I’ve spent much of the last two months embracing my inner child, which—given the sometimes bleak state of the world—I feel like more of us should invest in more than we do. For me, this meant rediscovering my love of trains.

Train & Locomotive History in America and Abroad

When I was born, my grandfather had just retired from a nearly thirty-year career as a train engineer for Conrail.1 Grandad approached life and his work with a sense of light-heartedness and genuine love for what he did, which I try to carry with me to this day. Naturally, when he became my primary babysitter, this love of trains was then passed down to me. A love of trains that I once satisfied with toys and TV shows, I now satisfy with books!

Below is a selection of books exploring the history of American railroads (with a particular regional focus on Pennsylvania), as well as the history of railways abroad. I’ve sampled each of these books in small doses as I work on other projects. I’m also including an extra nonfiction piece that dissects the lore and real-world inspirations behind one of my favorite fictional universes of all time, one that happens to be centered around trains.2

• A Short History of the Railroad by Christian Wolmar

• The Train-Watcher’s Guide to North American Railroads compiled by George H. Drury

• Railroads of Pennsylvania: Second Edition by Lorrett Treese

• Back on Track: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1965-2015 by Mark Aldrich

• Railways: A Pictorial History of the First 150 Years by C. Hamilton Ellis

• The History of the Pennsylvania Railroad by Timothy Jacobs

• Sodor: Reading Between the Lines by Christopher Awdry

What I’m Rereading

Being an active reader is still a relatively new part of my life3, and one thing I don’t do nearly as much as I should is go back and reread books that I’ve loved in the past.

It’s important that we not only read books, but also reread them. We’re never the same person we were the last time we read a certain book. With each readthrough, we bring a new set of ideas and a perspective wholly different from the one we had before we ever opened that book’s pages.

These next two months, I will be rereading the following books. For some, I’ll reopen the same physical copies I read through years ago. Others, I will experience in new formats. Some books I read physically, I may listen to via audiobook. Some audiobooks I used to idly listen to, I’ll now go back and write notes in.

There’s no right or wrong way to reread a book. What’s important is simply that you do.

• Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t by Steven Pressfield

• Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be by Steven Pressfield

• Govt. Cheese by Steven Pressfield

• Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Remember: reach out to your inner child. What have you distanced yourself from that might make for a fun read? Let me know in the comments.

Until then, happy reading!

For more articles on reading, writing, and the creative process, subscribe to my free Substack newsletter!

You can support my writing by buying me a coffee!

You can also show support by purchasing from the affiliate links in this article.

As we round out the end of this month, it is time once again for another installment in What’s On My Mind’s Fresh Off the Shelf series. Without further delay, here’s a selection of the best books I finished this month.

Read more

I feel like I came into my stride last month. In December, I finished one book per day at a frenzied pace that kept me from the work I’d like to do. In January, I eased into the new year. Last month felt like a return to form.

I spent more time on this edition of Fresh Off the Shelf, as there were a number of books that just barely missed the cutover for inclusion this month.

Those will hopefully make their appearance very soon, but for now, here are my latest recommendations!

Read more

Welcome to 2026. I’ll speak for some of us and say that I feel as though I lived through an entire year within the last month. This new year has felt chaotic and frantic in a way that I’ve never experienced in my life. And yet, I still make time to read.

My reading for the next two months will focus on the topics that have preoccupied my mind the most lately—fiction writing and world history.

Researching the Mystery & Thriller Genres

There are few stories I love more than good mysteries. Mystery fiction has been a recent medium for my parents and I to bond in the years since I moved out. And after three years, I am feeling the itch to write fiction once more—this time in this genre that means so much to me.

So, as research, I’m focusing on the recent releases and modern classics of the mystery genre.

• Everyone in This Bank is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson

• The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

• The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

• Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston

• It’s Not Her by Mary Kubica

World History & Geopolitical Affairs

I’ve been thinking a lot about the United States of America’s territories. The history of the founding states is drilled into the minds of American children year after year. Yet, I feel that the history of these other regions subjected to American rule—Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, etc.—is less talked about in American schools. So I am taking it upon myself to finally read a work that has long been on my shelf, Daniel Immerwahr’s How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States.

