BOOK IT! vol. 8
The books that closed out 2025.
In the 8th grade, I ran the 400-meter dash in track. The last year where natural talent could still carry you through a competitive sport. My legs were long, solid, and I had the innate running ability of a kid on the cusp of puberty. After my first race—the one where I pulled ahead in the final 100 meters, gaining speed so suddenly that the girl ahead of me couldn’t help but do a double take, yelling “shit!” as I passed her—my coach pulled me aside. She leaned over, just barely a few inches taller than me, and told me I shouldn’t have that much gas left in the tank as I rounded that last curve, told me that I needed to feel completely spent by the time I crossed the finish line. I nodded my head and watched a teammate run to the trashcan and vomit after their heat. I understood.
What I remember most about my brief foray with track and field were those final 50 meters of a race, when your lungs are twisting up and into your throat, heart pushing against your chest, its dull thud growing sharper and more staccato, wondering how my legs would carry me any further or why I agreed to run this in the first place. And they always did, somehow. And I kept agreeing to race.
Late into December, I curled into the armrest of my couch, crying, telling my husband I wanted to cancel the rest of my social plans for the year. He sat to the right of me, silent, rubbing my shoulder, the calm presence of a person whose wife had flipped out on them a mere two hours earlier for always trying to problem solve instead of just listening. After three months of anniversaries and birthdays and holidays, I was running on fumes. I had left it all on the field. On the track. (I don’t run anymore.)
The next day, my horoscope told me, “Yes, you’re busy. But not too busy for the people you love,” as if my middle school coach had reached into the future and whispered into my ear that I needed to run just a little bit harder. I sent a screenshot of it to my husband, mouth agape. Later, I laughed about this with friends as we cooked dinner in the remaining hours of 2025.
But here we are, somehow already three weeks into the new year. I am still catching my breath, slowly returning to what is familiar and routine. As I do, here are the books that carried me through the last few months of 2025.
(A quick reminder on this rating system: it is arbitrary and silly and based off the pizza-party-incentivized reading goals of my youth. A pizza, typically, has eight slices and, thus, the system was born.)
The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad
In a way, it feels almost unfair to review this book. The premise of it is: 100 different essays by 100 different writers accompanied by 100 different journaling prompts. I worked through this book with friends, each day texting evidence of our completion. The prompts were hit and miss, the group chat alive and opinionated on the day we were asked to write with our non-dominant hands. However, I loved the essay interludes by Suleika. That’s no surprise, as an avid reader of her Substack, and her memoir, Between Two Kingdoms, being one of my top reads from the past few years. If you journal, this book is worth picking up.
🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 5/8 pizza slices
All the Wild Hungers: A Season of Cooking and Cancer by Karen Babine
After reading The Allure of Elsewhere at the end of summer, I knew I wanted to read more from this writer. This book was a beautiful tapestry of food and grief, vivid in its imagery, so much so that I could practically smell the broth cooking in one of the writer’s many thrifted Le Creuset pans. (As an aside, can this author please tell me where she is thrifting Le Creuset pots from??) A reminder of the power of food in caring for others and providing ourselves solace during uncertain times.
🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 7/8 pizza slices
The Answer Is in The Wound by Kelly Sundberg
An impressive essay collection about a challenging topic. Kelly Sunberg writes about her experiences with interpersonal violence in her previous marriage, and building her life in its wake, with such nuance and perspective that can often be lost when talking about experiences so sensitive and traumatic. A great example of how to write about hard experiences in a literary way.
🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 7/8 pizza slices
The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy
When I placed this on the counter at the Rockefeller Center McNally Jackson, the bookseller sighed, said to me, “Sometimes you just need a book about life.” And she was right. Every memoir is about a period of time in someone’s life, yes, but this book so astutely captures the feeling of being in transition, the unease of settling into change and newness and continuing to live your life, day in and day out.
🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 6/8 pizza slices
Trying: A Memoir by Chloé Caldwell
I found an advanced read copy of this book tucked into the shelves of a used bookstore in Minneapolis, lost in the stacks on a day where the temperature barely inched above zero degrees late into the afternoon. I took it home with me and read it by the fire in a single day. The book is fast paced, an engrossing read. It feels odd to say, “I could tell the direction it was headed” about a memoir, knowing the author lived these events, but I could tell the direction it was headed. That’s neither good nor bad, it just is.
🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 5/8 pizza slices
Lost & Found by Kathryn Schulz
This was a slower read for me, but not at any fault of the book. The subject matter gave me pause (the writer lost her father right as she was falling in love) and I found myself needing to take the time to digest it. I think it’s important to read books that make us do this. In the age of reading goals that often focus on the quantity of books read (get me on a soapbox about how social media has exacerbated this or how I feel I’ve accidentally created this cage for myself by writing this series), we can miss out on those books that ask us to slow down.
🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 7/8 pizza slices
A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
I had lost count of how many books I’d read in this past year that referenced this collection of reflections following the writer’s wife’s passing. It’s short. Barely 50 pages. I found it incredibly profound to read about Lewis’ struggles with his faith in the aftermath of an unthinkable loss. It was a reminder that grief is a great equalizer. None of us are insulated from its impact.
🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 6/8 pizza slices