book-review – Jason Kanz

Total number of books read–228
Format–Paper books: 59.9%; Audio books: 40.1%
Genre–Fiction: 64.%; Nonfiction: 30.8%; Poetry: 4.8%
Top 3 subgenres–Fantasy, Thriller, General Fiction
Longest Book–It by Stephen King–1155 pages
Shortest Book–Charlie the Choo Choo–24 pages
Most Read Author–Stephen King, 33
Total pages–83,108
Median number of pages–331
Median number of days to read a book–3
Oldest Book–The Legend of Sleepy Hollow–1820
Newest Book–The Rose Field–October 23, 2025
Shortest Title–It
Longest Title–The Quantified Process Approach to Neuropsychological Assessment

Worst Book–A Confederacy of Dunces
For the life of me, I have no idea how this book won a Pulitzer Prize. It is terrible.

My Top 10

Honorable Mention: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary by David Sedaris
This year, I read my first book by David Sedaris and I immediately fell in love with his sense of humor and writing style. He is a master satirist, writing about family, relationships, and culture. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk is…different. It presents a series of short stories about animals engaging in human behavior and exploring cultural mores, often turning them on their head. Here’s the thing: I suspect most of my friends would hate this book, perhaps thinking, “What the heck is wrong with Jason?” A lot, I suppose. (humor)

10. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
I am a bit surprised I included this on my top 10 list (am I allowed to be surprised by my own selections?). Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist who took an interesting tack with this book…writing both about working with clients and also about being a client in therapy. It is interesting to see how they intersect as well, how her thinking in one domain influences her thinking in the other. In some regards, her writing style here reminds me of the master psychotherapist, Irving Yalom. It is an engaging and deeply human book. (nonfiction)

9. Time of the Child–by Niall Williams
A few years back, Williams’s book, This is Happiness, was on my top 10 list. It was one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve ever had. Williams has an unusual gift of constructing metaphors, painting creative word pictures page after page. Like This is Happiness, Time of the Child is set in the small fictional Irish village of Faha. The book tells the story of a community doctor, his daughter, and their community. And an unexpected child. (fiction)

8. A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck
I am fascinated by large numbers. I mean really large numbers. The human mind cannot comprehend what these huge numbers actually imply. One of my favorite examples compares 1 million seconds and 1 billion seconds. The former is about 11-1/2 days; the latter is 31 years and 8 months.

Anyway, the premise of A Short Stay in Hell is that the main character is sent to a hell that consists of every possible 410-page book with each page containing 40 lines and 80 characters on each line. The characters include letters, numbers, and the other characters found on a typical keyboard. The main character can escape hell when he finds the book that perfectly describes his life. The impossibility of this task becomes quickly evident when after weeks, he still has not discovered a book with even coherent words. (science fiction, horror)

7. John Adams by David McCullough
McCullough’s biography of our second president is considered one of the finest presidential biographies ever written. I have thought about reading it for years, but I never took the time. I am so glad that I finally did. I found the president, his wife, his children, and the other players in the story to be fascinating. I honestly had no idea how truly influential he was in the establishment of the United States and the pursuit of revolution. The tenuous friendship with Thomas Jefferson was really interesting; the two were certainly cut from different cloths. Did you know the two of them died on the same day, July 4, 1826? (history, biography)

6. Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
A couple of years ago, I read Klune’s House on the Cerulean Sea. I liked the story just fine, but it did not wow me as I know it did others. Under the Whispering Door, however, was a touching book. The book tells the story of a deeply unlikeable attorney, Wallace Price, who dies and is escorted by a reaper to a tea shop as he awaits the afterlife. As he stays in the tea shop, he discovers what life is really about. (fiction)

5. The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War–-Jeff Sharlet
Ten years ago, I was a guest on a radio show explaining why I was a never-Trump person. I detailed my reasons and concerns. At the time (May 2016), nearly all of my conservative friends were similarly concerned, though sadly, a huge number of them changed over time. My concerns about Christian nationalism have only grown over that decade. I’ve read over a dozen books about the topic, some of which have appeared on previous lists. The Undertow is unique. Sharlet travels across America exploring particular stories of particular people (including some who live just 45 minutes from here) and their inexplicable love for Donald Trump. It is poignant. It is tragic. (politics, essay)