I am also going back to another favorite series of mine, The Experiment’s Shortest History series. I’ve acquired quite a collection of these books over the years, and I think it’s about time that I get through the few that have been sitting on my shelf.

• How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr

• The Shortest History of Greece by James Heneage

• The Shortest History of Europe by John Hirst

• The Shortest History of England by James Hawes

• The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine by Michael Scott-Baumann

• The Shortest History of War by Gwynne Dyer

With the pace of things on the newsletter slowing down a bit, I hope to spend a bit more time digesting these books and giving more critical analyses of them. I’m really proud of my recent piece on Harper Lee’s The Land of Sweet Forever. This is the kind of book criticism I would like to do more of moving forward. And essays like that take time. So I’m giving myself that time.

Happy reading!

You can support my writing by buying me a coffee!

You can also show support by purchasing from the affiliate links in this article.

I feel as though I have forgotten how to breathe. My body is beset by persistent tension, the muscles worn by constant stress and overuse. Events seem to move so fast that you find yourself always needing more air in your lungs to push on, all the while you’ve forgotten how to exhale—how to expel all the waste and excess.

The question we ultimately ask ourselves is, how will we proceed? Shall we let the whims of fate carry us? Will we stand and march with the confidence and strength to bear the next day? Or are we to simply let the passage of time drag us across the pavement and into our graves?

James Baldwin reminds us that “he who finds no way to rest cannot long survive the battle.”1 And today in the United States, we find ourselves facing many battles—internal and external. I have lost family and partners. I fight to keep my home. I spend each day watching us lose our nation. And yet, I must fight. We all must. I do not intend to stop, and neither should you.

I have spent much of January in a state of recovery, as it were. I’ve read fewer books, and the lessened pressure has sparked wells of creativity in me long dormant. I feel myself healing, and it’s wonderful. These books were a part of that journey towards recovery.

Read more

2025 has come to a close. This year has gifted book lovers with thousands of new releases that have kept us happily reading from January to December. But whether you’re uncovering a new favorite author or returning to those books that you’ve read time and time again, I think we can all look back fondly on the books we’ve read this year.

I’ve selected twenty-four books1, across the areas of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as the best books I’ve read in 2025. The list you’re reading right now features my favorite nonfiction books of 2025.

If you would like to see my other lists, you’ll find them here:

• Best Fiction Reads of 2025

• Best Poetry Reads of 2025

A couple of ground rules for which books are included on this list. This list includes books that I’ve read and finished this year. If I read a book I liked this year and haven’t finished it yet, then it will not be included. If the book wasn’t technically released in 2025, that does not mean that it will be excluded.

I am, however, excluding rereads from these lists. Only books that I’ve read for the first time will be mentioned here.

Because I also do monthly reviews of the books I finish on What’s On My Mind, there will be some crossover with the Fresh Off the Shelf series. To make this article more worth your while, I’ve included a number of books not featured on those lists.

I would also like to inform returning newsletter subscribers that these Best Reads articles will be replacing the December 2025 entry of Fresh Off the Shelf. The books that would’ve been featured on that entry were included in these articles.

Without further delay, here are my best nonfiction reads of 2025.

Nonfiction

The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley

“Gentleman, I finished the eighth grade in Mason, Michigan. My high school was the black ghetto of Roxbury. Massachusetts. My college was in the streets of Harlem, and my master’s was taken in prison. Mr. Muhammad has taught me that I never need fear any man’s intellect who tries to defend or to justify the white man’s criminal record against the non-white man—especially the white man and the black man here in North America.”
—Malcolm X2

When someone is looking to fill in the gaps of their knowledge about the Civil Rights Movement, they’ll likely have to devote a lot of energy to the life and work of Malcolm X. This is for a good reason.

