Finally! As long as it is the first week or weeks? of January: the SUMMARY of reading and the announcement you’ve all been waiting for . . . Care’s Books & Pie 2025 Pie in Literature Award!
2025 STATS
Total books read: 114 – down 5 from last year.
Pages read: 32,415 ………………………………2024: 34,365 Average pages per book: ~284……………………………..289 in 2024 Average pages per day: ……..……………………………….89
Hours listened: ~ 309 audiobooks: count 33
My Top Ten: The Correspondent, Beautyland, Heart the Lover, Woodworking, Glorious Exploits, There Was a Party for Langston Hughes, A Cartography of Peace, How the Penguins Saved Veronica, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
5 STAR READS
27
4 STAR
49
3 STAR
29
2 STAR
7
1 STAR
0
How many books did I read that were OVER 400 pages? 14! Same as last year. Only 2 books over 500 pages.
Woman / Man Author Ratio: 81 : 34 BETTER than last year.Not sure about race or LQTBQIA+ though I do attempt to differentiate that the male count is not all OWD (old white dudes). I actively promote and read women authors; I seek a diverse author pool and yet, I just discovered that I didn’t read very many black women authors. Hmm.
Repeat Authors: Elizabeth Strout and Percival Everett are repeats and more than one title this year; I read THREE by Rachel Joyce. I read another by Clare Pooley, Jane Austen, Barbara Pym, and 13 more. Debut authors that I managed to category-check: Virginia Evans, Misha Popp, Emma Pattee. New to me and am most excited to read more: Jamie Quatro
Repeat authors that made Top 20 last year AND this year, and the year before: Clare Pooley!
I read 12 “Classics” defined as older than 25 years, five (5) over 50 years old. Oldest book: Persuasion by Jane Austen – buddy read with Facebook AND Litsy friend Melissa the Avid Reader.
I read 26 books (23%) of nonfiction, mostly Memoir. The four Graphic Novels I read were all memoir.
I am considering the switch or new dedication to Storygraph app for genre tracking; I’m not going to classify the 2025 list now. Audiobooks are still my favorite; I read less ebooks – only 26, 35 up from 28 hardcovers, and the rest tradeback style (0 of the smaller paperback size).
I again completed the challenges that I love: the 12 category #ReadICT Challenge sponsored by the Wichita Public Library and local public radio station KMUW; What’s in a Name 2025 (6 categories) and the T-O-B in March. I again finished the 50 category Reading Challenge sponsored by the Ashe County (NC) Library! FIFTY!! I added a few more Litsy readalongs and I continue in two IRL book clubs.
On the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die: .
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oh dear, maybe Persuasion? I didn’t track this in 2025, apparently.
. .
FINALLY, anyone still reading this?! what you all have been waiting for is the Pie Award! Drumroll please…
How many books mentioned pie that I managed to catch?! 50 – down from 62 last year. I no longer had the ability to save my quote highlights with pie mentions to my goodreads updates or rather, I can’t FIND the updates easily due to GR shenanigans? (thus the droves of readers abandoning that site for Storygraph…)
And… starting with Honorable Mentions. The Care’s Books & Pie 2025 Pie in Literature Award goes to:
First Honorable Mention: Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton:
Second Honorable Mention: Misha Popp’s Pies Before Guys Mystery series. I’ve only read the first two and own the third which I hope to read sooner than later. GOOD FUN! — well, maybe good as in guilty pleasure good, but I am finding these very entertaining. Fast-paced, snappy dialogue, characters to cheer for, etc. And, duh, LOTS of pie.
AND OUR COVETED 2024 Pie in Literature Award goes to:
The following is a pic of my Christmas Cranberry Pear Pie on a holiday themed cloth napkin as background. I created a Christmas Card with this image. The top crust art was random pieces of pastry cut with a wavy box cookie cutter. I think it looks rather elegant! I will serve at my family’s “ThanksMas” celebration next Saturday. Along with a fig pie I need to try again and possibly a pineapple-pomegranate concoction.
Also, this time of year usually has me scrambling through the ToB Long List, of which I’ve read 6-7 but honestly, my passion for this hectic part of my holiday reading life has diminished and I will calmly wait for the Short List before I frantically research book availability and decide later how maniacally I will chase the Completist status before March 2026.
I’ll post again with some kind of year end 2025 summary, methinks, me hopes. Til then, fare thee well and go read some great books. Be Merry! Go Bake a Pie!
Click the image below to travel to Rebekah’s blog to find ALL the entries (or many?)
