Every year I say “this year I will read at least 52 books.” I only actually did that once — in 2002 — when I was extremely unemployed. (I actually hit over 60.)

But a few things annoy me about this goal. Not all books are equal! Last year I read War & Peace. This year I read the Star Trek tie-in work Q-in-Law. They may both be absolutely brilliant, but one takes up less of your time than the other, and not just because Q has mastery over fourth dimensional experience.

There are only so many hours in the day one can devote to sitting on your ass reading, and I am also happen to be the recipient of several good periodicals. All who listen to The Daily Zig know that I subscribe to The Asbury Park Press, a localized affiliate of USA Today, which is certainly not as robust as The New York Times, but is still a broadsheet and has more meat to it than The New York Daily News. I try to read it in full each day — well, minus the sports section, because I do not care about the local high school’s lacrosse team (though I suppose, in the abstract, I wish them well.)

The monthly magazines that head our way include Smithsonian (which has some great stuff in there, in a Paul Harvey kinda way), Archaeology Magazine (my beloved spouse is really into this subject, which you may not know), and Birds and Blooms, which is about our feathered and floral friends that is mostly pictures. We also receive a quarterly, National Parks, which has transformed into a somewhat delightful anti-Trump publication if you read between the lines. It’s got a lot of good stories about the Grand Tetons.

For some psychotic reason I subscribed this year to The New Criterion, a paleo-conservative anti-woke culture journal. (It features a monthly column by Film Twitter bête noir R. Kyle Smith, a man who has been nothing but kind to me over the years.) This magazine is extremely funny, in that its writers are all leaping over themselves to try and sound drier and droller than William F. Buckley. Sometimes what they say isn't totally crazy, but it’s always significantly obnoxious. I doubt I will renew this, but I don’t regret signing up. It was also super cheap.

None of the above are the real time sucks, though. I currently subscribe to three music publications. It used to be four, but I find the writing in Relix, a publication devoted to the wide umbrella of “jam” music (some might call this one of my deepest passions) to be frustratingly dull. I don’t understand it. This is an art form that is all about experimentation, but Relix has a weirdly muted voice'; it feels like P.R. copy, and it’s a bit of a wasted opportunity. Sorry to anyone reading this who has an affiliation with the brand.

Anyway, I still get Downbeat, which, at 91 years, is the old dog of jazz journalism. It, too, can be a little fusty, I must admit, but I still like it. I also get (at some significant expense) the British magazine Songlines, which is devoted to “world music.” It’s very informative. The best, though, is BBC Music, which has some kind of American syndication deal, because it isn’t nearly as expensive. BBC Music is focused primarily on “Western classical,” but some other things slip in from time to time. (There will be the occasional article about someone like Rick Wakeman, for example, which definitely makes sense.) BBC Music is packed with interesting stories and extremely witty writing, and when I see it in my mailbox each month, it really is a joy.

But here’s the thing about music magazines in the modern world: they take forever to read, because, unlike in our youth, you can (and should) pause your reading to pull up Spotify to listen to whatever is being discussed. A reviews section can therefore take two nights to get through, and that’s only when checking in on the 4- and 5-star listings. An interview with a Brazilian percussionist in Songlines talking about his early influences might list five artists you’ve never heard of before, sending you on a deep side quest. An article on Faure in BBC Music radically changed my algorithm.

None of this, I must stress, is a bad thing. It’s actually a marvel of the modern age. I remember reading Spin in my youth and seeing a reference to The MC5 and being like, well, they don’t exactly play them on 9.23 K-Rock, I’m gonna have to roll the dice and buy a CD blindly and hope Kick out the Jams is truly as great as they say. (Luckily, it was and still is.)

With this long preamble, which I know sounds like making excuses, let’s talk about actual books.

I hoped for 52, but I read 43. Considering I also moved this summer, which takes a wrecking ball to your routine, I give myself a pass. Here’s what went down.