The life and legacy of Malcolm X is often simplified to being the more aggressive and violent contrast to the peaceful, nonviolent image portrayed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This simplification does a great disservice to not only Malcolm X and Dr. King, but to the nuanced strains of thought that have long existed in the African American struggle for civil rights, human rights, and social equality. There’s no better place to start learning about Malcolm X than with his own autobiography, written in collaboration with Roots author Alex Haley.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X humanizes a man that much of American society labels as a contrast to one of our nation’s greatest idols. And while Haley does much to elevate Malcolm on even ground with Dr. King—and with good reason—this account provides a clear understanding of Malcolm X’s upbringing and how he came to the political stances he would ultimately uphold.

In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, we witness the evolution of Malcolm Little from Michigan to the towering Malcolm X of the Nation of Islam—a voice for the affrimation of black identity and our right to exist in the nation we call home.

Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin edited by Devon W. Carbado and Donald Weise

“In a democracy all citizens have not only a right but also a solemn duty to vote, to advise on domestic affairs, and to address themselves to all aspects of foreign policy. […] to assume that any individual (particularly any civil rights worker) does not have the right to discuss any problem that affecst his nation is to propose that such an individual is still a second-class citizen.”
—Bayard Rustin3

Bayard Rustin is among the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest organizers and forces for social change. Though Rustin is most often acknowledged for his work organizing the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, this collection of his extensive writings provides a wide showcase of his efforts in other matters such as economic equality, international conflict, black cosmopolitanism, and gay rights. Time on Two Crosses is the best place to start when exploring Bayard Rustin and all his multiplicity.

Read more

2025 has come to a close. This year has gifted book lovers with thousands of new releases that have kept us happily reading from January to December. But whether you’re uncovering a new favorite author or returning to those books that you’ve read time and time again, I think we can all look back fondly on the books we’ve read this year.

I’ve selected twenty-four books1, across the areas of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as the best books I’ve read in 2025. The list you’re reading right now features my favorite poetry books of 2025.

If you would like to see my other lists, you’ll find them here:

• Best Fiction Reads of 2025

• Best Nonfiction Reads of 2025

A couple of ground rules for which books are included on this list. This list includes books that I’ve read and finished this year. If I read a book I liked this year and haven’t finished it yet, then it will not be included. If the book wasn’t technically released in 2025, that does not mean that it will be excluded.

I am, however, excluding rereads from these lists. Only books that I’ve read for the first time will be mentioned here.

Because I also do monthly reviews of the books I finish on What’s On My Mind, there will be some crossover with the Fresh Off the Shelf series. To make this article more worth your while, I’ve included a number of books not featured on those lists.

I would also like to inform returning newsletter subscribers that these Best Reads articles will be replacing the December 2025 entry of Fresh Off the Shelf. The books that would’ve been featured on that entry were included in these articles.

Without further delay, here are my best poetry reads of 2025.

Poetry

Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems by James Baldwin

“Then, perhaps they imagine
that their crimes are not crimes?

Perhaps.
Perhaps that is why they cannot repent,
why there is no possibility of repentance.”2

American author James Baldwin is often admired for the punchy lyricism of his prose, but an often-overlooked section of his prolific bibliography is his poetry. Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems assembles poems from the 1983 and 1985 publications of Jimmy’s Blues, as well as a 1989 publication titled Gypsy.

This new collected volume brings together twenty-five of Baldwin’s poetic works, making his poems accessible to a whole new generation of poetry lovers and Baldwin fans. As a Baldwin fanatic, I would be remiss to not include this book here.

Sappho: A New Translation translated by Mary Barnard

“Although they are
Only breath, words
which I command
are immortal”3

This 2019 republication of the translated works of Sappho was my first foray into reading the works of this acclaimed Greek poet. As detailed in this volume’s foreword by Dudley Fitts, the extent to which we know anything about Sappho is minimal. We know that she’s a 6^th-century Greek lyrist from Lesbos, and our knowledge of her biography ends there.

The works included in this book, translated by Mary Barnard, are the fragments of what Sappho wrote centuries ago. These one-hundred fragments explore life in its simple mundanity and the joys to be found in family, friendship, and love that transcend time and place.

