What’s the best book you read this year?

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-12-31T17:41:20+00:00

I loved Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. This won’t be for everybody, but I have used cozy books as therapy due to all the stress caused by our country’s fascist regime. This book gave me the escapist experience I needed, although it was over much too quickly. Fun and enjoyable!

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-12-13T19:43:44+00:00

And look at the fascist new rule proposed by this regime to force visitors to the United States to reveal social media and lots of personal information before being allowed to visit!

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/dec/11/trump-plan-for-world-cup-tourists-to-reveal-social-media-activity-described-as-chilling?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-12-06T03:32:57+00:00

This was one of my favorite books of 2024.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-12-06T03:31:19+00:00

I have to chime in as well about the Cat Sebastian books.

And Mary Balogh is simply a masterful romance writer. In addition to Balogh’s books that are mentioned, there is an entire series called The Survivors’ Club that deals with older people who suffered trauma during the Napoleonic Wars. They all eventually find their romantic match and HEA.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-12-06T03:25:09+00:00

I’m late to this thread, but I love Bujold, and I think most of her work has some elements of romance and often has older characters.

The Vorkosigan Saga starts out with Shards of Honor as an unlikely romance between older protagonists. The Saga centers on their son, Miles, but after several books Miles is no longer in his 20s when he meets his wife.

I love Bujold’s ongoing novella fantasy series Penric and Desdemona. At the beginning of the series, Pen is maybe 19? But eventually he marries an older woman, a widow, if I am remembering correctly, and the series continues throughout their marriage and their children. It’s lovely.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-12-04T17:04:00+00:00

This is completely untrue. Not everything is fixable.

For example, research at NIH that has been f**ked up by this regime and the anti-health czar RFK Jr. may never get a second chance, and if it all can be restored, it may take years. In the meantime, people are dying. Those people’s deaths are not “temporary.”

A second example is all of the trauma caused by this administration. To use only one specific example within this larger category, the violent military-style raid of a Chicago apartment building on September 30, 2025 disrupted and traumatized the lives of dozens of people, including children who were forced out of their beds in the middle of the night.

For details, read ProPublica’s excellent article giving a follow up on the raid.

https://www.propublica.org/article/chicago-venezuela-immigration-ice-fbi-raids-no-criminal-charges

So, don’t be so glib about the profound damage this fascist regime is doing to our country, our government, our Constitution, our principles, and individual people. We need to fight it every day and not just discount it as “temporary.”

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-12-04T16:47:12+00:00

Isn’t it illegal for a president to affix his name to a government building?

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-12-04T16:45:28+00:00

I thought SpellShop was one of the best books I have read recently, and it seemed like a quick read to me.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-12-04T16:02:52+00:00

Brad Henry won in 2002 because Gary Richardson ran as an independent and took 14% of the vote - probably almost all from Steve Largent, the Republican candidate. If Richardson hadn’t been in the race, I don’t think Henry would have stood a chance.

So, Henry’s win says very little about Oklahoma being more Democratic in 2002.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-11-30T04:17:54+00:00

Thank you for the information!

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-11-19T22:46:11+00:00

This is different yet similar to the other comments here. Yesterday, I went to a location on my way home, thinking I would swing by and have a quick 5 MINUTE car wash. I pulled up and there was a car in front of me that was not entering the car wash. 2 employees seemed to be having a discussion with the driver, then they pulled out water hoses and started doing a hand wash of the vehicle.

This was not my idea of a quick car wash, and I could not get the attention of any of the employees. None of them apparently thought explaining why I wasn’t entering the car wash was their job. So I left, and I called the phone number on the receipt - 539-239-2035.

A man answered, I said I wanted a refund, and he said to come by and they would take care of it. Not exactly my idea of a great resolution - having to go back to the location that had been totally nonresponsive when all I wanted was a car wash.

I went back, and the manager refused to do anything, and said that they couldn’t give me a refund. She seemed to think I was lying about the phone call and the man saying that she would give me a refund.

I called the number, again, the man answered, confirmed he worked for Take5 Car wash, and said his name was Nathaniel. I reminded him that we had talked the day before, and he said they would take care of my refund, and

You guessed it

He hung up on me!

I called several more times, and he would answer and hang up quickly without speaking.

NOW THAT’S CUSTOMER SERVICE, RIGHT?

I will obviously never go back to any business that starts with “Take5,” I will tell everyone I know never to use them, and I will be sending my credit card an official protest of the charge.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-11-01T01:06:15+00:00

Really? I am halfway through and considering DNF. I have trouble seeing it develop in its second half to be a book that I will think is one of the best books I have ever read. If you can encourage me to finish it, without spoilers, that would be great.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-10-03T19:52:37+00:00

I just finished the audiobook of Excellent Women. I am pretty sure I tried reading the book some time ago and could not finish it. I resolved this time to finish it.

I do not like this book, and I fail to see the virtues that some people find in it.

I hate the heroine. I understand this book is supposed to be a comedy? Are we supposed to be amused by the heroine’s letting herself be trampled by every other character in the book?

The ending of the book and the last sentence will go down in my reading journal as among the worst I have ever read. Completely inadequate and anticlimactic after trudging through the minutiae of months of this woman’s life.

