Read:
What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew – Sharone Saline (Tarcher Perigree, 2018)
Song of the Sun God – Shankar Chandran (narrated by Shabana Azeez)
How About Now – Kate Baer (Harper Perennial, 2025)
Palace Walk – Naguib Mahfouz (Anchor Books, 1991) (translated from Arabic by Olive E. Kenny & William Maynard Hutchins)
Like Family – Erin O. White (Dial Press, 2025)
The River has Roots – Amal El-Mohtar (Tor Publishing Group, 2025)
Moon Tiger – Penelope Lively (Penguin Books, 2024)
Matrescence – Lucy Jones (Penguin Books, 2023)
The Slicks – Maggie Nelson (McClelland & Stewart, 2025)
Little World – Josephine Rowe (Transit Books, 2025)
The Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin, 1965)
Currently Reading:
Book of Sands – Karim Alrawi
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkien
The City Changes Its Face – Eimear McBride
2025 Reading Goals:
Pages Read: 26, 379 (2,669 in November)
Hours Listened: 344 hours, 41 minutes (14 hours, 38 minutes in November)
Goliaths Conquered: 8 (Palace Walk in November)
Translated Works: 14 (Palace Walk translated from Arabic)
Pre-2024 TBR: 24 (Song of the Sun God since 2018, Palace Walk since 2020)
Current TBR: 131 (previously 131)
Thoughts:
11 this month, with 4 being quite short. I wasn’t intentionally participating in Novella November but my library might have been because a couple of those short ones were picked at random from their displays, rather than books I sought out. I read a lot during a 12-day stretch in which I was mostly at home while Rose was sequestered with Hand Foot and Mouth Disease. 8 of my books were either read completely or were finished during those 12 days. I also listened to most of Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief on audio but I’m not counting that since it was more like background noise than something I paid much attention to. I didn’t do great with my own audiobooks in November as my alone time was pretty minimal and my library copy of Beautyland on audio lapsed before I could finish it.
It was actually a great month for reading. Palace Walk was dense but not at all in the way I expected and I decided to go from there to read another book that featured Cairo. I read Moon Tiger on a friend’s recommendation and was blown away by Lively’s skill in writing. After finishing that I started Book of Sands (which I’m reading now) and also has a Cairo setting. I picked Like Family up after hearing it reviewed highly and realizing I had an ARC and then I was really impressed by this debut novel. Matrescence was a book that I’ve been telling people about ever since I finished the first chapter and am now debating whether or not it would be too weird as a future baby shower gift!
We finally finished The Fellowship of the Ring as our family read-aloud and have moved on to The Two Towers. We’re planning a family movie night soon to watch the film version.
What’s Next:
A friend started reading David Copperfield and asked if I’d ever read it. I admitted I haven’t and she told me how much she is enjoying it and how she was surprised to find that Dickens was so funny. December is a great time for Charles Dickens so I picked up a copy at the library and started it. Another friend also plans to read it so the three of us may try and get together to discuss in the new year.
As for the blog here, I hope to get my Annual Karissa Reads Books Literary Awards started this coming Friday. Just finalizing the categories and the finalists. I’m sure you’ve all been waiting all year for this fine Literary Tradition.
Karissa Reads Books 
I always try to read a Dickens novel in the wintertime, and David Copperfield is a great choice! (It’d count for Laura’s Doorstoppers in December reading event, too…)
It’s definitely a door stopper! December always so busy that it can be nice to just have one cozy book to focus on. I’m enjoying it so far!
Maybe this sounds silly, but the orcs scare the crap out of me in the movies. They look so real. So, just a heads up with the kids! I don’t think the orcs scare everyone, so maybe I’m just special, lol. It’s amazing you read almost a book per day. I know the author Brian Evenson talked about how he grew up Mormon, and pretty much all his family did for fun was read. He said it was incredibly normal for each family member to finish one book every single day. The only thing that slowed him down was having a baby! He read a book a day even as a full-time professor! I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on David Copperfield. It’s my husband’s favorite, and I enjoyed it, too.
That’s a good point, the orcs are so well done! We just watched all 9 Star Wars movies and they did well with those so we’ll give LOTR a try.
I’m enjoying David Copperfield so far!
I think I love the LOTR movies even more than the books, and you won’t often hear me say that! Looking forward to the Karissas – my party frock is ready…
The movies are so well done! I’m excited to share them with my kids!
I’ve heard so many good things about Palace Walk – maybe I will tackle it over the Christmas holidays (I am counting the minutes) as I love having a big doorstopper to sink into over that period! I hope you enjoy the LOTR films on your family film night – I rewatched them this year and still loved them, though not quite as much as I used to. And I am glad to hear that you are planning to do some awards this year!
It’s a good doorstopper! I haven’t rewatched the LOTR movies in a while so I’m looking forward to that, though we have a few Christmas movies that we also like to watch at this time of year so it may be a few more weeks.