Read more

2025 has come to a close. This year has gifted book lovers with thousands of new releases that have kept us happily reading from January to December. But whether you’re uncovering a new favorite author or returning to those books that you’ve read time and time again, I think we can all look back fondly on the books we’ve read this year.

I’ve selected twenty-four books1, across the areas of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as the best books I’ve read in 2025. The list you’re reading right now features my favorite fiction books of 2025.

If you would like to see my other lists, you’ll find them here:

• Best Nonfiction Reads of 2025

• Best Poetry Reads of 2025

A couple of ground rules for which books are included on this list. This list includes books that I’ve read and finished this year. If I read a book I liked this year and haven’t finished it yet, then it will not be included. If the book wasn’t technically released in 2025, that does not mean that it will be excluded.

I am, however, excluding rereads from these lists. Only books that I’ve read for the first time will be mentioned here.

Because I also do monthly reviews of the books I finish on What’s On My Mind, there will be some crossover with the Fresh Off the Shelf series. To make this article more worth your while, I’ve included a number of books not featured on those lists.

I would also like to inform returning newsletter subscribers that these Best Reads articles will be replacing the December 2025 entry of Fresh Off the Shelf. The books that would’ve been featured on that entry were included in these articles.

As an added note for the fiction selections, there will be repeat inclusions by the same author. I’m not apologizing for this; I love their work. I’m just giving you a heads up.

Without further delay, here are my best fiction reads of 2025.

Fiction

James by Percival Everett

“How strange a world, how strange an existence, that one’s equal must argue for one’s equality, that one’s equal must hold a station that allows airing of that argument, that one cannot make that argument for oneself, that premises of said argument must be vetted by those equals who do not agree.”2

I am not the first person to sing the praises of Percival Everett’s latest novel, James. This literary reimagining of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is replete with some of Everett’s best prose to date.

The first chapter of James stands as one of the strongest opening chapters of any novel I’ve read in recent years. In a mere eleven pages, Everett breathes new life into the world established by Mark Twain, adding new dimensions to the character of Jim that stand in stark contrast to his portrayal in the original novel.

James puts the dichotomy of the black and white experiences of 19th-century America on full display and is a textbook manifestation of W.E.B. Du Bois’s notion of double consciousness when it comes to race relations. A delightful read from start to finish.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

“Things don’t have to stay as what they started out as.”
—Viv3

If the last few years, for me, were defined by my foray into the world of epic fantasy, this year can be defined in part by my exploration of different fantasy sub-genres. Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes and its subsequent stories are the poster children of the “cozy fantasy” sub-genre—a genre defined by high fantastical elements and much lower, non-world-threatening stakes.

Legends & Lattes follows an orc named Viv as she retires from a lifetime of battle and bounty hunting to open a café in the city of Thune. The novel follows her various trials with getting started as a small business owner, from finding the right location and hiring staff to dealing with the hostile business interests in the region that don’t take too kindly to newcomers like her.

The story is a lovely tale about finding new purpose when life has grown too mundane and joy to be found in taking this new journey with the friends you find along the way.

Read more

“Remember this also: it’s always easy to look back and see what we were, yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are.”
—Jack Finch1

For the vast majority of Harper Lee’s lifetime, To Kill a Mockingbird was her sole published volume—her magnum opus. The novel became Lee’s identity. That’s about all that she was known for.

That’s not to say Lee is without other publishing credits. During her lifetime, she published essays in outlets such as The Oprah Magazine and Vogue. However, Lee’s first novel remained her sole foray into published fiction for over fifty years. That all changed in the early 2010s.

In 2011, the manuscript for yet another novel was discovered among Lee’s assets in Monroeville, Alabama. This manuscript was entitled Go Set a Watchman. It followed To Kill a Mockingbird’s protagonist, Scout Finch, as she—now an adult—returns to Maycomb, Alabama, grappling with how her childhood home has changed as the country shifted around it.

The original manuscript, completed in the 1950s alongside To Kill a Mockingbird, was thought to have been lost. With the rediscovery of Go Set a Watchman, the discussion around the aging author’s legacy began to take a new shape.

