Best of ‘25
 

Top Fiction:

Memory / Komarr / A Civil Campaign (Bujold). What a run Bujuld had with these three novels! ‘Memory’ is a touching meditation on the nature of memory and the pain of supporting a dementia sufferer. ‘Komarr’ is a mystery, and a romance, and a space adventure. ‘A Civil Campaign’ is a rollicking farce that made me laugh so hard and so long, I regularly put the book down to wipe my eyes. Bujold is an unfairly overlooked writer - perhaps because she writes genre fiction. But she’s so versatile, so funny, so warm, that I adore her. You must read Lois McMaster Bujold! You’ll be glad you did!

The Winter of Our Discontent (Steinbeck). A towering masterpiece from one of the greatest writers this country has produced.

Nemesis Games / Tiamat’s Wrath / Leviathan Falls (Corey). Perhaps the greatest American science fiction series gets the conclusion it deserves.

The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook / The Butchers’ Masquerade / The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Dinniman). Irreverent, horrifying, hilarious, sad, and surprisingly insightful, these three entries in the “Dungeon Crawler Carl” series hooked me so deeply, I forgot to eat. These are the best severed-yet-still-sentient-rubber-sex-doll-head -- related novels I have ever read.

Bookshops & Bonedust / Legends & Lattes (Baldree). These books, which basically created the “cozy fantasy” genre, are so delightful that I’ve been giving copies away to my friends and relatives. If you’re in the market for a book about good people trying to do the right thing, you’ve come to the right place.

Top Nonfiction:

Top Nonfiction ’25:

The Limits of Expertise: Rethinking Pilot Error and the Causes of Airline Accidents (Dismukes, Key). This book may have limited appeal to those outside of my industry, but absolutely everyone involved in airline operations should read it. It should be required. We should hold seminars on it. It’s that good.

A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Douglass). Y’know why we Americans remember Douglass’s name today? This book. Read it.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (Tyson). America’s most popular science educator conveys the key questions facing astrophysicists with clarity and brevity.

America is in the Heart: A Personal History (Bulosan). The book for those who want to begin to understand the Filipino immigrant experience in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th Century.

Think Again: The Power of Knowing what You Don’t Know (Grant). An important book about the power of mental flexibility. Reading this book will help make you a better person.

Top Comics:

Star Trek: Lower Decks - Warp Your Own Way (North). This book turns the whole idea of narrative comics on its head. It takes a simple format and premise where no one has gone before.

The Human Target, vol. 2 (King). This is a visually stunning comic that tells a heartbreaking story of love and sacrifice. It’s not the kind of thing I’ve come to expect from Marvel. Color me not just surprised, but astounded and thrilled.

Fantastic Four, vol. 2: Four Stories about Hope (North). We could all use a little hope right about now.

Reckless, vol. 2: Friend of the Devil (Brubaker). As delicious a slice of sunny L.A. noir as you could possibly want.

The Expanse: Dragon Tooth, vol. 3 (Diggle). This finishes the 3-volume Dragon Tooth not just strongly, but triumphantly. Seek out this series!

Also a great look at how “myth-olizing” a leader can back fire.

CEOs aren’t gods but some act like it and their people follow.

It’s like woke mind virus. Eventually time goes by and people are like, “what the heck! That wasn’t good”!

He was revered - until he wasn’t.

I see it here with Ed. I don’t think he’s destroying us though but he’s talked about and revered like he’s omnipotent(not among this group). He’s not. He’s an accountant from upstate NY.

Adding a few to my list! Thx!

Thoroughly enjoyed Bind Man’s Bluff when it came out. US really did/does sneaky stuff. I doubt this a fraction of what US gov did/does.

Don’t want to give away the story, but the US was building special subs just to do amazing things.

Cold War ops par excellence.


If Cold War ops is your bag:

”Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs) - Lindsay O’Rourke.

Hows, whys, and wheres for over 60 US Cold War (1947-1988) foreign government covert (preferred) and overt (messy) overthrow and attempts in a surprising number of countries.

(Relax. Every great power does this. Strong do what they want, weak suffer what they must)

I'm just about to finish "Command and Control." It's truly terrifying and eye-opening how close we came to a nuke going off by accident, or an accidental nuclear exchange. We lost a lot more B52's over the decades than I'd thought.

Also, The "Gulag Archipelago" should be required reading in every high school.

Without any spoilers, I love how they were able to locate the cable. Some serious high tech work.

I always look at that and think, that's what we could do back then, imagine what we can do today.


Since you have USMC handle, another book I really enjoyed.

Brute by Robert Coram...it follows the career of USMC Lt. Gen. Victor Krulak. His career spanned WW2 through Vietnam and we have him to thank for the getting the Higgins boats, which he sought after witnessing abysmal beach landings in the Pacific. Worth a read by any American, especially those who love military history.


If you haven't read anything by Coram, you're missing out. He also wrote books about John Boyd, Bud Day and another double ace of WW2. I haven't read Double Ace, but the rest were outstanding.

Agreed. My great grandmother died in a Gulag in 1984.

Her crime? My Great Uncle being a forest brother who were partisans fighting Soviets after they annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and my grandfather jumping ship in Germany and defecting "to the west"

Most fun childhood memory? Seeing mom punch out some low level bureaucrat from the Soviet Consulate who came to our farm to inform us of her death. And then demanded money for her "final expenses"

God I wish I had a camera that day.

My mom is 6'1" and towered over the fat bureaucrat

And your legend continues to grow. CX is akin to some mythical being. A cross between Paul Bunyan and a hapless flying Robocop maybe.

Speaking of the Soviets:

-Armageddon Averted: About the fall of the USSR

-Zinky Boys: Memoirs and interviews from those affected by the Soviet Afghan War

-Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (still reading it but entertaining so far, and I haven't even reached WW2)

- One Soldiers War: story of a conscript who fought in both Chechen Wars and came back a third time as a correspondent


If anyone has recommendations on a book about Operation Barbarossa or the Eastern Front of WW2 as a whole, I'm all ears