2025 Year in Review

In 2023, I tried a new "Year in Review" format. It was shorter and easier to write than what I had done in previous years, and felt fresher -- so I've kept it since then. :)  The format/list of questions came from the long-gone scrapbooking magazine Creating Keepsakes, January/February 2013 issue (!). 

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1) What was the coolest thing you did or that happened to you last year?

This was actually a tough one...!  I can't think of too much that was "cool" that we did in 2025 (isn't that pathetic??).  

One thing that came to mind:  en route to dh's cousin's cottage in September, we made a short side trip to Petroglyphs Provincial Park, which was pretty cool to see.  (It's considered a sacred spot to the Indigenous people, so no cameras/photos allowed.)  

2)  What major milestone(s) did you or a loved one experience last year?

Dh & I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in July! Nobody remembered :p  and the trip I wanted to take never materialized... but 40 years is still 40 years, right?  We did go out for steaks.  :)  

3)  What was your favourite celebration last year?

The great-niblings' birthday parties were all fun and I'm glad we didn't miss any of them!  (Even if I did get horribly sick after Little Great-Nephew #1's party...!)  

4)  What was your most memorable holiday of last year, and what made it special?

Christmas with my family is always memorable, even when it's on a much smaller scale than our Christmases of yesteryear. I am well aware that my time with my parents is not unlimited, and so I appreciate the opportunity to spend time with them while I can -- especially for holidays like Christmas!  (Even when they drive me nuts sometimes...!)  (We're still here, and they've been bickering a little less than they were this summer, which has been nice...!  lol) 

The holidays we spent with BIL, SIL, the nephews and their families -- including Easter and (Canadian) Thanksgiving, as well as family birthday parties -- were very special too. It's always fun just to be together, eat good food and see the kids. 

5)  What family vacation or activity was the most memorable, and why?

Our annual cottage weekend in September with BIL, SIL, dh's cousin & his wife, and (new this year) another one of dh's cousins, was a lot of fun (as usual).

Here's to (hopefully!) travelling further afield in 2026...!! 

6)  What big goal did you or a loved one achieve or work toward last year?

I can't think of anything for this category??   

7)  What's something that changed in your life last year?  (something new, a loss, etc.)

Both dh & I were told in late October (2024) by our family doctor that our cholesterol levels had reached concerning levels. (I'd been warned last year that my numbers have been trending upward over the past few years --and that yet another prescription might be in my future :( ).  By eating better and trying to be at least a little more active, we were able to get much better bloodwork results in January (2025). Unfortunately, my November bloodwork showed that my numbers were up again :(  -- so one of my new year's resolutions will definitely be to refocus my efforts and get my numbers down again by the time I have to repeat the bloodwork in March...!  (After we get through the Christmas holidays, of course...! lol) 

8)  What was your favourite movie, book, album or song from last year, and why?

We haven't been to the movies (in theatre) since early 2020 (before the pandemic began) :(  and I don't follow music the way that I used to either. I will be posting my 2025 Reading Year in Review soon, and as I say there, it's hard to pick one favourite book -- but I've listed a few! 

9)  What world, national or local event or news story affected you most?

World: The return of the Orange One, south of the border. I am so, so tired of him and his cronies (and I'm not even American! -- although this story obviously has huge implications for my country -- see below). 

National: The U.S. president's subtle and not-so-subtle threats toward my country's very existence, the wave of patriotism it has inspired, and the impact it had on our federal election in April. 

Local:  The Conservative government (inexplicably) won yet another majority government in our provincial election last May. I will give the premier credit for standing up to the Orange One, but he's really just a lighter, folksy-er shade of orange himself:  the populist rhetoric, the policies and contracts that favour big business donors and ignore the local & environmental impacts, the blatant corruption... 

10)  What life lesson did you or a family member learn and take to heart last year?

Every year for the past few years, my answer to this one has been the same:  Life is short, and tomorrow is not promised. I am more and more aware of this with each passing year...! Too many people I knew and/or loved -- many of them my own age or younger -- departed this life in 2025, including (but not limited to) fellow blogger Bamberlamb, my friend M. from our pregnancy loss group, my cousin, not just one but two of my high school classmates (within about two weeks of each other this summer), as well as our English teacher, and most recently, my dear friend of 41 years, R.  