The manuscript was passed through several hands, and on July 14, 2015, Go Set a Watchman was published by HarperCollins in the United States and Heinemann in the United Kingdom.

Go Set a Watchman would go on to enjoy major commercial success, which Lee would tragically have little time to enjoy. On February 16, 2016, just seven months after the release of Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee passed away in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.

Lee holds a spot in American literary history. Her novels tactfully address the culture of the American South, its history of racism, and its resistance to the historical headwinds of the 1950s and 1960s.

Through the character of Scout Finch, Lee provides a progressive lens that runs counter to the white Southern culture fostered in the post-Civil War and Jim Crow years. To Kill a Mockingbird has been praised for this perspective for decades. Though some characterizations in the sequel diminish the moral image of one of Lee’s most prominent characters2, Go Set a Watchman takes this message further in a way that is both forward-looking and yet doesn’t outshine its predecessor.

Such was the state of Harper Lee’s legacy since 2015. So imagine my shock when I encountered her name yet again, nine years later, on the cover of yet another book.

“There’s a land beyond the river. […]
That we call the sweet forever. […]
And we only reach that shore by faith’s decree. […]
Jubilee, […] In that far-off sweet forever, just beyond the shining river.”
—Zeebo3

This is not another lost novel. This is no continuation of Scout Finch’s story. No, in many ways, The Land of Sweet Forever is not entirely either of those things. It, both structurally and substantively, is half of what it promises. Half short stories; half essays. Half unpublished; half out of print. Half seemingly new; half glaringly familiar.

The Land of Sweet Forever is a posthumously published collection of eight previously published essays and eight formerly unpublished short stories.

Among the essays are an account of her experiences with Gregory Peck during the production of the To Kill a Mockingbird film adaptation and a recipe for crackling bread.4

The short stories of The Land of Sweet Forever play a prominent role in Lee’s creative writing career and are the main draw of the collection.

The brief narratives prompted two of Lee’s closest friends to fund all her living expenses so that she could pursue a full-time career as an author.5 But in reading these stories, another thing becomes quickly apparent: they are not just the beginning of Lee’s corpus; they are the explicit foundation of her two most prominent works.

In this volume’s introduction, Harper Lee biographer Casey Cep notes that a sizable portion of Lee’s short stories were later reworked into chapters or major plot points of both To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman.

The character we know as “Jean ‘Scout’ Louise Finch” first appears as “Jean Louie” in the story, “The Pinking Shears.”

The name “Louise” is used for another character in “The Water Tank.” In Go Set a Watchman, one of the subplots is Scout fearing that she may be pregnant, the defining plot line of “The Water Tank.”

In another plot thread utilized in Go Set a Watchman, the short story “The Cat’s Meow” sees the protagonist making their annual trip home to Maycomb, Alabama.

From character names to narrative threads, Lee was not shy about utilizing elements from her older fiction when writing her novels. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in this. Many writers reuse material from unpublished works in later projects. But when considered in conjunction with the rest of Lee’s published works, half of The Land of Sweet Forever lacks originality. And much of the remaining half is far from remarkable.

It doesn’t take a lot of persuasion to say that these story elements, which Lee sculpted and reworked for years, were ultimately perfected in the final novel manuscripts she produced. Which only begs the question: why subject the literary space and, particularly, fans of Lee’s work, to far inferior work that Lee herself never expressed any vocal interest in publishing as they were?

“To tell the truth—if I really wanted to know—they thought I had a great talent, and—[…] It was plain to anyone who knew me, they said, if anyone would stop to look.”
—Harper Lee6

Publishing a book after an author’s death is not a new thing. The act of posthumous publishing is a practice as old as the act of publishing itself.

Many of the greatest works of Western literature were published after the passing of their writers.

Anne Frank’s diary, published today as The Diary of a Young Girl, was preserved and later published by her father, Otto Frank, acting as the sole survivor of his family after the Holocaust. It is thanks to his efforts that the story of the Frank family is not lost to time. Anne’s diary has allowed the world to witness the horrors of the Holocaust through a child’s eyes. It has joined the works of Viktor Frankl, Elie Wiesel, and Primo Levi as some of the seminal first-hand accounts of the Holocaust.

