Guardian and How Dare You, they're completely different but both of them grabbed me and didn't want to let me go. 
• Winners of the non-cnovels: Spiderlight (Adrian Tchaikovsky) and HMS Surprise (Patrick O'Brian) series. I did not start the Aubrey/Maturin series this year and still don't intend to read them all at once but I'm definitely going to continue, and I'm going to read more by Adrian Tchaikovsky as well. 

I don't really feel a need to read any more than I've been reading, but looking ahead to 2026, I do want to keep better track of my reading. I picked out a notebook for this purpose and have jotted down a few reactions to what I'm reading now (Record of the Missing Sect Master).


As for books I bound in 2025, my favorites are the couple of bamboo-strip-spine sets I made: The Imperial Uncle and Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know. The first was done as an experiment and I liked the result enough to do it again!

Comments

[halfcactus]

Daughter of the Moon had such a pretty cover but I'm learning to be less susceptible to being cover-baited. A podcast I listened to recently recommended Fox Wife as mythology-based historical fiction (fox spirit revenge story set in the Qing Dynasty), so I was thinking of going for that instead. I'm also not sure I'm interested enough in fox spirit stories, but maybe I can be convinced by the historical setting + revenge plot..

I always love seeing your fanbindings, the bamboo strip ones are *chef's kiss*. It's so cool that there are exchange activities for it, I didn't realize there was enough of a community in the cnovel space for it.