Every year I list the books I read in the past year, and that's below, in the order that I read them. A few observations:
-- I read about the same number of books each year. I read 58 in 2025, 59 in 2024 and 49 in 2023. Some of these are re-reads, such as Moby-Dick and The Great Gatsby.
-- My volunteer work as a judge for the Prometheus Award and Prometheus Hall of Fame Award takes up a significant amount of my reading, 18 books or so in the past year.
-- I read four Hilaritas Press books last year, including my own Robert Shea book and a re-read of The Sex Magicians. Buying most Hilaritas Press books is a significant part of my "Robert Anton Wilson activism." Hilaritas Press needs the support of your wallet; it's part of keeping RAW's legacy alive.
-- Favorite fiction I read last year: midnight's simulacra, Lake of Darkness, Moby-Dick, The Great Gatsby, Cloud Atlas, The Great When. Favorite nonfiction: The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium, Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties, Kumano Kodo: Pilgrimage to Powerspots, Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All. But I liked most of the books I read, many of them quite a bit.
1. Alliance Unbound, C.J. Cherryh and Jane Fancher.
2. Love and Loss: The Short Life of Ray Chapman, Scott Longert.
3. Cancelled: The Shape of Things to Come, Danny King.
4. Terra II ...A Way Out, Timothy Leary.
5. Knowledge, Reality, and Value: A Mostly Common Sense Guide to Philosophy, Michael Huemer.
6. Interstellar MegaChef, Lavanya Lakshminarayan,
7. Waffle Irons vs. the Horde, Dr. Insensitive Jerk.
8. midnight's simulacra, nick black.
9. The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1: 1969-73, Allan Kozinn.
10. Invasion! Rome Against the Cimbri, 113–101 BC, Philip Matyszak.
11. Alien Clay, Adrian Tchaikovsky.
12. Beggar's Sky (Rich Man's Sky Book 3), Wil McCarthy.
13. The Glass Box, Michael Straczyki.
14. Epicurus and His Influence on History, Ben Gazur.
15. Moby-Dick or, The Whale, Herman Melville.
16. Shepherds Among Us: A Poetic Memoir, Trenda Geller.
17. Shadow of the Smoking Mountain, Howard Andrew Jones.
18. The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon.
19. Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London’s Lost Artist, Phil Baker.
20. Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life, Emily Austin.
21. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
22. The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium, Anthony Kaldellis.
23. Every Tom, Dick & Harry, Elinor Lipman.
24. The KLF: Chaos, Magic, and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds, John Higgs (the updated edition.)
25. Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.
26. Lake of Darkness, Adam Roberts.
27. Eight Million Ways to Die (Matthew Scudder, #5), Lawrence Block.
28. Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age, Ada Palmer.
29. Platinum Pohl: The Collected Best Stories, Frederik Pohl.
30. Xen: The Zen of the Other, Ezra Buckley (Joseph Matheny).
31. Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties, Lucy Moore.
32. Sell More Books! Book Marketing and Publishing for Low Profile and Debut Authors: Rethinking Book Publicity after the Digital Revolutions, Steve J. Miller.
33. The Sound of Utopia: Musicians in the Time of Stalin, Michel Krielaars.
34. Keys to a Successful Retirement: Staying Happy, Active, and Productive in Your Retired Years, Fritz Gilbert.
35. Salt, Adam Roberts.
36. The Sex Magicians, Robert Anton Wilson.
37. The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, James Warren.
38. The Book of Forbidden Words: A Liberated Dictionary of Improper English, Robert Anton Wilson.
39. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley.
40. The Star Dwellers, James Blish.
41. Kumano Kodo: Pilgrimage to Powerspots, J. Christian Greer and Michelle K. Oing.
42. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, Philip K. Dick.
43. Cloud Atlas, David K. Mitchell.
44. Every Day is a GOOD Day: Robert Shea on Illuminatus! Writing and Anarchism, Robert Shea.
45. Vineland, Thomas Pynchon.
46. The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told, Bill Janovitz.
47. All the Humans Are Sleeping, John C.A. Manley.
48. Don't Try This at Home: Convention Reports, David Langford.
49. Melmoth the Wanderer, Charles Maturin.
50. For Emma, Ewan Morrison.
51. Operation Wandering Soul, Richard Powers.
52. A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005, Robert Anton Wilson.
53. Vanishing World, Sayaka Murata.
54. The Crooked Hinge, John Dickson Carr.
55. Powerless, Harry Turtledove.
56. The Great When, Alan Moore.
57. Days of Shattered Faith, Adrian Tchaikovsky.
58. If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All, Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares.