"The Impossible Fortune" by Richard Osman

Having cleared my book club obligations for the next while, I eagerly dove into "The Impossible Fortune" by Richard Osman -- book #5 in his Thursday Murder Club series -- which has been at the top of my TBR pile since its release this fall.

The book begins with Joyce's daughter Joanna's wedding, where Elizabeth is approached by a guest for help -- a friend of the groom -- who then mysteriously disappears. At stake is a fortune in bitcoin, buried in a remote cold storage facility. 

All I can say is Osman has done it again. Like his other books (TMC & otherwise, all read and reviewed on this blog), this was quite simply a whole lot of fun, with plots twists and red herrings galore, (And lots of laughs.)  Along with the quartet of senior sleuths who make up the Thursday Murder Club, several supporting characters from the previous books make appearances. 

5 enthusiastic stars on both Goodreads & StoryGraph.  

This was Book #38 read to date in 2025 (and Book #3 finished in December), bringing me to 84% of  my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am 6 books behind  schedule to meet my goal -- and not likely to do so at this point (note the date of this review...!)  :)  However, this book brings my 2025 reading total to one more than last year, which does give me some satisfaction.  :)  

You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books."  And I'll be publishing a 2025 Reading Year in Review in the near future too.  :)  

"How to Kill Your Family" by Bella Mackie

Reading a book with the provocative title "How to Kill Your Family" (by Bella Mackie), while spending two weeks mostly housebound with two demanding elderly parents who adore watching annoying game shows (!) (plus my sister and her partner, on & off), in frigid Manitoba, might not have been the best choice (lololol...). But it's the January pick for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club, and I decided to get a head start! 

Our narrator, Grace Bernard, breezily admits to killing six members of her extended family -- and getting away with it. But she's still in prison -- for a murder she did NOT commit.  The book bounces back in forth in time, from the present (Grace in prison, awaiting an appeal), and the past (why Grace decided to murder her relatives, and how she carried out each crime). 

I'll admit, Grace's family seemed pretty despicable, for the most part, and I can understand her motivation.  But that's still no excuse for murder.  And the details were sometimes a bit gruesome. I was thinking 3 stars, maybe 3.5, as a rating.  

BUT!  There's a major, clever plot twist in the last few chapters that redeemed the book for me somewhat, and boosted my rating. 

4 stars on both Goodreads and StoryGraph.

This was Book #37 read to date in 2025 (and Book #2 finished in December), bringing me to ?% of  my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am 6 books behind  schedule to meet my goal (and not likely to do that at this point...!), but this matches my 2025 total of books read, which makes me happy. :)   

You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books." 

Pre-Christmas odds & ends

• Counting down to Little Great-Nephew #2's birthday party, and our flight west for Christmas... 
• I mentioned our most recent plumbing issues in my last post, and that I wound up taking a shower in the second bathroom for the first time in nearly 10 years (!). 
• What I didn't mention was that the tub walls are quite high,  my left knee is rather stiff and it was a bit of a step to get in and out. And I slipped and banged the back of my left thigh, just above the knee, on the edge of the tub as I was getting out. 
• It ached briefly, but I didn't think much about it -- until dh, seeing my bare leg on Wednesday morning as I was getting dressed (three full days after I banged it), said, "You've got a big bruise back there!"  I ran to the full-length mirror. 
• Sure enough, there was a big purple blotch, about the size of my palm.  Greeeaaaat... Cue the anxiety and the consultations with Dr. Google:  "Flying with a bruise."  (Yikes.) 
• Since then, I've been taking ibuprofen and using an icepack a couple of times a day to attempt to reduce the swelling and attempting to elevate the leg when I'm sitting (albeit that can be awkward...!). I bought (and began using) an arnica-based gel that's supposed to help relieve muscle aches and bruises, etc., a neoprene compression sleeve that fits over the knee and covers the bruise, a wrap-around tensor bandage (in case the neoprene sleeve feels too tight), and a pair of compression stockings (that only go up to the knee). I've been trying both wraps out at home and will probably wear one of them on the plane. 
• Any tips for me??  
• (Like I need one more thing to worry about...!) 
• (For what it's worth, dh thinks it's looking a little better than it did on Wednesday? But it's still very much there...) 
• I've discovered an alternative to the dearly departed Pocket! Anne Helen Petersen of Culture Study has been recommending Instapaper to her readers as a way to get around paywalls for at least some (if not all) weblinks.  I signed up, downloaded the app to my phone, and gave it a try with a couple of links. Worked like a charm. :)  I was even able to import my Pocket links (which I'd downloaded to my laptop before Pocket's demise). 
• Another alternative I'd been using that often works:  Archive Today. 
• Timely:  A friend from the Childless Collective shared this article from British "agony aunt" Philippa Perry: "My 10 rules for a happier Christmas."  Applicable for everyone, but childless people who are often torn over what to do about the holidays will likely appreciate some her advice. 
• In "2025 Childfree Trending," Laura Carroll -- author of the groundbreaking book on pronatalism, "The Baby Matrix" (reviewed here), offers some thoughts on the state of pronatalism in 2025, and the positive developments in the childfree movement, including online community building, and the growth in the number of businesses that are marketing to non-parents.  
• In Life Without Children, Charlie Brown explains "Why We Must Stop Assuming The Fertility-Challenged Eventually Get Their “Miracle Baby”."  (Hear, hear!!)  
• Also in Life Without Children, Charlie Brown also explained "Why I Want To Help Break the Silence That Surrounds Infertility." (While I'm not as likely to talk openly about my experiences, I could relate to just about everything Charlie wrote!)  
• Katie Dunn at Afterglow describes what it's like "When every friend has a baby" and "How I went from feeling left behind and left out, to grateful and thriving." 