4. The Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tea Leavings
Like Christian nationalism, over the past several years, I have also read a number of books dealing with harms fundamentalist Christian beliefs can cause. In the Well-Trained Wife, Leavings writes about coming to accept Christian beliefs related to patriarchal leadership, and the eventual abuses she suffered at the hands of her husband. Her’s is a painful story to read, but important. Unfortunately, there are far too many who fail to see the potential endpoint of harmful beliefs. (religion, memoir)

3. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
For months, or even years, Dungeon Crawler Carl popped up as a recommended book on Audible, but I never took the recommendation seriously because the audiobook cover is just so stupid. But then I began to see the book recommended as a favorite audiobook by numerous people. Over and over, people praised it. I decided to give it a try, and it was better than I could have possibly imagined.

In this story, Carl is one of the few survivors of a mass takeover of Earth by The Borant Corporation, who turns it into a multilevel dungeon that is used as a gameshow broadcast throughout the universe. The survivors are allowed to be contestants in this cosmic gameshow. Together with his girlfriend’s award-winning cat, Princess Donut, Carl competes for his life. Part Ready Player One, part Running Man, part Hunger Games, this is a hilarious, engaging story.

I’ve listened to 6 of the 7 books that are available so far. I imagine reading the book would still be excellent, but the audio narration by Jeff Hayes makes it over the top excellent. (sci-fi, humor)

2. Wizard and Glass by Stephen King
Decades ago, I read the first two books in Stephen King’s epic multivolume masterpiece about The Dark Tower but then stopped reading. My friend Josh is a huge fan of The Dark Tower, so I decided to pick it up again and made it through all seven of the canon books as well as the two ancillary books (The Wind Through the Keyhole and Charlie the Choo Choo). I absolutely loved this massive story, and I don’t think it will be long before I begin the journey to the Tower yet again. I chose Wizard and Glass (book 4) because it is my favorite of the series, though let me tell you, you should read them all. (fantasy)

1. Anxious People by Fredrick Backman
In some years, I have had a really hard time choosing my number one book. This year, there was really no contest. Anxious People by Fredrick Backman was easily my favorite book of the over 200 I read this year. It tells the story of a bank robbery and subsequent hostage situation, but it is not at all what you might imagine. It is a deeply human, hilarious, touching account. Backman is a great storyteller, which shines through in my number one. (fiction)

Notes
a) I typically have 3 to 4 books going at any given time.
b) My book total this year far exceeds any previous year. I am not entirely sure why, but I have certainly enjoyed reading.

It has been interesting to see how my book list has changed over the years. When I first started putting together my book list in 2010, it was essentially all Christian theology books, mostly of the Calvinist persuasion and now none of them fit that category. My top 10 also contains a mix of audiobooks and traditional books, something that would not have happened for me in 2010. I finished 85 books this year so far, which is lower than normal, but there were a number of really good books including some not mentioned on this list. Like last year, I chose not to rank order my list because there was no clear best book.

Star Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding a True Faith by April Ajoy
Ajoy was all in on Christian nationalism. She campaigned for a Republican presidential candidate, traveled the country with her evangelist father on a bus that said, “America Say Jesus,” and even sang on the Jim Baker show. Eventually, she became concerned about how the faith she claimed often did not seem to be reflected in the Christians she witnessed. In a humorous way, she reflects on her own experiences and the changes in her thinking. Star Spangled Jesus is definitely worth reading if you are a Christian who has heard the term “Christian nationalism,” but have been uncertain what it is about. (audiobook; memoir)

The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta
An accomplished journalist, having previously who worked for National Review, Politico, and The Atlantic, Alberta wrote this book out of his own personal experiences with Christian nationalism. Witnessing the toxicity of this movement in the church his father pastored, he set out to explore Christian nationalism in greater depth. From his website, “Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement. Through the eyes of televangelists and small-town preachers, celebrity revivalists and everyday churchgoers, Alberta tells the story of a faith cheapened by ephemeral fear, a promise corrupted by partisan subterfuge, and a reputation stained by perpetual scandal.” Less humorous and more widely researched, this book would be a great companion to Star Spangled Jesus. (audiobook; nonfiction)