1) Midnight’s Children (1981), Salman Rushdie — Am I a monster if I say that parts of this dragged a little for me? I guess Mr. Rushdie has received far worse criticism. Don’t get me wrong, parts are hilarious and truly “magical,” and I also recognize that this is a landmark of 20th century literature. (It is a foundational text about Indian independence and the partition and its culture’s transition from myth to modernity, among other things) but it is also kinda long, so if you, like me prior to early 2025, had been meaning to get to this for years, just be a little prepared. Much of it rules, though.

2) Average Joe: The Memoirs of a Blue-Collar Entertainer (2025), Joe Piscopo with Walter Scott Lamb — I read this because I booked an interview with Piscopo and he was promoting this. It took me a very short time to read. It’s awful, but fascinating. Here’s a little fact about me: I punched up some of Piscopo’s jokes on the first Star Trek cruise. He’s very pleasant in person.

3) Stories are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind (2024), Annalee Newitz — Annalee is an old friend and I read everything they publish. They alternate between terrific science fiction novels and extremely readable non-fiction. This one, about the history of psyops and the various Orwellian shenanigans that have happened through history, is eye-opening and fascinating.

4) Podkayne of Mars (1963), Robert Heinlein — This is a piece of junk that I bought at the Allentown Paper Show because the cover looked racy. By all accounts Heinlein did this out of contractual obligation.

5) Stay Up with Hugo Best (2019), Erin Somers — I forget what it was, but I read something of Somers’s on Vox or Vulture somewhere and thought she was a scream. So I bought this (used, sorry) and found it super charming. It is about a young comedy writer who hooks up for a long weekend with a David Letterman-type.

6) The Way of Bach: Three Years with the Man, the Music and the Piano (2020), Dan Moller — Oh, man, this book rules. This might be my favorite book from the whole year, come to think of it. It is an autobiographical work about a weird dude who decides he is going to teach himself Bach fugues, without really knowing how to play piano. It becomes something of a history of Bach and the importance of fugues, but also about how people can give themselves bizarre challenges that kinda take over their lives. Highly recommended.

7) Gretel and the Great War (2024), Adam Ehrlich Sachs — This is very hard to succintly describe other than to say hilarious. A.E.S. is one of the most clever writers working today. I’ve read all his books (though this is only his third) and, I dunno, if I have to compare him to someone I’d say “imagine a Wes Anderson but with words instead of pictures, plus he’s Jewish” but that doesn’t really make sense.

8) Shop Talk: A Writer and His Colleagues and Their Work (2001), Philip Roth — Over the years I’ve been going through everything Roth has ever written. All I have left are these not-too-great non fiction works. This was fine. I have some more on the shelf, plus I tracked down “On The Air,” his disavowed (or, at least, uncollected) experimental novella from 1970. When I finally read that I’ll get much more into it. And when that’s all done I will read his final work, Nemesis, and then maybe go back and check out Operation: Shylock again, because that one just knocked me out.

9) Wuthering Heights (1847), Emily Brontë — I guess I am a philistine because I found this extremely boring.

10) Lollapalooza: The Uncensored History of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival (2025), Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour — I read this for work because I interviewed the authors. It’s an oral history about Lollapalooza and if you find the music business interesting you may want to take a look. I enjoyed it.

11) The Gambler (1887), Fyodor Dostoyevsky — I wrote a DVD booklet essay for Karel Reisz’s The Gambler so I figured I’d give this a spin. It’s very good! (The movie is only loosely based on it.) I have not read that much F.D. This and Notes From Underground are it. I have started The Brothers Karamazov twice but bailed. One day I’ll try a different translation and start again.

12) Mozart: The Reign of Love (2020), Jan Swafford — Jan Swafford is the man. I adored his enormous Beethoven biography (1,100 pages!) and this one (not as long) on Mozart is terrific, too. Swafford mixes anecdotes with hardcore music theory, and while some of that is over my head, I respect that it is there. Not everything in Amadeus is fake, by the way. Yes, the whole Salieri thing is poppycock, but many of the other stories are accurate. Mozart was a fun fellow. I have Swafford’s similarly enormous Brahms bio on deck for 2026.

13) Panther in the Basement (1995), Amos Oz — I have read several of Amos Oz’s books (fiction and non) and though this is one of his most famous, I wouldn’t say it is his best.