American poet Emily Dickinson never once sought to publish her vast bibliography. Many of her poems were left unnamed. After her death, Dickinson’s loved ones uncovered her manuscripts and would later publish them in her name, exposing the world to one of the 19^th Century’s greatest poets.

Cases such as these emerge throughout the course of literary history and will continue to do so.

There are also those who set out to write grandiose projects that they know they may not complete in their lifetime. In such cases, those authors may grant permission to their spouse or next of kin to finish where they left off. The most famous of such cases I can think of in recent decades is the completion of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series by sci-fi/fantasy author Brandon Sanderson.

As a rather morbid bit of speculation, many fans of the epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, have wondered what would be the fate of their beloved series should its author, the presently 77-year-old George R. R. Martin, were to pass away before the completion of the series’ final two novels. Knowing the story of Robert Jordan, many fantasy readers speculated that Martin would wish to follow the same route. However, that may not be the case.

In 2013, Martin stated that neither he nor his wife would want another writer to finish A Song of Ice and Fire should he happen to pass away before its completion.7 While that may feel disappointing to fans of George R. R. Martin’s work, I think it’s important to acknowledge that a.) he’s still alive and is still actively working on his novels, and b.) even if he doesn’t finish them, it’s best to respect his wishes. We should not value the fruits of someone’s labor more than the life that produced them.

Some authors wish to have their unfinished works remain untouched when they die or, in some cases, be outright destroyed.

The late fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett wished to have his unfinished works (and the hard drive they were stored on) run over by a steamroller—a wish which his estate happily fulfilled.8

To the extent that an author is able to while they are alive, they should have a say in how their work and legacy are remembered. Simply because a work is left unpublished during a person’s life doesn’t mean they’ll want those works published after their death.

In some cases, the unpublished works are deeply personal. Earlier this year, the largely unedited journal entries of Joan Didion were published posthumously by Knopf. The journal entries contain, among other things, extensive details about the late author’s therapeutic treatments.

The reception was stark. A post on The Guardian proclaims that the very act of publishing this volume is “an invasion of privacy.”9 Evelyn McDonnell, writing for Literary Hub, titled her review, ”Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?”10 And Alexandra Alter wrote in an article for The New York Times that Knopf and Didion’s estate were acting on the “impulses to put out every last scrap of a famous author’s work,” an activity that Didion herself disapproved of.

It is not only the fact that, in cases such as Didion’s, we are acting against the wishes of the author, but in publishing a work posthumously, we run the risk of putting into the world written work that was never meant to be seen in the form it was last left in.

Chapters could be cut. Characters could be reworked. Sentences could be rewritten. Or, in extreme cases, manuscripts could be thrown out entirely. What matters most is that the work the author wishes to see brought into the world is done so as they wish, not simply in a “good enough” format for publishers and estates to turn a profit on the careers these authors have cultivated during their lifetimes.

If the author explicitly does not want a given manuscript published, that should be the end of the discussion. In some cases, that wish may not be explicitly expressed and should be explored with care. But if we know their answer is no, then the final answer should be no. It is a shame how often we choose not to listen to the dead.

So where does that leave Harper Lee?

We cannot make assumptions about what Harper Lee would have wanted for the sixteen works included in The Land of Sweet Forever. The only one who’d know what she’d want with this collection—if she would’ve wanted it at all—would’ve been her.

I, personally, find The Land of Sweet Forever to be largely inconsequential to Lee’s legacy. Given that much of the fiction was reutilized for her major novels, and the once-published nonfiction largely leans towards autobiography11 rather than novelty, this collection is better suited as an archival piece than a major late-year book release. This is a book for biographers, not the average reader.12

Though I think Lee would be happy to know that decades after her first bestseller, she is continuing to make waves for book lovers around the world. The chance her Manhattan friends took on her gave her the literary life she’d always dreamed of. And even after she has passed on, she has millions of fans craving for more.

What more could any author wish for?

