Books I've Read in 2025

Books I've Read in 2025

A reading journal, or more so a record of the rare success of one of my standard New Year’s resolutions - to read more. And yes, almost all of these were read by way of audiobook, which is by no means an inferior way to take in literature — quite the contrary. Think of seeing an amazing play or performance by a favorite actor versus simply reading the script yourself, and you see the point.

Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon, by David McGowan

What the hell is really going on in California? Why did so many of the artists and bands coming out of LA during the 60s and 70s have ties to military and intelligence circles? The author sheds some light on those questions, but the story goes so much deeper. Guns, drugs, and sexual depravity are what you find on the outside of the rabbit hole. It gets very dark, very fast. Satanism, the sexual abuse of children, murder, a Nazi cult in the canyon, and the ubiquitous presence of Charles Manson on the scene come together to paint a picture of surreal madness and debauchery. How could so much great music — music about love and freedom, of all things — have emerged from such sadness and evil? It’s a question I still ask myself after having read the book. Written by a legendary conspiracy author, the book also contains a lot of great historical information about the life and careers of a lot of well known artists as well as significant lesser figures. Highly recommend.

Collected Fictions,by Jorge Luis Borges

I discovered Borges after reading The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco, which was based on an idea in one of the stories in this collection. The story takes place in a world that is essentially a giant library of seemingly infinite expanse. People live their whole lives inside this library, which provides for them the basic necessities needed to survive. The books are strange, though, consisting of apparently random sequences of letters among which occasionally recognizable words or small phrases can be made out. The story is an examination of religion and philosophy as the inhabitants of the library search for, and create their own, meaning within this world. I enjoy Borges very particular style - masculine, terse, precise, and thoughtful.

Labyrinths: Collected Stories and Other Writings, by Jorge Luis Borges

Quite simply more stories by Borges. In fact, this is the collection that may contain the story about the library, I forget.

The Mind Parasites, by Colin Wilson

I have never read a more frustrating book. It can be boring. It can be outlandish, even outrageous. It can be derivative. It can be engrossing. It feels like a pulp attempt at H. P. Lovecraft, but it may also just hold a very real, very clear understanding of the metaphysical world and the nature of unseen forces that are always manipulating us, just beyond our perception. It simply cannot be dismissed. The story is about the struggle of humanity, led by a vanguard secret society of learned, enlightened individuals against an ancient threat that desires its complete destruction, which exists in the world of the mind — human thought, consciousness, and dream.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson

I enjoyed this one maybe more than I expected. The Wednesday Addams vibes are strong, but what it really is is a naked look through the eyes of a psychopathic child whom you very soon discover is guilty of the poisoning murder of practically her entire family, save her beloved sister and an uncle who managed to survive. In that sense the story is realistic, and chilling. There’s also a lot in there about small towns and small-mindedness which I found out later was based on real encounters with small town New Englanders suspicious of the author’s family’s iconoclastic lifestyles and Jewishness. Would recommend, and next year I plan to read what is regarding as her best novel, The Haunting of Hill House.

Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences, by D. W. Pasulka

Interesting for the raw data, but not one of my favorite books this year. Pasulka documents a number of real modern cases where important people in the world of science, technology, government, and the military claim to be in contact with beings from outside of this physical world. In a number of significant cases these beings have been largely responsible for the development of new technologies, including and maybe especially the development of artificial intelligence. I found the author to be too enamored of certain of these (in my mind) suspicious and sketchy characters with whom she interacted.

The Third Reich: A Novel, by Roberto Bolaño

My favorite for this year. I find it funny that a lot of people seem to hate this book, or consider it one of Bolaño’s worst. I don’t know, the story just grabbed me. Maybe because I can relate to a guy obsessed with competitive tabletop war gaming, having played a lot of Axis and Allies back in college and into young adulthood. Perhaps folks got tired of the chapters that essentially involved him laying out his strategies and movements for the next turn of the game, but these were clearly symbolic of where the action in the story was heading. The protagonist is a jerk, a young German guy who proudly reps the Third Reich in gaming tournaments, with an autistic-level devotion to the game. But his doggedness in pursuing the mystery of his “friend’s” death, and the strange gaming campaign that more and more assumes a level of ultimate consequence I respected, and found fascinating. Certainly made me want to read more Bolaño.

2666, by Roberto Bolaño (Currently reading)

Originally intended to be published in five separate volumes, the stories told here are all supposedly connected by a very real string of murders of women in northern Mexico, that as far as I know still continue to this day. What does it all mean? Impossible for me to speculate it this point, as I’m only halfway through the first volume. “The Part about the Critics”, as he titles it, tells the story of four friends, academics and scholars of German literature, who meet through a shared appreciation for an enigmatic German writer. Most people familiar with Bolaño point to this as his masterpiece, and so far I’m enjoying it. As with The Third Reich, you more you read the more you get the impression that there is a story being written above the words, or behind the words, without the understanding of which it would be impossible to answer the simple question of what this book is all about. I had some theories about the Third Reich, and I’m looking forward to seeing this one unfold in the new year.