14) Bech, a Book (1970), John Updike — Extremely funny. I blazed through this.

15) Conversations with Conductors: Bruno Walter, Sir Adrian Boult, Leonard Bernstein, Ernest Ansermet, Otto Klemperer, Leopold Stokowski (1976), Robert Chesterman (ed.) — Interesting stuff. I still sometimes wonder what would happen if a trained symphony orchestra like the New York Philharmonic just played the notes written on the page without guy flapping his arms around in front of them, but that’s because I am a dummkopf. This book is beyond out of print, but I took it out of the library.

16) Hard Bop Academy: The Sidemen of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers (2002), Alan Goldsher — Many good jazz stories, using the various Jazz Messengers lineup as a peg. Everybody played in this group, absolutely everybody.

17) Bech is Back (1981), John Updike — Extremely funny once more. There’s a third one which I have on the shelf and will get to soon.

18) Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska (2023), Warren Zanes — I read this before the movie and I was glad I did. Much more detail about the mastering process than you’ll ever need.

19) Born to Run (2016), Bruce Springsteen — I wonder what someone who doesn’t much care for The Boss would think of this book? It’s actually extremely well-written, almost shockingly so. The guy is just exploding with talent. The stuff about Jersey Freeze and Federici’s (my favorite ice cream parlor and pizza place, respectively) obviously resonated, but everything else is fascinating too.

20) Turn Right at Orion: Travels Through the Cosmos (2000), Mitchell Begelman — An absolute bore. (This is a non fiction book about space with a decent hook, but it is deadly.)

21) Kim (1901), Rudyard Kipling — There are parts of this that are really fun and other parts that just go on and on. I suppose it hit differently in 1901. I don’t know if it is politically acceptable to read Kipling these days, but I feel like this one isn’t too offensive. (I could be wrong.)

22) Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War (2025), Alice Lovejoy — I read this for work and then never wrote about it. It’s not that interesting.

23) Vineland (1990), Thomas Pynchon — Like everyone else I wanted to get this in before watching One Battle After Another. I really enjoyed it, and I wonder if my muted response to Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie (I liked it, but didn’t love it) was because I had just come away from this insane tome. There are parts of this book that are fall-out-of-your-chair funny. The family stuff somehow stays touching. The more I think about it, the more I feel the movie was a whiff. That said, you could never make a movie true to this text, it’s just too surreal and fractured. An impossible task!

24) Giant Steps: My Improbable Journey From Stage Lights to Executive Heights (2025), Derek Shulman — I read this for work because I interviewed Shulman, the former lead singer of Gentle Giant and legendary A&R man. (He discovered Jon Bon Jovi, among others.) If you find the music biz interesting and you like prog you’ll eat this up. (Syd Barrett sounds like a real prick!)

25) The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (1991), Seymour Hersh — Guess which nation is responsible for Israel having the bomb? Give up? France! Seriously! Bet you didn’t know that. I sure didn’t. Anyway, this is supposed to be some shocking portrait of Israel being a rogue state run by bellicose monsters, and I kept waiting for that part of the story to come, but it never did. I am cancelled. Anyway, this book is half-interesting, half-dull.

26) Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague (2020), Maggie O’Farrell — I took this out of the library because I knew the movie would be a big deal. I figured I could pitch myself as an expert and get some work out of it. I read the whole thing but I wasn’t overly impressed. Parts were good. Same with the movie, to be honest. I never wrote about either.

27) Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats (2006), Pannonica de Koenigswarter — Never published in her lifetime, this is the collection of photos and quotes collected by “The Jazz Baroness,” one of the coolest people who ever lived. Got this out of the library because it is way out of print.

28) Nuclear War: A Scenario (2024), Annie Jacobson — Absolutely terrifying. This effed me up for days. Why did I read this? Oh, yeah, because I thought I was going to write about Kathryn Bigelow’s House of Dynamite, and I never did. (Or, not substantially, anyway.) Bigelow’s movie has some good things going on, but it can’t hold a candle to Annie Jacobson’s book. I recommend this if you can stomach it.

