And with that we end 2025. I read 39 books which was just under 12,400 pages. Honestly, looking back that’s more than I thought I read, so I’ll take it! I won’t do a full recap of 2025 this year (too much going on) but some basic stats: I read the most books by J.J. Mulder (SCU Hockey and Offsides series) with nine books, closely followed by Jane Austen’s six books as part of my re-read in honor of her 250th birthday.
I’m not setting any goals for 2026, other than the 26 books I’ll put int my StoryGraph goal. There are so many books still to read and so many on my shelf that the goals just add unnecessary pressure.
Books Read
I got to more books than I thought I did in the last two quarters of the year, but it really slowed down in Q3 with a slight uptick in pace in Q4. I started and completed my Jane Austen original re-reads to add to the adapted/inspired/fanfictions I’d read earlier in the year, revisited an old favorite (Two for Trust), and completely cleared my ARC list. Below is what I’ve read since my last recap, * denotes an ARC.
- Cubs & Campfires (Sweet & Stocky #1) – Dylan Drakes
- Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
- Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
- Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
- Two for Trust – Elle Brownlee
- One-Touch Pass (SCU Hockey #4) – J.J. Mulder
- The Last Buzzer (SCU Hockey #5) – J.J. Mulder
- Feel at Home – Elle Brownlee
- Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
- My Roommate From Hell – Cale Dietrich*
- Emma – Jane Austen
- Persuasion – Jane Austen
- Runs in the Blood – Matthew J. Trafford*
- Deck the Palms – Annabeth Albert
- On Dancer – Annabeth Albert
There were no surprises here, other than really enjoying Albert’s two Christmas novels. I need to remember that she releases one every year and go read them. they’re so light hearted and low angst you just fly through them. I believe I read each in one night which I haven’t done since March or April! And the follow up book I read Burn Zone, also by Albert, there was just enough angst that it took me 3-4 evenings to read. Trafford’s book was different and eerily haunting. I still find myself thinking about some of the creepy AF short stories he wrote.
Crafting Corner
I continued my knitting YouTube Channel with monthly posts and a couple of bonus videos in December for Vlogmas. It was a lot of work, but oddly didn’t take away from reading time as most of the editing and filming is done during time I would be knitting or on lunch breaks from work.
- ep 8: august 2025 | finished Trinigan, crazy yarn costs & mezzo makes mess | knitting podcast
- ep 9: sep 2025 | fiber community love, mountain mist hat & Poké Balls? | knitting podcast
- ep 10: oct 2025 | boston fiber festival haul, yet another test knit & all the FOs | knitting podcast
- ep 11: nov 2025 | Starflake shawl, decision paralysis & stressful sleeves | knitting podcast
- yarn & YouTube : 10 things i learned in my first year | knitting podcast | male knitter
- ep 12: dec 2025 | frogging frenzy, join our make-a-long, & Finest Kind progress | knitting podcast
- VLOGMAS
What’s next?
As has been the case for most of 2024 and 2025, I’m playing catchup getting this pushed out 2-3 weeks later than it should be (even though I’ll back date it :-D). I just haven’t felt the drive to blog as frequently as I have in the past and am still trying to figure out what I’m doing with this site. Twice it went offline for more than a day because my host SUCKS and both times I thought I might lose the entire site because of lack of back ups and shockingly it wasn’t the end of the world.
I am 100% going to start doing manual backups once a month because whatever service I was using wasn’t working. I’m also going to look at trying to go back to wordpress hosting as I’m paying way too much for self hosted and not really getting much out of it. And related to that I need to update my theme to one that stays updated so there may be a major overhaul and that might respark the blogging/review interest. Who knows what 2026 will bring!?
