The Great Blizzard of 2026 only grazed us, with less than a foot of snow falling, but between the other snowstorms and a brutal cold snap, it was still a good month to curl up in a warm house with some good books.

Last year’s reading pace shows no signs of abating, and in January I happened to pick some great books from my long list. The three award-winning novels I read were all excellent, in completely different ways, and the nonfiction book that accompanied me through most of my January workouts was a solid piece of reporting with only a few minor flaws. Laura and I also finished the third co-operative game in a fun series.

December arrived cold and snowy, perfect weather for sitting indoors with a cup of hot tea and a good book. I finished a trilogy I’d started a couple of months ago, read two books about food, and enjoyed a well-crafted memoir.

In November, I read three books and listened to a fourth, which I count as reading. The selection included an interesting historical biography, a somewhat informative book on corporate innovation, and two pretty good novels. Laura and I also played a couple of excellent co-operative iPad games.

My October reading included a fantasy trilogy, the first volume of another trilogy, and a fun book about the joys of poetry.

In September I read a hilarious satire, a pretty good continuation of a fun series, and a work of speculative fiction that could also qualify as serious literature. After that, I played a few good games my wife recommended.

In August, I went through three fantasy novels, then read a bunch of short stories, and ended the month enjoying the first few novellas of a highly-regarded sci-fi series.

Here’s the start of what may become a monthly post: books I read in July 2025. It’s an eclectic mix of fiction and nonfiction.

At the beginning of 2025, I resolved to read more, especially fiction. Here are brief reviews of the more than two dozen books I’ve read in the past six months.

A pandemic. Global supply chains grind to a halt. Millions die. History splits into ‘before’ and ‘after.’ Sound familiar? Having lived that story myself, I’m in no hurry to revisit it. I have little interest in re-reading news from 2020, and the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic - and the appalling mismanagement that made it so much worse - solidified my longstanding aversion to post-apocalyptic fiction. Good books are good books, though, and even for a confirmed non-fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel, is a great read.

Two books explore the alluring but pathological business of game development.

Think of a disaster movie. Any disaster movie. Whatever the central threat, from Godzilla to malevolent extraterrestrials to climate catastrophe, there will be at least one scene full of people behaving at their worst: looting expensive luxuries from abandoned stores, smashing windows, screaming in panic, shooting at their neighbors. According to Hollywood, society is just one bad event away from near-total collapse, unleashing the Hobbesian wolves of our worst impulses and setting everyone against everyone else.