29) Zig-Zagging: Loving Madly, Losing Badly... How Ziggy Saved My Life (2009), Tom Wilson II — My summation of this has been broadcast on my podcast, The Daily Zig.

30) Nica’s Dream: The Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness (2011), David Kastin — An outstanding biography of the aforementioned Jazz Baroness. Read this if you like mid-century jazz!

31) The Baroness: The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild (2012), Hannah Rothschild — Another terrific biography of the Jazz Baroness, this one written by her grandniece, and focused a little more on her Rothschid-ness. The Rothschilds are fascinating, but don’t Google them! You’ll end up awash in antisemitic search returns.

32) On Life and Art (1853), John Ruskin — Mike Leigh’s fantastic film Mr. Turner features two scenes with Timothy Spall’s J.M.W. Turner locking horns with an unnamed fop who is meant to be the butt of the joke, but also has a brilliant thing or two to say. (Mr. Turner is a goddamn masterpiece, truly. It might be Leigh’s best film.) Anyway, if you look under the hood, you’ll see that the character in question, played by Joshua McGuire, is meant to be the Victorian polymath John Ruskin. The guy did a little bit of everything, including writing this book, which is a short but deeply passionate cri de coeur that starts off talking about Roman iron work but ends up being about everything. If you read it with that Terry Jones-ish speech impediment voice in your head it’s hilarious.

33) Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818/1831), Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley — I wrote about the Guillermo Del Toro movie this year, so figured I’d crack this open. I did not regret it.

34) Bog Queen (2025), Anna North — I loved this. It’s a CSI-type story about British muck. Sphagnum P.I., if you will.

35) Terrence Malick and the Examined Life (2024), Martin Woessner — A little bit of a chore, but interesting. I almost like Knight of Cups now.

36) If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All (2025), Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares — Idiotic. I don’t like A.I. and I hate how it is wasting resources, but this book is so annoying it makes me want to watch Sora videos. Don’t read this.

37) Ghosts of Hiroshima (2025), Charles Pellegrino — I read this because James Cameron said he was going to adapt this into a movie (so much so that his name is HUGE on the cover) but now he’s walked that back. There are some fascinating and grim facts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be found here. Not exactly uplifting.

38) Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974), Philip K. Dick — God, this rules. I hope they never adapt this for a film, they’d never get it right.

39) Project Hail Mary (2021), Andy Weir — God, this rules. They have adapted this for a film, which is coming out in just a few months, and I am skeptical that they will get it right, but my fingers are crossed. I am going to read Weir’s other two novels soon.

40) Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth’s Most Awesome Creatures (2019), Nick Pyenson — My first and likely last audiobook. This was an experiment to see if I could do an audiobook, and I really tried. We listened to this on our drive from N.J. to N.C. and, well, my brain can do a lot of things, but one thing it can not do is listen to audiobooks. I am jealous of those who do it (like my wife) but I have some kind of learning disability I guess. I computed maybe 40% of what I heard.

41) Star Trek: The Next Generation #18 — Q-in-Law (1991), Peter David — One of the funniest Trek books ever written. Funny that I only read one Trek book this year. I usually do more. I must still be in some kind of rebellion after the disgrace that was Section 31.

42) What’s With Baum? (2025), Woody Allen — Hilarious and inspiring. He’s now 90 years old and he’s still got it.

43) A Flower A Day (2023), Miranda Janatka — This is exactly what you think it is — 365 pages of pictures and blurbs about flowers. There are so many flowers out there, and many of them have terrific lore. (Also: I gotta get my ass to a botanical garden in South Africa!) Anyway, last year my wife and I read A Tree A Day (not every day, sometimes we get backlogged and do a longer session) and you can bet your ass we’ve got 2026’s variant on deck. I recommend you give something like this a try, it’s a nice way to wind down in the evening.

Tomorrow I’ll fill you in on all the concerts I saw this year, and then we’ll start over for 2026. I hope you all have something planned that’s fun for New Year’s Eve, and if you aren’t a paying HOFFSTACK member, maybe you might want to consider throwing in????? I’d appreciate it.