In 2024, in december, I decided that my new years resolution would be to double the number of books I read that year (being 100). Starting from January 1st, to today, December 28th, I have read 201 books, and as such, succeeded in my new years resolution, for perhaps the first time in my life. I don't really know how to feel about it, since it wasn't particularly challenging, given reading is a big hobby of mine, and one of the ways I commonly destress. I honestly thought it would be harder. The concept of doubling what at the time felt like a large number of books read seemed like a good, potentially achievable but ultimately difficult goal, but having achieved it, I realize that the goal of reading 200 books only really makes sense for someone who doesn't already read a lot for fun. I never really felt like I needed to read more than I normally would, especially as I have played fewer video games this year. I haven't had more free time, instead the time I had previously spent gaming, I spent reading, and as such, I doubled my books without feeling like I did anything different. So, next year I'm gonna do it again, and aim for 400 books, as this number seems to me now to be ludicrous. If 200 books is the amount I read for fun, without straining to read a lot, then it stands to reason that 400 would require additional effort, and as such, I will hopefully feel more accomplished (and hopefully actually get through my backlog rather than just re-reading the entirety of hp lovecraft of cormac mccarthy again, so I think its a good goal for next year
I am honestly a little disappointed in this area, as very few of the books I read this year are actually new to me, and mostly were just things I have already read in the past, and wanted to read again for one reason or another. If this list were for new books, it would probably be a quarter of the size. This is something I want to change for next year, and read mostly new books rather than books I've read a million times.
For full transparency, I count a book as anything longer than a short story, i.e. something you might reasonably see on a shelf. I also included all the papers I read for grad school since it accounted for a large amount of text all on its own, but it felt dishonest to count individual 30-50 page papers. I also stopped adding the author names after each book after a certain point in the year because I stopped caring, and all of this is directly copied from my notes, only simply reformatted into html. The books are also not in order in which I read them but rather in the order in which I remembered to put them in my notes. So without further adieu, here are all the books I read in 2025:
1) The Mist (Stephen King)
2)Towards a Libertarian Socialism: Reflections on the British Labour Party and European Working-Class Movements (G.D.H Cole)
3) Late Modernity, Individualization and Socialism (Matt Dawson)
4) Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Red and Black (Alex Prichard et al.)
5) Sealed Off (Zhang Ailing)
6) Notes from Underground (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
7) Penpal (Danthan Auerbach)
8)Nietzsche's new Darwinism (John Richardson)
9)A Natural History of Revolution (Mary A Miller)
10)c0da (Michael Kirkbride)
11) Uzumaki (Junji Ito)
12)Death Note Vol. 1 Collection (Tsugumi Ohba)
13)Industrial Society and its Future(Ted Kaczynski)-the unabomber, am planning on writing a full philosophical refutal of the ideas present in this
14) The official preppy handbook (Lisa Birnach)
15) Wordslut (Amanda Montell)
16) A history of the modern world (Joel Jolton)
17) The Witcher Official Cookbook (Anita Sarna)
18) The Last Wish (Andrezej Sapkowski)
19) Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)
20) Metro 2033 (Dmitry Glukhovsky)
21) In a Grove (Ryūnosuke Akutagawa)
22) Malone Dies (Samuel Beckett)
23) Waiting For Godot (Samuel Beckett)
24) Endgame (Samuel Beckett)
25) The Hobbit (JRR Tolkein)
26) A Game of Thrones (George RR Martin)
27) The garden of forking paths (Jorge Borges)
28) The Guest (Albet Camus)
29) Man after Man: An Anthropology of the Future (Dougal Dixen)
30) Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
31) all tomorrows (cm koseman)
32) Critique of Pure Reason (Kant)
33) Candide (Voltare)
34) On Education (Kant)
35) I'm thinking of Ending Things (Iain Reid)