Topic prompt this week:
Week 4 (11/17-11/23) Mind Openers: Nonfiction books are one of the best tools for seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. They allow us to get an idea of the experiences of people of all different ages, races, genders, abilities, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, or even just people with different opinions than ours. Is there a book you read this year from a diverse author, or a book that opened your eyes to a perspective that you hadn’t considered? How did it challenge you to think differently? (Rebekah)
Friends, I’ve not the energy nor time today to write a post worthy of this week’s prompt. Sorry. Mostly because I get caught up and travel down all the rabbit holes that Nonfiction November always inspires! So, what I am doing with my post today is to inspire and challenge myself and you all to do that when it suits.
In other words, I have nothing to add at this moment. ENJOY! Go be curious!! Add books to your mountainous nonfic tbr! Learn something new and appreciate different perspectives!
Click on the image below to find this week’s host post:
Week 3 (11/10-11/16) Book Pairings: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. Maybe it’s a historical novel and the real history in a nonfiction version, or a memoir and a novel, or a fiction book you’ve read and you would like recommendations for background reading. Or maybe it’s just two books you feel have a link, whatever they might be. You can be as creative as you like!
This year, I read Wuthering Heights and then found (yay library!) The Annotated version by Janet Gazeri and it was both delightful in its fact-sharing of SO MANY THINGS about the Brontë’s and the times their books were written but also a bit tedious with academic snoozable stuff.
I did a similar thing when I participated in a readalong of Persuasion by Jane Austen and sent a version to my friend (Hi Avid Reader!) that included ephemera
that supported the fiction text; some fun extra goodies.
One of my favorite pairings ever! that I push on people is to read the fictionalized story of what David Grann wrote about in Killers of the Flower Moon: Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I shared about this in 2023’s NonFicNov and you can read that by clicking on this book image:
I read Tilt by Emma Pattee and participated in two book club discussions. This book has me considering what nonfiction books about THE BIG ONE that has been for decades predicted to hit Portland Oregon and Northwest US. I just saw this comment in an interview with the author, “The best advice is to get to know your neighbors.” And I think this is excellent for any area that could possibly be hit with any natural disaster. Which got me thinking what books could I read that explores that further.
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and, now, unfortunately, my PC/Wordpress/woes of technology prevents me from saving and uploaded pics to share to support this post and I just don’t have time right now to explore the tedium of it all.
Perhaps I should find a book about THAT. What fiction dystopia novel could I pair?! I await your suggestions…
[Updated to add the suggestions received: The Light Pirate (fiction) and Easthope’s Come What May (nonfic). My own research hints I should read The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster.]
Click on the image below to find this week’s host post:
Week 2 (11/3-11/9) Choosing Nonfiction: There are many topics to choose from when looking for a nonfiction book. For example: Biography, Autobiography, Memoire, Travel, Health, Politics, History, Religion and Spirituality, Science, Art, Medicine, Gardening, Food, Business, Education, Music. Maybe use this week to challenge yourself to pick a genre you wouldn’t normally read? Or stick to what you usually like is also fine. If you are a nonfiction genre newbie, did your choice encourage you to read more?
My NF selections this year have been random and spontaneous. Usually, my choices are the result of looking for something to fit a reading challenge (Drat that Ashe County! They truly have made it a fun and distracted haphazard reading year! but I love it so… I find it amusing that they have so many and I rise to the challenge. ha ha.)
All that to say that I don’t typically search out by topic. I do enjoy a celebrity — and often musical celebrity — memoir, and I do love to read PIE recipe books. I do think I should read more about politics but they are usually so depressing.
This photo is from my NF shelf; it’s not ALL my unread nonfiction but IS the group of books I am of the mind to try and read NEXT. ooops, there seems to be a fiction title snuck into the pic! sorry about that. But this does give you Dear Reader, a glance of the variety – a bit of history, there’s that celebrity musician, general interest (Sapiens!) and a feminist bio (Rosalind Franklin!!), some highly regarded authors…
WHICH SHOULD I READ NEXT? Any votes for or against? I honestly think I *should* read Team of Rivals, so maybe I’ll start this soon.
Click on the image below to open link to this week’s host Heather’s blog for more information.
Topic prompt for this week:
Week 1 (10/27-11/2) Your Year in Nonfiction: Celebrate your year of nonfiction. What books have you read? What were your favorites? Have you had a favorite topic? Is there a topic you want to read about more? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?
Nonfic that I’ve read so for this year include quite a few memoirs, celebrity memoirs to be specific, and a smattering of other stuff (which as I write I can’t recall a thing!) and goodreads is taking too long to bring up my NF category…) OH and that aside in parenthesis also assumes that I even tagged things correctly. Hrumph.