Do you know the feeling? That sharp, visceral sting when your heart aches for something you don’t have, while everyone around you celebrates exactly that? For anyone navigating infertility or baby loss, being the only non-parent in your circle can be absolutely brutal.

• This Toronto Star article gave me the heebie-jeebies. :(  "She wanted a natural pregnancy and childbirth. It ended in tragedy." (Gift link.) 
• Also in the "heebie-jeebies" category (but worth a read):  "They Answered an Ad for Surrogates, and Found Themselves in a Nightmare." (Gift link.)
• The New York Times's Modern Love column explores "Why It’s Best to Imagine the Worst" and why "I can't imagine" is one of the worst things you can say to someone.  
• Subheading:  "After learning devastating news about our young son, we needed to feel connected to friends and family, not just exist beyond their imagination."
• A recent post by The Nomo Book Club Substack features "A collection of non-fiction books that are building a community of non-mother voices."  I've read many of these books myself (and others are in my massive to-be read pile). Worth checking out!  
• This was followed up more recently by another post about "solo NoMos":  "A collection of memoirs by solo women who are embracing lives outside the mainstream narrative." I've read and can enthusiastically vouch for several of the books on this list. 
• And Lisa Sibbett at The Auntie Bulletin posted about "The Best Novels I Read in 2025." There's actually a lot more than novels listed -- 70 books in all!  And coincidentally, or not, many of them are relevant to aunties, chosen family and friendship. (I see at least a couple that I've read and loved!) Enjoy! 

Pre-Christmas annoying things (and a few small pleasures)

 Annoying things: 

• I was trying to comment on a WordPress blog recently -- and when I hit "publish," up popped a note from WordPress:  they had blocked my password and I had to create a new one?!  This took some doing, but I finally managed to change my password (grrr...). 
• Related annoying thing:  My comment disappeared into the ether, and had to be recreated.  

