Anakalian Whims

The Year in Books

December 31, 2025 at 7:51 pm (Education, Reviews) (book review, books, education, fiction, homeschool, homeschooling, reading, reviews)

We read a lot. We are homeschoolers, so of course we spend a lot of time reading. I was at the pediatrician years ago with my oldest, an old man I didn’t know who didn’t know me… he complimented how articulate and well mannered my child was and then found out we homeschooled and immediately started lecturing me on the dangers of screen time and video games. I said, “Sir, we don’t even own a console.” He would not let up. He was convinced that being homeschooled meant we sat around and did nothing but watch TV and played video games. Funny thing is, now we don’t even own a TV. My teenager will tell you, we don’t have time for TV, because there are so many things to read. We play outside, we hang out with friends, we play musical instruments, we participate in clubs, she flies planes, and we read and read and read.

A lot of our books we read together, some (not not many) I read alone. This year (2025), we read:

1. Writing to Learn by William Zinsser
2. Napoleon’s Buttons by Le Couteur and Burreson
3. Desiring God by John Piper
4. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
5. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (I actually read two different editions back to back with notes, as I was teaching it.)
6. The Bringer of Fire by Oehler (I did not let my teen read this one)
7. Why Read Moby Dick? by Philbrick
8. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
9. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
10. The Peter Rabbit Library by Beatrix Potter (this is an ongoing favorite and I love having babies to re-read these to)
11. Why? by Anne Graham Lotz
12. Rapunzel (all the versions, every one we could get our hands on)
13. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (another one I enjoy teaching to more than my own kids)
14. Purgatorio by Dante
15. The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald
16. All the Arnold Lobel picture books, including a few new ones I had not owned when my oldest was small.
17. Jane Austen by Peter J. Leithart
18. Hank the Cowdog by John R. Erickson (my son is obsessed with the books and the podcast, I think we have them memorized now)
19. New Essays on The Great Gatsby by Matthew J. Bruccoli
20. The Los Angeles Diaries by James Brown
21. I Know Many Songs… by Brian Kiteley
22. The Parrot’s Lament by Eugene Linden
23. On Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior
24. Common Arts Education by Chris Hall
25. You’re Not Enough (and That’s Okay) by Allie Beth Stuckey
26. The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas
27. Everything we could get our hands on by Trina Schart Hyman because we love her.
28. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan
29. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (an annual Easter tradition at our house)
30. Gatsby’s Girl by Caroline Preston
31. Animal Farm by George Orwell
32. The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean
33. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson
34. Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy
35. A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War by Joseph Loconte
36. Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton
37. The World of Pooh by A.A. Milne
38. Lightfoot the Deer by Thornton W. Burgess
39. The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
40. The Geography Behind History by W. Gordon East
41. String, Straight-Edge, and Shadow by Julia E. Diggins
42. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
43. Dracula by Bram Stoker
44. Hamlet by Shakespeare
45. World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down by McEwen
46. The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis
47. Drake Hall by Christina Baehr
48. Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
49. The Floating City by Pamela Ball
50. Moth and Spark by Anne Leonard
51. That Eye, The Sky by Tim Winton
52. Socrates Cafe by Christopher Phillips
53. The Chemical History of a Candle by Michael Faraday
54. Beauty and the Word by Stratford Caldecott
55. Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan
56. The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
57. Nathaniel’s Nutmeg by Giles Milton
58. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Santifying Myth by Bradley J. Birzer
59. Engaging the Christian Scriptures by Aterbury and more
60. Journey Into Summer by Edwin Way Teale
61. Kon Tiki by THor Heyerdahl
62. Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
63. Be Strong (Joshua) by Warren W. Wiersbe
64. A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants by Jaed Coffin
65. Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery
66. Sightings by Sam Keen
67. Maisie Dobbs by Winspear
68. Local Girls by Hoffman
69. Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers
70. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Stoppard
71. How to Teach Kids Theology by Luce and Williams
72. Medea and Other Plays by Euripedes
73. The Infinities by John Banville
74. Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons
75. How to Keep From Losing Your Mind by Hudson
76. Sharing His Secrets by Vickey Banks
77. Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
78. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
79. The Last Rakosh by F. Paul Wilson (straight to the nope pile)
80. A History of France by John Julius Norwich (he is one of my favorite historians)
81. Book Trails for Baby Feet
82. The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury
83. Don’t Mom Alone by Heather MacFayden (a gift from my midwife after having baby number four)
84. The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp
85. The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White
86. Heaven by Jennifer Rothschild (donated this too)
87. Cultural Literacy by E.D. Hirsch Jr.
88. Bringing Up Boys by James C. Dobson
89. Ourselves by Charlotte Mason
90. The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden (we read this every Christmas)
91. One Man’s Christmas by Leon Hale
92. The Iliad by Homer (Fagles)
93. Hallelujah by Cindy Rollins (another annual tradition)
94. Quietly in Their Sleep by Donna Leon
95. Easily 300-400 picture books because I have three children under five and that’s what we do for hours on end.

I purged a lot this year, as you can see there’s a lot of chaff in this list. But I found favorites I will re-read with every child as well. We’ve been purging a lot as our shelves are stuffed to the gills (about 22 seven foot units retired from Half Price Books) and then some. I decided I don’t actually need more books, I need to be more conscientious about curating the ones I have, so I’ve been donating hundreds of volumes I’m done with every year… but we still have a packed inventory, because we are homeschoolers and we are readers.

As for this year, I truly enjoyed the chemistry titles. I actually enjoyed teaching high school chemistry, especially with the literature bent, essay writing, and speech giving I required of the students. The kids had more fun with the labs, obviously, but Napoleon’s Buttons, Faraday’s papers, and The Disappearing Spoon are all keepers, for sure.

I got rid of most the contemporary fiction, and kept the classics. I loved The Scarlet Letter when I read it in high school and I loved it even more while teaching it. The book as a whole is so much richer right after reading Dante’s Divine Comedy. “The Custom House” introduction hits so much deeper as an adult.

What did you read this year? Were they re-reads or new reads? A mixture of both? What was your favorite? What will you read again every year?