23 = Twenty-three
Celebrity Memoirs: Rebel Rising by Rebel Wilson, My Next Breath by Jeremy Renner, The Storyteller by Dave Grohl, and Me by Elton John. I enjoyed Rebel and Me the most.
NF + Graphic Novels: Audrey Hepburn (bio), Mexikid and Smile (both memoir) – Wait! Ducks is also graphic novel memoir and well done.
Other memoirs – one that I counted for the Ashe County NC 50 (Farmboy – genre I don’t read very much? Farming memoir! yuckety-yuck (seriously- not my choice of things to read especially rich white land owner childhood stories – um, NO.), Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast – fascinating, and then a grief book: A Three Dog Life which I picked up solely for the furniture on the cover (another Ashe Co category) and also, has a Stephen King blurb — so YES!
Political memoir: Nancy Pelosi’s The Art of Power. And then Holy the Firm – very odd, very interesting – the blurb says it explores the connection between beauty and violence. It’s by Annie Dillard. Someday I will read her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Someday.
I do enjoy the odd memoir, I do!
The most nichety-niche NF on my list must be Grand Forks: A History of American Dining in 128 Reviews – by Marilyn Hagerty. Midwest restaurant category? This came to my attention when the death of the author was a feature on the NBC Sunday morning program of Willie Geist sharing interesting people who had interesting lives. Anthony Bourdain was the editor of this and my husband thought it would be fun to read. Our library had an eBook copy available via Libby. Consider it a snapshot of wholesome community sharing and a look into restaurant styles of the 80s and 90s. Both nostalgic and sad, to be honest.
Speaking of political memoirs, but one that are more about the message than the author, I share the following:
Sitting Pretty by Rebekah Taussig happened to be the Big Read Wichita and thus selected for our book club this summer. Admitting that assistance for expanding access doesn’t take away from able-bodies but opens opportunities for more, for all, for the entire community. Plus, I read Emmanuel Ucho’s Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy as it has been banned SOMEWHERE. Banned!! Can’t make white people uncomfortable, now. Grrrrrrr.
I read Women Without Kids by Ruby Warrington because as a woman without kids, I always find these books interesting. We are not a monolith. #shrug
I think I find most of my nonfiction when I’m searching Libby… Just a unproven thought I possibly will explore more this month for #NonficNov! Tis most obvious to me that many of these titles I’ve listed and yet more to share… is that I’ve selected these to fit a reading challenge of some sort. Nuthin’ wrong with that.
Checking though my list — and I apologize this isn’t in more of a list format, but I have 5 more to talk about. I’ve grouped 18 thus far, mostly memoir of some sort. But these next are even more individually characterized, I think.
Everything is Tuberculous. Is “John Green” a catgory? Yes, I think so.
Let Them – self help! A friend bought this for me because she found it valuable. I had a few nuggets from the tome, but this really isn’t a book for me right now. (I should donate it to the library bookstore, or maybe I did already…)
Living Buddha, Living Christ – so many good reasons to read this! TNH explaining religion and mindfulness and purpose! Yes, please. And it fit the category of book I have owned the longest that I’ve yet to read. Glad to FINALLY get to it.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is a book I own that I’ve both listened to and read, TWICE read now! because my bookclub selected it. It’s good.
There Was a Party for Langston – by Jason Reynolds. This is a glorious book and I highly recommend it for all ages. BOLD for my favorite over all!
<<— click here to go to the illustrators site for more info.
In my final paragraph (this one), I ask you Dear Reader, if the following actually counts as Nonfiction? Nah, scratch that posit, because I will propose that the following title _is_ nonfiction because of all the detail and design of what an ANNOTATED book is! I submit for my 23rd book the Janet Gazari edited Annotated Wuthering Heights! Woo hoo! see? not a typical title for Nonfiction post, huh?!
Looking forward to reading many posts from NonFicNovember participants!
A friend asked me if I had a Top 100 List of books to suggest to her. Uh…. not off the top of my head nor one printed in my pocket to present. But I thought it might be fun to see what books WOULD show on such a list if I were to create one.
With a bit of guidance from GoodReads to see my 5 star reads across the years, I have selected the following. Please be aware, I could easily be persuaded that something shouldn’t be here or I might have left off a wonderful book that missed my notice somehow, or a whim could change it all tomorrow. This is both Fiction and Nonfiction. Consider it a FIRST DRAFT? Also note that it very likely shows recency bias.
And finally: these are in no particular order!