Socials:

• Substack: whatsonmymind.net

• Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/bryceallen.bsky.social

• Twitter: twitter.com/bryceallenreads

• Threads: threads.net/@bryceallenreads

• Glasp: glasp.co/#/bryceallen

For more articles on reading, writing, and the creative process, subscribe to my free Substack newsletter!

You can support my writing by buying me a coffee!

You can also show support by purchasing from the affiliate links in this article.

Sources:

Convery, Stephanie. “Terry Pratchett’s Unfinished Novels Destroyed by Steamroller.” The Guardian, August 30, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/30/terry-pratchett-unfinished-novels-destroyed-streamroller.

Feigel, Lara. “Notes to John by Joan Didion Review – an Invasion of Privacy.” The Guardian, April 28, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/28/notes-to-john-by-joan-didion-review-a-writer-on-the-couch.

Kovaleski, Serge F, and Alexandra Alter. “Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’ May Have Been Found Earlier Than Thought.” The New York Times, July 2, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/03/books/harper-lee-go-set-a-watchman-may-have-been-found-earlier-than-thought.html.

Lee, Harper. Go Set a Watchman. New York, New York, United States of America: HarperCollins, 2015.

Lee, Harper. The Land of Sweet Forever: Stories and Essays. New York, New York, United States of America: HarperCollins, 2024.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. 1960. Reprint, New York, New York, United States of America: HarperCollins, 2002.

McDonnell, Evelyn. “Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? On Notes to John and The Selling of Didion’s Privacy.” Literary Hub, June 5, 2025. https://lithub.com/who-thought-this-was-a-good-idea-on-notes-to-john-and-the-selling-of-didions-privacy/.

Ross, Steven. “What If George RR Martin Dies before Finishing Winds of Winter? Plans for Book in Event of His Death Revealed.” National World, National World, March 3, 2024. https://www.nationalworld.com/culture/books/george-rr-martin-finishing-winds-of-winter-plans-book-event-his-death-4540935.

We have once again reached the end of another month, which means it’s time for another edition of Fresh Off the Shelf, What’s On My Mind’s monthly book review series, where I give you the best of the works I’ve recently finished.

This month’s edition is a little light in terms of the quantity of books recommended. However, the content more than holds its own weight.

Read more

The roller coaster ride that is 2025 is coming to an end. And with the end of the year comes an end-of-year reading list.

It has been difficult for me to narrow a concrete theme that perfectly encapsulates where my mind is going as this year wraps up, as I wrap up holiday shopping, as I try to sort through Thanksgiving leftovers, and as I sort through potential articles for this newsletter. I think what makes most sense for me is to keep this month’s reading list brief.

So I’m going to include a much shorter list of works than usual. Some are new. Some have been sitting on my shelf for quite some time. The following books are what I will be devoting my winter break and the early weeks of 2026 to.

Lately, I have been reengaging with the works of Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird. I first read To Kill a Mockingbird in 10th grade, and it was around that time that her second novel, Go Set a Watchman, was published for the first time.1

So you can imagine my surprise when, while walking through a local bookstore, I uncovered yet another published volume by the late author, containing a series of essays and short stories.

The publication of The Land of Sweet Forever has left me rather conflicted. The act of publicizing works after the passing of an author is a sensitive subject in literary spheres.2 Many great works of Western literature — such as Anne Frank’s diary and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations — were written without any intent of ever being published, and they are routinely praised for the historical context they provide. And yet, there are even more troubling cases, such as the recent mass publication of Joan Didion’s psychiatry notes, that feel so personal and intimate as to be downright invasive of the author’s personal life and their legacy.

So I’m approaching The Land of Sweet Forever with a degree of hesitation, both for the potential moral grey area of engaging with posthumously published works and for my personal opinions about the time period in which Lee sets her narrative works.

As of writing, I have already finished Go Set a Watchman, and I am rereading, for the first time in over a decade, To Kill a Mockingbird. And if I have any words of prominence to offer on Lee’s newly published works, then I will be sure to do so.

• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

• Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

• The Land of Sweet Forever by Harper Lee

Outside of this, I have been engaging with the works of bell hooks. After reading a collection of her interviews a few months back, I’ve dived into her vast body of work on feminism, beginning with All About Love and proceeding with her corpus from there.