• I went to the nail salon last week to have the gel/shellac polish on my toes removed. I've been going there for occasional manicures & pedicures since we moved here, almost 10 years ago now. My SIL goes there too and suggested it to me when I asked her for a referral. It's near where she & BIL live, and the prices are pretty reasonable.  (She & I ended up in pedicure chairs side by side the day before Older Nephew's wedding rehearsal, totally unplanned!) 
• Back story:  I'd had a pedicure in late September, just before we headed to dh's cousin's cottage for the weekend. I had asked for just a regular pedicure with regular enamel polish  -- but the nail tech pushed (hard) for me to have a shellac/gel pedicure. "It lasts much longer! You don't have to sit under the dryer for as long!"  she pointed out brightly. 
• (What she didn't point out:  it was more money, and thus = potentially a larger tip for her.) 
• I didn't really CARE if the polish lasted longer;  I just wanted it to look decent for the weekend. I don't get pedicures very often, and I like being able to remove the polish myself once it starts to chip and look ragged. Plus I am not entirely comfortable with the unnecessary UV light exposure. 
• Anyway, she talked me into it (eyeroll), and brought out a polish that she said was very close to the regular polish I had already picked out. Annoying thing/Spoiler alert:  it was not. I had picked out a teal blue;  the polish I wound up with was more of a teal green. It was nicely done, but not quite what I had wanted -- and obviously more expensive -- and I left feeling a little annoyed that I hadn't stuck to my guns and gotten what I really wanted. 
• While at the cottage, I stubbed the toes on my right foot on the leg of our bed -- TWICE.  
• I didn't think much about it until about a month later, in late October, when I was in the shower. My nails had started to grow out from the nail bed, and while I was lathering up my feet, I noticed a black spot on/under the nail of my right second toe.  I have no idea how long it had been there -- I mean, how often do you look closely at your feet?  Plus I obviously didn't have my glasses on in the shower. Most of the spot was (of course) UNDER the polish -- which I could not remove myself (grrr....). 
• The logical explanation, obviously, is that it's a bruise from when I banged my toe on the bed leg at the cottage a month earlier. (I had a previous black toenail after hitting my toe on the corner of a wall, some years ago. It turned totally black, lasted for months before eventually fading away -- and my nail eventually fell off. Thankfully, it did eventually grow back.) 
• EXCEPT.  I couldn't help but think of the younger brother of my best friend from high school. He died of melanoma at the far-too-young age of 40, leaving a wife and two young boys, as well as his parents & four sisters. It started -- you guessed it -- under the nail of one of his toes. He thought he just had some weird sort of nail fungus. By the time he checked it out with his doctor and they figured out what it actually was, it had spread, and it was too late. :(  
• We had checkups scheduled with our family doctor in late October, and I showed the spot to him. He was pretty sure it was a bruise too, but since he was referring me to a dermatologist (for other reasons), he suggested I have that doctor check it out. (And that I should get the polish fully removed before I went.)  
• So last week, I headed back to the nail salon. I explained, both over the phone and at the counter, that I wanted my gel/shellac polish removed. They could trim my nails, remove the dead skin, etc., but I did not want more polish, even clear. 
• Wouldn't you know it? I got the very same nail tech. And this time, she started in on the hard sell for a paraffin wax treatment. "The skin on your feet is very dry... the paraffin helps seal in the moisture. I really recommend it,"  she said. 
• I've had paraffin treatments before, and I knew she was going to keep pushing, so once again I caved and said yes. 
• She brought out a plastic bag filled with liquid wax. It was HOT, As she squished it over my foot and slipped a terrycloth bag over the plastic, I felt like the bottom of my foot was burning. "It's HOT... please, take it off!" I said.
• She did NOT take it off. "It won't burn you, the temperature isn't hot enough," she assured me brighly, as she put the other bag of liquid wax over my foot -- which was also hot. 
• I was honestly afraid my feet were going to be burned. They weren't -- my feet are fine -- and she did do a nice job on cleaning up my feet and smoothing down the rough spots -- but I wasn't particularly happy. I didn't have enough change to leave even a 10% tip  (I had enough for a larger tip on the regular pedicure I thought I would be getting...!), and frankly, I didn't feel like she deserved one.
• The girls there don't wear nametags, so I'm not sure who else I could ask for. I'm debating whether to ask my SIL, or just try to find a different salon, maybe one closer to where we live. I've been happy with the service and the results in the past;  I just don't appreciate the hard upsell.  :p   
• The kicker?  When I got to the dermatologist's office this week, I COMPLETELY forgot to ask him about it!  (eyeroll) 
• In my defense, he was a busy guy & spent no more than five minutes with me before sailing out of the room and on to his next patient. Sigh. 
  