The History of Love
Geek Love
Murderbot
Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting
Persuasion
The Count of Monte Cristo
My Antonia
North Woods
The Secret Life of Lobsters
The Wedding People
Stoner
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Olive Kittridge
How to Read a Book (Monica Wood)
The Frozen River
Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan
The Bandit Queens
A Gate at the Stairs
Heft
Beautiful Ruins (especially on audio!)
Beloved
Year of Wonders
The Trees / Percival Everett
The is the Story of a Happy Marriage – Ann Patchett
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
On Writing
Bird by Bird
The Color of Water –
The Good Lord Bird
The Book of Delights
H is for Hawk
Circe or The Song of Achilles both? (M Miller)
GILEAD
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
I Capture the Castle
West With Giraffes (again, audio)
Born a Crime (definitely via audio)
The Book Thief
Far from the Madding Crowd (I recommend my review of this :/)
Handmaid’s Tale
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Crossing to Safety
It by Stephen King
East of Eden
Mrs. Dalloway
The Signature of All Things
Milkman
Lager Queen of Minnesota
Remarkably Bright Creatures
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Mister Pip
The Sparrow
Trust
Lessons in Chemistry
The Reader
Mountains Beyond Mountains
Destiny of the Republic
A Year of Pies
Pie for Everyone
Ms American Pie
PIE
Seabiscuit
Alphabet Juice
Looking for Alaska
anything by Anna Quindlen
The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen
A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon
These Precious Days
Commonwealth
A Gate at the Stairs
Hello Beautiful
Just Mercy
MERCY by Toni Morrison
Lab Girl
Proust Was a Neuroscientist
The Most Famous Man in America
Out of the Flames
(have I repeated any??)
Five Tuesdays in Winter
The Radium Girls
Tiny Beautiful Things
This is Not the Time to Panic
Educated
Love Begins in Winter / Simon Van Booy
Chronicles of Narnia
Mouse and the Motorcycle
EDWARD TULANE!!!
Mad With Yellow / Lisa J Starr
Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower
Anchor by Rebecca Aronson
A Cartography of Peace
All I Have in This World
The Correspondent (V.Evans debut)
Broken Earth Series
There Was a Party for Langston
Station Eleven
Trespasses / Louise Kennedy
Veronica
Tale of Two Cities
Ducks, Newburyport
Oh well, this should keep my friend quite busy. Bwahhahhaaahhahahahhhaha
BIG thank you to Amy who AGAIN sent me the list of 50 categories and still encourages me. YAY me, YAY AMY!
My grand list by clicking on my goodreads list does NOT provide the match of title to category so I am posting the snap-pic of my google sheet tracking:
You want to know my favorites, yes?
Beautyland, A Cartography of Peace, Two-Step Devil, Woodworking… Let’s go with these.
Quite a few books I’ve read could satisfy a category, OBVIOUSLY, and I gave up trying to do that; explains why I have more than 50 books in goodreads accounted for as well as visible when I have two books in the slot on the above chart. Ta da!
Wait – NO… I never did completely read the Judy Blume Summer Sisters. I started it, but got waylaid by must-read book club books or something. It is back on the TBR.
I would like to participate this year. Visit ReaderBuzz for more details (Click on the image below:)
Topic prompts for each week:
Week 1 (10/27-11/2) Your Year in Nonfiction: Celebrate your year of nonfiction. What books have you read? What were your favorites? Have you had a favorite topic? Is there a topic you want to read about more? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?
Week 2 (11/3-11/9) Choosing Nonfiction: There are many topics to choose from when looking for a nonfiction book. For example: Biography, Autobiography, Memoire, Travel, Health, Politics, History, Religion and Spirituality, Science, Art, Medicine, Gardening, Food, Business, Education, Music. Maybe use this week to challenge yourself to pick a genre you wouldn’t normally read? Or stick to what you usually like is also fine. If you are a nonfiction genre newbie, did your choice encourage you to read more?
Week 3 (11/10-11/16) Book Pairings: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. Maybe it’s a historical novel and the real history in a nonfiction version, or a memoir and a novel, or a fiction book you’ve read and you would like recommendations for background reading. Or maybe it’s just two books you feel have a link, whatever they might be. You can be as creative as you like!
Week 4 (11/17-11/23) Mind Openers: Nonfiction books are one of the best tools for seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. They allow us to get an idea of the experiences of people of all different ages, races, genders, abilities, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, or even just people with different opinions than ours. Is there a book you read this year from a diverse author, or a book that opened your eyes to a perspective that you hadn’t considered? How did it challenge you to think differently? (Rebekah)
Week 5 (11/24-11/30) New To My TBR: It’s been a month full of amazing nonfiction books! Which ones have made it onto your TBR? Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book!