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
I have been a Stephen King fan since I was in high school. I can still remember the first book of his that I read, a fantasy novel co-authored with Peter Straub titled The Talisman. (I actually found a first edition of The Talisman yesterday at a used bookstore). Full Dark, No Stars is everything that makes Stephen King great. It consists of four novellas. Although each of the four stories was excellent, I particularly loved A Good Marriage, where he tells the story of a wife who discovers something terrible. (Hardcover; Horror)

Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church by Sarah McCammon
In some regards, Exvangelicals mirrors the books by Ajoy and Alberta mentioned above. Like Alberta, McCammon is a journalist. She currently works as a national correspondent for NPR. Like both Ajoy and Alberta, she grew up as an American evangelical. She writes about how during childhood, her whole existence seemed to be deeply religious including her friends, the books she read, and the movies she watched. As she grew older, however, she began to encounter situations that led to difficult questions about her faith. As was the case for many of us, the attack on the Capitol on January 6 intensified her concerns about sectors of the church in America. It is at the same time more personally reflective than Alberta’s book, but also well researched. (audiobook; memoir)

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy
You may not recognize the name Jeanette McCurdy, but you might remember the show I, Carly where McCurdy played Carly’s sidekick, Sam. With unflinching detail, she describes how her mother got her into show business as a child and kept her there even when she wanted out. She writes about her mother’s controlling, often abusive tendencies and the long-term impact on her mental health. Although funny at points, I would not describe this as a humorous book. It can be difficult to listen to at points, but her story is important nonetheless. (audiobook; memoir)

Know My Name by Chanel Miller
My friend Stephanie recommended this book to me. It tells the story of Chanel Miller, aka Emily Doe, who was sexually assaulted by Brock Turner at Stanford University in 2015. I remember when the story was in the news and the shock when Turner was sentenced to just six months in jail. Miller chose to share her victim impact statement on BuzzFeed and within four days, it had been viewed 11 million times. A very powerful, often difficult account about a victim reckoning with sexual assault. She also narrated her own book and at the end, reads her victim impact statement, her emotion coming through with every word. (audiobook; memoir)

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
Trevor Noah has been a fixture in American comedy for a number of years with multiple comedy specials and having previously hosted The Daily Show for a number of years. His memoir had been on my shelf for a number of years, but I had not taken the time to read it. I am glad that I finally did. Born a Crime is simultaneously funny and humorous. I also learned a great deal about what it was like for him as a child in post-apartheid South Africa. (hardcover; memoir)

Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside by Nick Offerman
Like many people, I knew of Nick Offerman from his portrayal of Ron Swanson on the TV show Parks and Rec as well as his well-deserved Emmy for guest actor in a drama series for his role in the HBO series, The Last of Us. However, he’s also authored four books, including this excellent one. In Where the Deer and the Antelope Play, Offerman writes about conservation and getting outdoors, drawing on his own experiences and reflections. It is funny, wise, and thoughtful. (audiobook, memoir)

Remedy by John Roedel
I first encountered the poetry of John Roedel on Facebook this year. As he wrote about brokenness and healing, he touched my heart in a way that good poets are capable of doing. My immediate impulse was to buy all of his books and read them back-to-back, but I decided to get just one and savor it. I look forward to the rest of them when I get around to them. (paperback; poetry)

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Project Hail Mary is one of those books that seemed to show up every time I would look at my Audible page and apparently for good reason. It was number one on Audible. It was a New York Times bestseller. In 2022, it was audiobook of the year. However, it was when my friend Josh recommended it, I decided to give it a listen and I am so glad that I did. It tells the story of a science teacher who is sent into space on a hopeless mission (thus hail Mary). It is definitely science fiction, but it is equally humorous. Furthermore, it is one of the best audiobook narrations that I have ever heard. (audiobook; science fiction)

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