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Margaret Atwood

What I'm Reading in December 2025

Sharonda "Sam" Woodfin

• 3 min read
What I'm Reading in December 2025
Peter Nichols' A Voyage for Madmen, Margaret Atwood's Book of Lives, and Eco24: The Year's Best Ecofiction - all books begun in November 2025 and carrying on into December.

Updated 22 December 2025.

Books

  • A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols - Thanks again for letting me borrow this book, Grant! This is a super slow burn of a read for me, mostly because I know jack about sailing and can 't make it through a single chapter without feeling compelled to take notes on something or other. It doesn't help that I was ill around the end of November and stopped touching this book at all until I was confident I wouldn't be making a fomite of it.
  • Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood - This book also went untouched during my illness. I mentioned in November that "...I'll only be reading in bed before my wife gets so sleepy that the lights go off." That statement stayed true, even during my brief spell of sleeping in the study so as not to make Linda sick. I'm excited to get back to this being my nighttime read!
  • Our Hideous Progeny: A Novel by C.E. McGill - e-book. I've begun December in a place where this is becoming one of my favorite reads of the year! It moved rather nicely from the bedroom to the study with me, and has started to take spins on the AirDyne with me, too!
  • Eco24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction edited by Marissa van Uden - saw me through not only sick time in the study, but also waiting, masked, in the Mazda while my wife went shopping. This book will end up being a sentimental favorite just because of that!
  • The Natural History of Unicorns: An Intellectual Detective Story Tracing the Legend to Real Animals by Chris Lavers - ebook. My fresh in-the-dark read after finishing Our Hideous Progeny. It mentions Herotodus early on. Any book that mixes natural history with the father of Gabrielle of Potidaea is good with me!
  • Writing in the Dark by Tim Waggoner - a re-start after a loooong, MasterClass-fueled interruption.
  • No Exit: A Novel by Taylor Adams - ebook. Sometimes you need a little fiction to melt into when you've woken up at midnight and can't get back to sleep. This is my first read by this author, and I was surprised at how quickly I got snowed in (har har)!

Short Fiction

Articles

Bonus: What I'm Listening To

Music

  • Christmas in My Hometown by Charley Pride. My favorite Christmas album, originally released the year I was born. Listening all month along.
  • Future Past (Deluxe Edition) by Duran Duran. Grabbed a listen or two while working in the kitchen and decorating for Christmas. It had been a while! Fave tracks include "Give It All Up", "Wing", "Nothing Less", "Laughing Boy", and "Falling".

Podcast Episodes