  
• I found a typo in this year's edition of the annual Christmas letter that I send out with some of my cards. (I mean, I used to be my department's go-to editor & proofreader...!) 
• Related annoying thing:  Of course I found it AFTER I had put the cards into the mail...!  
• Not only that -- what I THOUGHT I had written ("The trip we’d hoped to take didn’t materialize, but maybe next year…!") turned out to be "The trip we'd hoped to take didn't maternalize...").  Freudian slip??  :p 

• You may or may not recall that we had some plumbing repairs done in late August that turned out to be far more complex (near-disastrous, in fact) -- and WAY more expensive -- than we had anticipated. 
• I wrote about this in brief, general terms at the time. To summarize briefly: We wanted a few things done, but my main concern was the water spout in the shower cubicle in our master bathroom. (Like the water spout in a bathtub, but in a standalone shower cubicle. Apparently it's a Canadian thing:  a lot of people refer to it as a "toe tester," lol.)  It had been dripping for months. The dripping sound was driving me crazy, and it was a constant battle to keep the mildew at bay. I figured all that was needed was likely to replace a rubber ring behind the tap handle. 
• I'd mentioned the issue at least twice to the plumber recommended by our property manager, who does the general plumbing repairs & maintenance for the building, both in person and in an email, but annoyingly, he never got back to me. I asked dh if I should try one more time or try someone else, and he said to try someone else. I did a bit of Googling, read some reviews, picked a name and called them up. 
• As I said above, what we wanted done turned out to be a LOT more complicated (and the bill was MUCH higher) than we'd anticipated. We weren't very happy with how it all unfolded (let alone the bill!!) -- but the good thing was that they did fix the dripping. (Eventually!) . 
• Since then, however, we've noticed the water runs nowhere near as warm/hot as it used to. Even when I crank the tap handle all the way over on the "hot" side, the best it gets is just nicely warm. Some mornings, it's just lukewarm. Also, the water pressure seems a lot weaker.  
• Note:  We have no issues with the warm/hot water anywhere else in the unit. 
• One recent morning (less than a week before we leave on holidays), dh emerged from the shower to tell me the water was cold.  Not freezing cold (yay?), but not even lukewarm -- like, barely tepid. 
• I got in the shower, turned on the water and stuck my foot under the spout (without turning on the actual shower). "Oh hell no," I said.  
• Luckily, we have a second bathroom, with a regular tub/shower unit. Dh had taken a few baths in there, and I'd used the tub to fill buckets and wash large items (like window screens), but in the almost 10 years we've lived here, we'd never tried out the shower...!  
• Well, no time like the present...!  
• The water was wonderfully warm and the spray was strong.  
• His cold shower was the last straw for dh:  he's resolved to call the plumber -- the building-approved plumber -- when we get back from Christmas holidays, and ask them to come have a look. They may be hard to get hold of sometimes, but they have done a good job for us before, and their prices have been very reasonable.
• We are definitely NOT calling the other guys back -- even though it's really their issue to fix...!  
  
  
• A to-do list that never seems to get any shorter...!  (especially as we head towards Christmas...!) 

Small pleasures: 

• The decorated Christmas tree, especially the lights.  
• Little Great-Nephew #2's first birthday party on Saturday!!  :)  
• I'm still lacking some stocking stuffers, but the great-niblings and Little Princesses are well taken care of.  :)  
• Heading west for Christmas in a few days' time too!  :)  

#MicroblogMondays: Stunned

I had another post in mind for today -- until the phone rang yesterday afternoon.  

It was my mom.  She told me she'd had to read the weekend newspaper page three times because she just couldn't believe her eyes.  

There was an obituary. 

For my dear friend R. of 41 years.  

To say I was stunned was an understatement.

I'm still stunned.  

Mom said it sounded like she was hit by a car, a couple of weeks ago now.  After I hung up, I did some Googling. Besides the newspaper & funeral home obituaries, I found a slew of press pieces and a few social media posts from mid/late November. She had indeed died as the result of being hit by a car, at an intersection close to her condo building in Winnipeg. She was the second person to die at that intersection this year, and friends held a candlelight vigil for her there a couple of days later that received a lot of media coverage. I gather that she actually survived the run-in with the car with a fractured leg and was taken to hospital, but died there suddenly the following day.  

She was 67 years old. 

I am sure I have mentioned R. many times in this blog, although not by name or perhaps even initial. I met her in the fall of 1984, when I took over her job as a reporter at the weekly newspaper in the small town where my parents had recently moved.  She was moving on to the radio station in another nearby small town, but still lived in our town, and we covered the same town and municipal council meetings, school board meetings and other local events -- often followed by a few drinks at a local bar with other local newspaper and radio reporters. (We called ourselves "the Junior Press Club.") 