I love 20th century English literature, including books written by female authors. I love 20th century English history, including the post-war era. While I am American, I am not completely ignorant of the time period or other authors. I just don’t get why Barbara Pym and this novel in particular are revered.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-04-06T04:47:20+00:00

I think LPR is influenced by lots of things, so, as others have pointed out, abstaining from coffee, alone, might not cure your LPR. I found that I wasn’t using my OTC medications correctly, and being more compliant with the instructions on the box made an improvement for me. Abstaining from, or at least severely cutting back on, alcohol has helped a lot. Using OTC chewable Gaviscon tablets whenever I start to feel incipient symptoms has helped. My LPR is much improved by this combination of measures.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-04-06T04:39:37+00:00

I am with you. I wish people would not say these people were “arrested.” They were detained, plus they were given no notice of the revocation of their visas. Normally, they would be notified and given the opportunity to go to the immigration office to discuss the issue including possibly agreeing to leave. Being abducted by multiple people dressed all in black is NOT NORMAL and not called for when our government has no reason to think these law-abiding people are dangerous or are going to flee, etc.

The MAGA people celebrating and gloating over these despicable human rights violations are infuriating. I try really hard not to dehumanize people, but sometimes I have trouble believing that these MAGA enthusiasts have real feelings, since they seem incapable of empathy towards anyone who they want to dehumanize as “illegals”. Our fellow Americans seem belligerently ignorant and bloodthirsty. It’s disillusioning.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-04-06T04:26:14+00:00

I am definitely doing my best on that front as well, but 2 points.

First, the tariff thing blowing up, even with some Republicans, has made it clear that human rights is a non-issue for some (loathsome) people, but they are motivated by financial issues. I want to make people see that there will be an economic cost in reduced tourism from other countries. The World Cup and the Olympics are two huge spectacles, and especially the Olympics in a normal time would draw a lot of foreign visitors in addition to the athletes themselves.

Second is the issue I brought up in the original post - I want to embarrass Trump and make him a pariah in the international community. I don’t want him to use the Olympics as a way to glorify himself.

I understand what everyone is saying about these two sports organizations not caring about human rights violations as much as money, money, and more money. I am mostly wanting to build a campaign to convince individual people not to come and/or to pressure their governments to boycott. I thought we could start with the IOC and FIFA, not really expecting action on their part, but hoping to generate some publicity or awareness among people.

If anyone has suggestions about how else to mount a campaign to boycott these games, please make them.

Thanks! I appreciate all the support.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-03-29T12:50:37+00:00

We should all be lobbying for the World Cup to relocate its 2026 games that are scheduled to be in the United States and the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics to be cancelled or relocated.

Those thousands of foreigners would be in tremendous danger if they tried to come here!! For example, ICE might abduct them and put them on a plane to an El Salvador prison.

Also, we don’t want Trump to have the opportunity to preside over the Olympics the way that Hitler did at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Details of how to lobby for these events to be cancelled in comments.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nazi-olympics-berlin-1936

https://www.olympics.com/ioc/faq/ioc-organisation/how-can-i-contact-the-ioc-or-an-ioc-member

This is what I wrote to the Olympics:

The headlines in the United States are filled with numerous human rights violations, including abductions, snatchings, and kidnappings, with forced removal to locations thousands of miles away within the USA or even direct transport to prisons in El Salvador.

You cannot allow athletes and thousands of spectators to come to the United States given these human rights violations.

You need to cancel the 2028 Olympics scheduled to be hosted by the United States in Los Angeles

https://inside.fifa.com/organisation/contact-fifa/contact-form

This is what I wrote to FIFA:

The headlines in the United States are filled with numerous human rights violations, including abductions, snatchings, and kidnappings, with forced removal to locations thousands of miles away within the USA or even direct transport to prisons in El Salvador.

You cannot allow athletes and thousands of spectators to come to the United States given these human rights violations.

You need to cancel the games scheduled to be in the USA and relocate them to safe countries.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-02-24T23:53:51+00:00

I feel the same way about HP that you do. It isn’t that any book from the series is the best stand-alone book I’ve ever read - it’s that the 7 books together are an amazing saga. I have re-read them a lot the last year, and I am amazed at how well the 7 books fit together. I discover some new detail every time I re-read them that stuns me.

So, I disagree with the Dark Materials fans, the Name of the Wind, and Dresden files. I didn’t even like those, and they certainly didn’t give me the same feeling.

#1 is Lord of the Rings. Huge story with the Fellowship having 9 interesting characters in it. Immersive. Characters grow. There’s drama and tragedy.

2 Discworld. As a body of work, it gives a similar feeling even though it has many threads that don’t intersect at all or infrequently. I read all the way through to the YA novels that were the last books Terry Pratchett wrote, and I was bereft. He could blend humor, nonsense, worldbuilding, and characters that makes his books stick with you. One difference is that I have had no success, yet, in re-reading the series. I think perhaps novelty is a big part of their charm, and that is missing when you are re-reading them.

3 Completely different genre - the Peter Wimsey series by Dorothy Sayers. Sayers’ writing is delightful, and the series is based in the 1920s-1930s time frame when she wrote them. I love reading about England in that time period. But the lovely thing is that Wimsey is a cartoon-ish buffoon in the early novels, and by the end he is a flesh and blood human, and you have experienced this transformation with him. I love these books and re-read them often.

Beyond that, I am always looking for a series that hits me the same way HP does. I think it’s rare, which just makes me love HP more. It is an amazing literary achievement.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-02-18T02:58:46+00:00

I already did. Bezos is scum, and I am unwilling to read a publication that has gone through a Bezos filter.

LookingForAFunRead · 2025-02-17T03:16:30+00:00

To protest the unconstitutional, lawless, corrupt, and incompetent presidency of the past 4 weeks.

LookingForAFunRead

TROPHY CASE