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Evolving my TBR reading list to include even more advance planning. Here's to laying out the track for a successful 2026 reading year! Last year I was wildly self-satisfied with my new “Big Five” reading plan . Basically I chose a set of five books and then had to read (or quit) those before moving onto the next five. That was it. No deviation, no decision making, no moods, just go right down the list. Sure, I could adjust those five a tiny bit but overall it was “Big Five” or nothing. After studying a number of TBR methods, this was the one I chose. As it turned out, someone else had created such a system too, but his was named “Next Five,” which is clearly the superior name. So, in a hat tip to his invention, I’ll be changing the name of my list from “Big Five” to “Next Five.” Actually, I ended up adopting this “Next Five” system for everything I consumed: movies, TV shows, saved articles, etc. It was brilliant! Fiction Matters:  Four adjustments I'm making to my reading lif...

Taking a look at all that I consumed in 2025, this time including some music recommendations! We’re back for the continuing series of things I consumed. I did an excellent job of tracking in 2025, with the help of Things 3 and emojis. Traditionally I made a giant spreadsheet of all that I consumed but with the help of Chat GPT, it’s been easier to track via Things, sort via Sheets, and then clean up and analyze with Chat GPT. Books Overall I read thirty-six books this year, thirteen of which I gave a star to. That’s about a 35% hit rate, which actually is pretty great! For a deeper dive into my 2025 reading, I’ll send you over to the quarterly book reviews I’ve been doing, which detail exactly what I read. For 2026, I’m giving up Goodreads and moving over to Storygraph . I know, you’re thrilled by this news. Flummoxed? Either way, I’m over there now, thanks! Best Reads 2025 Babel, R.F. Kuang Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino Central Places, Delia Cai Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsk...

We wound up 2025 with a total of about thirty fiction books read, so let’s take a review of the last two months shall we? Books Read, Fiction Bring the House Down, Charlotte Runcie Central Places, Delia Cai ⭐️ Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky The Fifth Season, N. K. Jemisin Notes on a Crocodile, Qiu Miaojin Strange Houses, Uketsu ⭐️ Books Read, Non-Fiction On Class: Field Notes from a Working Class, Deborah Landau Books Quit A Guardian and a Thief, Megha Majumdar The Berry Pickers, Amanda Peters The Darkness Outside Us, Eliot Schrefer Frankly in Love, David Yoon Ports of Call, Amin Maalouf The Vagrants, Yiyun Li Overall November and December were good reading months, as I cleaned up some books I had wanted to read and finally caught up on some stuff I’d been intrigued by for some long time. Let’s start with the hits, which were Central Places and Strange Houses. The latter is a unique mystery book that I’ve been pushing to everyone, as I love the concept of a book that is focused a...

The numbers aren't numbering but have I got the book of the year for you! August through October was a real reading dry spell but I've got some new strategies... Books Read, Fiction Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino ⭐️ I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman ⭐ My Sister, the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite Piranesi, Susanna Clarke ⭐ The Teacher’s Match, Kristi Hong Yellowface, R.F. Kuang ⭐ Books Read, Non-Fiction Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer Books Quit Orbital, Samantha Harvey The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón Well, we’re rounding the corner into the last few months of my 2025 book journey and the numbers are not looking good. With a goal of forty fiction books by the end of the year, I’m going to safely say that I’m not gonna make it. If I hit half that number I’ll be lucky! I recently read this article from The Cut about how people get their many many books read in and one takeaway I got was to just read in small spaces. Got ten minutes? Read a c...

This was supposed to be the year of “let’s read more fiction books!” So far it’s shaping up to be a losing effort. But enthusiasm remains high and summer is around the corner! Books Read, Fiction Babel, R.F. Kuang ⭐ Homeseeking, Karissa Chen ⭐ Jade City, Fonda Lee ⭐ Books Read, Non-Fiction Emergent Tokyo, Jorge Almazán, Joe McReynolds ⭐ Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann Shattering the Glass, Pamela Grundy, Susan Shackelford ⭐ Stay True, Hua Hsu ⭐ And it’s August, which is clearly not quarter two, but there has been a lot of travel so here we are. After essentially three months away, I’m back at home and ready to cover what I’ve read in April through July. The short answer is: next to nothing! After logging six books in quarter one, I only added three more eligible books in the four months since. So um, here we go and let’s hope second summer’s ocean waves brings a lot of beach reading! Why did my friends and frenemies not tell me to read Babel sooner? My video game...

Another new series where I review things, mostly mundane. In this first installment, I have yet another medical related post because I've been going to the hospital a lot lately. I’m at the age now where colonoscopies is de rigueur. I’m a little behind actually, as it seems like most of the friends my age have had one already. I can report, as of last week, that my colon is now in spectacular shape! As usual, I had no idea what the process of a medical procedure involved, so I’m here to shed some insight, and to review the process. The day before the colonoscopy, I had to eat light, basically just white or colorless fluids—except coffee, which flushes out apparently. (My last meal was udon, and some spicy cucumbers.) Oh, I should mention that the purpose of a colonoscopy is to check for colon cancer and it’s something men have to do around forty-five years old. Anyway, the night before the procedure—which is technically a surgery that involves getting sedated via IV—I had to take a...