36) Godzilla Dominion (Greg Keyes)
37) Godzilla in Hell (multiple)
38) It (Stephen King)
39) The Shining (Stephen King)
40) The Children's Blizzard (David LAskin)
41) To Kill a Mocking Bird (Harper Lee)
42) The Shadow of Innsmouth (HP Lovecraft)
43) At The Mountains of Madness (HP Lovecraft)
44) No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy)
45) The Road (Cormac McCarthy)
46) On Liberty (John Stuart Mill)
47) Utilitarianism (John Stuart Mill)
48) Walden (Henry David Throeau)
49) The Nameless City (HP Lovecraft)
50) The Hound (HP Lovecraft)
51) The Call of Cthulhu (HP Lovecraft)
52) The Dunwich Horror (HP Lovecraft)
53) the picture of Dorian gray
54) L light up the world
55) Essentials of Life-Span Development, 7th Edition
56) Counseling: A Comprehensive Profession
57) Publication Manual for the American Psychological Association
58) collected grad school papers and articles
59) death note complete series
60) Walden 2
61) Mr robot Elliot’s diary
62) I know why the cage bird sings
63) the amytiville horror
64) pet cemetery
65) cujo
66) green mile
67) the nicomachean ethics
68) the redemption of time
69) expedition
70) the second sex
71)summa theologica
72) contingent pacifism
73) the ethics of ambiguity
74) Proust
75) the end
76) act without words
77) the world of ice and fire
78) fire and blood
79) the library of babel
80) the boy in striped pajamas
81) world war z
82) the guest
83) the rebel
84) the power of myth
85) the cherry orchard
86) the seagull
87) interview with a vampire
88) chikes school days
89)2001 a space odyssey
90) ready player one
91) death on the Nile
92) all yesterdays
93) deconstruction and the possibility of justice
94) universal harvester
95) rules for the direction of the mind
96) the god delusion
97) a Christmas Carol
98) a tale of two cities
99) horrors!
100) the speckled band
101) disturbing the universe
102) old possums book of practical cats
103) the waste land
104) I have no mouth and I must scream
105) American psycho
106) as I lay dying
107) blood meridian
108) child of god
109) the great gatsby
110) A simple heart
111) gone girl
112)the history of sexuality
113) queer diasporas
114) the Witcher crossroads of razens
115) the Witcher blood of elves
116) the Witcher sword of destiny
117) the Witcher time of contempt
118) the tower of the swallow
119) the lady of the lake
120) season of storms
121) the ego and the id
122) a theory of human motivation
123) the complete tales of Edgar Allen Poe
124) collected works of Franz Kafka
125) coraline
126) death constant beyond love
127) metro 2034`
128) lord of the flies
129) the princess bride
130) ever since Darwin
131) the federalize papers
132) free will
133) red dragon
134) the silence of the lambs
135) the scarlet letter
136) phenomenology of the spirit
137) god is not great
138) leviathan
139) the odyssey
140) the Iliad
141) on suicide
142) an inquiry concerning the principles of morals
143) a treastiesnif human nature
144) tomie
145) a portrait of an artist as a young man
146) the archetypes and the collective unconscious
147) the trial
148) being John malcovitch
149) ant kind
150) Schindler’s list
151) night
152) the diary of Anne frank
153) th infernal city
154) lord of souls
155) Godzilla dominion
156) girl
157) Carrie
158) misery
159) all your yesterdays
160) tangent worlds
161) shutter island
162) the case of Charles Dexter ward
163) the lurking fear
164) the thing in the doorstep
165) the dream quest for unknown kadath
166) crawling chaos
167) nyarlethotep
168) the rats in the walls
169) the doom Thad came to sarnath
170) fungi from Yugguth
171) the ring
172) the horror at red hook
173) the shadow out of time
174) the horror in the museum
175) the statement of Randolph Carter
176) the nameless city
177) the moon bog
178) the temple
179) the festival
180) the quest for Iranon
181) facts concerning the late Arthur Jermyn and his family
182) the thing on the doorstep
183) Polaris
184) the beast in the cave
185) the tree
186) the white ship
187) the alchemist
188) celephai
189) the shunned house
190) the terrible old ma
191) cool air (lmao)
192) the cats of ulthar
193) from beyond
194) the unnamable
195) the imprisoned with pharaohs
196) the other gods
197) the dreams in the witch house
198) azathoth
199) beyond the wall of sleep
200) Dagon
201) the color out of space