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I'm a bit late with this post, but the first quarter of the year is over! How'd it go for everybody? Have you accomplished anything awesome? Did you get a lot of reading done? I've read 19 books so far in 2025. Let's talk about the best and worst of them.

Quarter Year Reading Check In 

Best Books I've Read This Quarter

I read two excellent medical-themed books. The first is I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us And A Grander View Of Life by Ed Yong. I spend more time than I'd like to admit thinking about "bad" microbes. I don't give much thought to the others. This book is about the others!

Have you ever been curious about the microbes that live on (and in) you? Why are they there? What do they do? It turns out that they kind of do everything. They make up part of your immune system and help you digest food. They can even influence your behavior. Humans aren't the only ones who rely on microbes to stay healthy. Microbes are in plants, animals, dirt, and the air we breathe. Everything is an ecosystem.

For a biology book, it's extremely accessible. You don't have to Google anything to decipher what the author is yapping about. He talks about a wide variety of fascinating microbes and what they do for the humans and animals they have colonized.

I like the author's honesty about microbe science. There is so much we don't know. He talks about the research currently being done, but there are no conclusions in this book. The author will spark your curiosity and then give you no answers. If you're okay with that, I highly recommend this one.

The second excellent book is Being Mortal: Medicine And What Matters In The End by Atul Gawande. The author is a surgeon who works with cancer patients. He talks about his personal experience with people who are at the end of their life, and he shares his research on nursing homes and other options for people who can no longer live independently.

I love this book because it's relevant to every reader. We'll all die eventually. The author argues that medicine isn't always the answer to every health problem. Medicine has advanced so much that we can keep people's bodies alive long after their brains are dead. Should we be doing that? Are we prolonging life, or just prolonging suffering?

For me, the most interesting part of the book is the conversation about what makes life worth living. That's a question that each individual person has to think about. Ideally, it's something you think about and write down before you become sick. Do you want a long life if you're unconscious and being kept alive by machines? Do you want a long life if the pain medication stops working? What about food and mobility? Could you live the rest of your life with a feeding tube? What if you're conscious but unable to move on your own?

This is one of those rare books that I think everybody should read.

Worst Book I've Read This Quarter

I DNFed Anger Is A Gift by Mark Oshiro. It's not a bad book! It has high ratings on Goodreads, and I won't discourage anyone from reading it. It's just not a "me" book. The author's writing style is too bland for me, and there are some research errors that pulled me out of the story.

Genres I've Read The Most

This is a hard question to answer because most of the books I read belong to multiple genres. According to my not-very-scientific spreadsheet, my most-read genres are historical fiction, fantasy, and classics.

Book That Surprised Me

The Song Of Orphan's Garden by Nicole M. Hewitt. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about a middle grade fantasy novel written in verse. How do you cram all that world building into poems? I shouldn't have worried. It was very good!

The Song Of Orphan's Garden is about three kids who are all looking for the same garden. They live in a world where it's always winter, but the gardens are warm and full of food. They provide relief from the snow and ice. Unfortunately, they're guarded by giants who make the humans pay an entry fee.

Two of the characters are humans. The third is a giant. When the three of them meet in an unguarded garden, they have to put their differences aside and work together to save the dying garden.

There is so much to love about this book! My favorite element is the imagery. I like the idea of summer islands in an ocean of winter.

I like that we get to see both sides of the human/giant conflict. The characters have valid reasons to be angry at each other. They also have legends about how the other side wronged them. As the story progresses, the kids learn that legends might not be true, and that saving the world requires you to work with your "enemies." We only have one planet. We're all in this together.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It's a quick, sweet read with loveable characters.

Book That Came Out Last Year That I Haven't Read Yet

So many. I was excited for Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne. It's exactly what the cover says: a memoir written by someone who has been diagnosed as a sociopath.

I've occasionally wondered if I'm a sociopath because the only emotions I feel on a regular basis are anxiety and crippling anxiety, but maybe wondering if you're a sociopath is just a side-effect of anxiety? I don't know. I've never met anyone who admitted to being a sociopath. It's something I'd like to learn more about.

Am I Succeeding At My Reading Goals?

I didn't make reading goals this year because I knew I'd be busy with life. I work a ton of overtime during tourist season, and I start search and rescue training in August. Reading is on the back burner for now.

I set my Goodreads goal at 9 books for 2025. I've already passed that. So . . . success? I won at reading?

Do you want to answer these questions on your blog? Go for it!