PLEASE SEEK OUT THE BLOGGER PAGES THAT ARE SPONSORING IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PARTICIPATE!!!! ty
Note: I have not been purposeful in seeking out Nonfiction for my reading intake, but I’ve read a few and I always look forward to the wonderful reviews everyone shares in this event.
What It’s About: Inspired by the happenings of “paternal incidents” – where people do DNA research and find out Daddy isn’t BIO-DAD, as well as adoption from Irish convent + Suez Canal politics in the 1950s, and needing a kidney transplant due to ingesting wild mushrooms. The author plots out a what-happened-then and how it might impact a future line of descendants. The NOW timeline is the story of Mallory and her son who needs a kidney but she really doesn’t want to involve the father who has no clue and happens to be a mega-Rockstar. The PAST storyline is Hannah who happens to be Mallory’s grandmother (spoiler!?) and she is married to a British diplomat stationed in Cairo, Egypt.
Thoughts: I liked it and I liked both now and past storylines. Though I might have enjoyed more on Hannah, now that I really consider my reactions. I wanted to keep reading and wanted to find the time to keep reading the more in depth we go, the more connections get revealed. It is entertaining and yet maybe too ‘on the nose’ — has the obvious good characters to cheer for, the bad ones we are suspicious of, the look into the lifestyles of wealthier New Englanders, and only a few minor quibbly tidbits of nonsense that distracted me, but oh well, didn’t derail me too far off the tracks. (Should I add these to the bottom? yes, we shall! They could have derailed but I forgave anyway.) A few little mysteries were ingenious (updated: I’ve already forgotten what I meant here… UGH), and I was even caught off guard in one case where I had to go, “Whoa! how did I miss THAT?!” Entertaining enough.
Rating: Four slices of pie. The pie reference is to My Little Pony’s Pinkie Pie so not food. There’s a pear tree so of course, pear pie COULD be suggested as a natural next step. A solid enough 4 slicer but no amount of pie mentions (nor whipped cream!) would get it to a 5. Just sayin’.
Pear Pie from this summer:
Spoilers in enjoyment for me only, not spoilers like would ruin the book: (just highlight to make the text visible, if you are curious.)
Annoyance #1 – there is a point in the book where Mallory and her sister Paige and the kids boat over in a Fjord boat which I had to look up and could be a runabout or a cabin cruiser – who knows – but I think, and I admit I could be wrong, but they start in Provincetown Massachusetts and go to this made up island BUT BASED ON FISHERS ISLAND WHICH IS OFF THE COAST OF CONNECTICUT and belongs to NY and they are going for the day. And then going drinking. And then thinking they would boat BACK to Provincetown by bedtime. That is just crazy. It would be a MUCH LONGER trip. And they never considered the weather! No way. NOT buyin’ it, AT ALL.
Annoyance #2 – really just putting this down here because I have to miss the book club discussion DARN IT. And this one could definitely be considered a story plot-point spoiler, now that I am trying to think how to explain myself… During one of the times when Monk is trying to understand why Mallory kept their son a secret from him, for leaving him as she did way back when, he states about blaming his dad. NOW I see it is a hint, but her response with “Wow. Why?” It just isn’t the right phrase/words she would say, at least to my ears. She shoulda coulda answered with, “oh. huh.” or something smaller not a WHY like making him explain why she left but he doesn’t at this point KNOW – nor do we, as readers. But yeah, it was a BIG OL’ FORESHADOWING DROP that didn’t give me pause, it didn’t land. That’s on me, I guess! LOL
Pies Before Guys Mystery series. I’ve only read the first two and own the third which I hope to read sooner than later. GOOD FUN! — well, maybe good as in guilty pleasure good, but I am finding these very entertaining. Fast-paced, snappy dialogue, characters to cheer for, etc. And, duh, LOTS of pie.
Pies Before Guys Mystery series. I’ve only read the first two and own the third which I hope to read sooner than later. GOOD FUN! — well, maybe good as in guilty pleasure good, but I am finding these very entertaining. Fast-paced, snappy dialogue, characters to cheer for, etc. And, duh, LOTS of pie.
by Janet Gazeri and it was both delightful in its fact-sharing of SO MANY THINGS about the Brontë’s and the times their books were written but also a bit tedious with academic snoozable stuff. 
+ 
by Beatriz Williams, 2024, 384 pages
Care's Books and Pie