Early in the year, I started off reading To Sleep with the Angels, which was a fantastic investigation into the December 1958 fire at the Our Lady of the Angels school in northwest Chicago. It’s a historic event if you were born and raised here in Chicago, and it was nice to read a lot of first person accounts and sources about the fire and its causes.

The Women was a wonderful historical fiction treatment of the women who surrounded famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

I have seen the movie countless times, but never actually read the original Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Loved it. Much like The Hunt for Red October, the is far more captured in the book that never made it to the screen, and gave a lot of depth to characters that were met in passing in the film.

Terry Boers was a legendary figure in Chicago sports media, both as a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, as well as founding voice of sports radio here in Chicago. His passing in January led me to re-read his memoir, and I will probably read it again on my next trip to the Basketball ReEducation Camp.

The Spy and The Traitor was a great read about Oleg Gordievsky, a high-ranking KGB defector who fed secrets across the iron curtain for over 20 years before being extricated in a daring escape attempt.

After starting the series in late 2025, I continued on with the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, of which my only complaint is that the latter books are quite thick to be bringing on airplanes. (First World Problems, perhaps). The series continues to be absurd, silly, poignant, and entertaining. It’s gaining popularity, especially after the well-created audiobooks starring Jeff Hays. Recommended for everyone.