A year later, I got married and moved to Toronto, and a few years later, she did the same. We'd stayed in touch and met up a couple of times a year for lunch, whenever she was downtown, or for a shopping spree at the One of a Kind craft show, or a matinee at the theatre (we saw "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" with Donny Osmond and "Chess" together), or a lecture through the Unique Lives and Experiences lecture series (we had season tickets for a year).  

Then her husband died, and a few years later she decided to move back to Winnipeg to be closer to her family and friends there. She would occasionally drive out to where my parents lived to see me and have lunch, including the last time I saw her, when I was "home" in July), and when she published her first (and only) book this spring -- a memoir about growing up in poverty in 1960s-1970s Manitoba, and how her mother held the family together. Dh took me to a bookstore about a half-hour's drive from here when she was there signing copies. (My mom also saw her this fall at an event & signing organized by the local library.) I will treasure my signed copy and I am so sad there won't be any more books. She told me (with a mischievous grin) that she thought her next book would be a novel about a smalltown newspaper ;) and we both had a good giggle over that. 

Besides being a talented writer, she was a master of many crafts. She sewed, knitted and crocheted many of her own clothes and as gifts for others, made quilts, and was a certified quilt appraiser who only recently let her certification lapse. She loved to travel, and had a wide circle of friends. 

R. was also childless. She was a stepmother to her husband's children (in particular the youngest son, who lived with them when he was a teenager), and a grandmother figure for their children. When Katie died, she told me about her younger brother, who died as an infant, and how she still had a couple of his toys.  She also lost her older brother a few years ago, and is survived by her older sister.  

2025 has not been a good year in many ways.  Too many people I knew and/or loved -- many of them my own age or younger -- departed this life, including (but not limited to) fellow blogger Bamberlamb, my friend M. from our pregnancy loss group, my cousin (last month), not just one but two of my high school classmates (within about two weeks of each other this summer), as well as our English teacher, Mr. P..  

And now R.  :(  

There's a Celebration of Life planned for this summer, right around the time I am usually "home" for a visit, followed by the interment of her ashes in the smalltown cemetery up north, where her parents are buried. If I'm there, I will certainly attend. 

Hug the people you love. Make that phone call, send that email, arrange that lunch date.  Life is short, and tomorrow is not promised. 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

"The Blue Flower" by Penelope Fitzgerald

Footnotes & Tangents' final "slow readalong" of the year is "The Blue Flower" by Penelope Fitzgerald.  We started Nov. 3rd and will end our discussion the week of Dec. 15th (I read on ahead!).  

Published in 1995 to much critical acclaim, "The Blue Flower" is set in late 18th century Germany, and is based on the true story of Fritz von Hardenberg -- later renowned as the Romantic poet Novalis -- a recent university graduate, who falls instantly, madly in love at first sight with 12-year-old Sophie von Kuhn and becomes engaged to her, much to the consternation of his family and friends.  

(Many modern readers share their feelings. 12 years old??  Really??)  

But then the story takes an unexpected turn...

The writing is great, if a little dry and restrained -- there's a lot of subtle humour, especially in the first half of the novel -- and some of the characters are wonderful, especially the women. Many of us (myself included) loved "the Mandelsloh" (Sophie's older married sister, Friederike von Mandelsloh), as well as Karoline Just, the daughter of a family friend who pines with unrequited love for Fritz. 

But overall, it wasn't a book that really grabbed me. I doubt I would have picked it up on my own -- and I'm grateful (as always) for Simon's expert guidance in his weekly summary posts, and the insightful comments of my fellow readers, who picked up on themes and nuances that went totally over my head. 

3.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded down to 3 on Goodreads.  

This was Book #36 read to date in 2025 (and Book #1 finished in December), bringing me to 80% of  my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 6 books behind  schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books." 

You can learn more about the F&T slow readalongs planned for 2026 in this post.  I'm not sure I'll be taking part in all of them, but I will definitely be doing some! and I highly recommend the experience! (If you've ever wanted to read "War and Peace," there is no better way to do it!)  

(The first book of 2026 will be "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie. I've never read any Rushdie, and I'm debating whether to join in. Anyone read it and have an opinion, one way or another??)