Welcome to 2025. 2024 was a difficult year for me personally. My work-life was challenging, I was (and still am) studying for the Certified Financial Planner certification, and there were some other difficult things going on that I’m not going to get into here. 

My reading-for-pleasure life was pretty minimal last year as a result. I did read some good books, and in the fall I read a lot of Agatha Christie, which was lovely and about all I could handle between studying, working, and trying to occasionally hang out with people. 

I did read a lot of words last year, but most of them were for class. Outside of class, I read 23 books last year. 

Top 3 books from 2024: 

“The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory,” by Tim Alberta. A fascinating look at where and how white evangelicals got to the place they are politically. Alberta is a Christian and a journalist, so he has an interesting perspective. He is pretty clear that he thinks many Christians have exchanged their values for political power. This is nothing new (“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’” -Matthew 4:8-9), it’s just the most recent iteration of this temptation. 

“Ghosted,” by Nancy French. A memoir of someone who has survived a tough life so far, and someone who got on the “wrong side” of right-wing American politics and has seen how vicious it can be. Clearly, this has been a reading theme over the past few years. French is a good writer and great story-teller, and I couldn’t put this down. 

“Middlemarch,” by George Eliot. This book deserves its place in the canon of great works of literature in the English language. It is about life in 19th century England in a small town, full of normal people living their normal lives, but also giving such interior descriptions that you recognize the hopes, fears, actions, inactions of the characters. At its core it looks at three relationships, and peels back layers to see the ways people misunderstand one another and how a good marriage can help you succeed as a human (which may or may not impact you financially, but certainly impacts you morally) and a bad marriage can ruin your life. 

This year, I am still studying, but I’m hoping that I will pass the exam in July and then be free from the burden of study for a while. That should give me some more space to read other things!