The study of feminism, sexuality, and gender studies is an area that I often do not cover both in my personal reading nor on What’s On My Mind, but it is core to understanding many of the authors whose work I also actively engage with — James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin being among them.

And so I’m beginning this journey with bell hooks, knowing that I will be (and currently am) continuing this study with many more writers who will fill in my intellectual gaps in this subject area.

• All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks.

And lastly, I am continuing to read more poetry. The following are poetry collections I’ve picked up in the last couple of weeks. As I become more familiar with this literary medium, I hope to offer more insightful language and commentary as I continue this pursuit.

• Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning by Alice Walker

• Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful by Alice Walker

• Once by Alice Walker

• What Kind of Woman by Kate Baer

And with that, I am going to get back into the trenches and continue reading my ever-expanding library. I have really big plans for 2026, for myself, for this newsletter, and for my writing beyond it. If you want to get an early taste of what’s to come, I encourage you to subscribe to the What’s On My Mind newsletter, gain access to our subscribers-only community chat, and be at the forefront of the discussions to come.

Until then, happy reading!

Socials:

• Substack: whatsonmymind.net

• Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/bryceallen.bsky.social

• Twitter: twitter.com/bryceallenreads

• Threads: threads.net/@bryceallenreads

• Glasp: glasp.co/#/bryceallen

For more articles on reading, writing, and the creative process, subscribe to my free Substack newsletter!

You can support my writing by buying me a coffee!

You can also show support by purchasing from the affiliate links in this article.

Last Updated: November 7, 2025

Project 2025 needs no introduction. The policy platform behind the second Trump Administration has been working its way through the United States government, unraveling the social democratic order that protects the rights of the nation’s most targeted citizenry and rewriting the country into an image contrary to its professed ideals as the beacon for democracy around the world. Nowhere is this being felt more than in the education sector.

Project 2025 has a chapter dedicated to the United States Department of Education. From rolling back affirmative action policies to ordering the dismantling of the entire department itself, Project 2025 seeks to fulfill the vision that Republicans have held onto since the very inception of the department itself. They seek to control the narrative that gets told about America and its history—and they seek to manipulate our nation’s children to do so.

This article is your go-to reference for everything Project 2025 is doing to unravel the nearly fifty-year-old federal education system. We’ll be providing you with:

• The latest updates on policy initiatives and executive orders that seek to fulfill the Project 2025 agenda

• Tips on what to watch for in your local communities and in the rhetoric of your local, state, and federal elected officials

• Action steps for how to combat the implementation of the Project 2025 policies

• A list of organizations and individuals to support that are fighting against Project 2025 every day, for the education sector and beyond

Much of what we’re monitoring is listed in the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership manuscript. And while we could index and keep a running checklist of our own, we at Policy & Pedagogy believe that the Project 2025 Tracker by RusticGorilla is the most accurate status tracker of how our government has been fulfilling its vision. Our resources here will build on their daily analysis with concrete action plans to keep Project 2025 from succeeding.

Together, let’s fight for an education that will truly transform our children into the adults this nation so desperately needs.

Education Policy & Agenda Item Watchlist

Source: Project 2025 Tracker | Department of Education – Rustic Gorilla

• The elimination of the PLUS loan program.

• The elimination of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

• The elimination of the Department of Education.

• The elimination of the GEAR-UP program.

• The elimination of Title I funding.

• The elimination of the National Education Association’s congressional charter.

• Bans on teaching subjects related to race and gender in public schools.

• A federal “Parents’ Bill of Rights.”

• Cuts to all entities that disagree with the notion of “parental rights”1

• A monetary cap on indirect funding to colleges and universities.

• Permitting states to opt out of federal programs and repurpose the funds for “any lawful education purpose.”

• The conversion of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act funding into “no-strings” block grants.

• The authorization of states to recognize accreditation agencies.

• The authorization of states to act as accreditation agencies.

• The privatization of the federal student loan portfolio.

• The creation of the private right of action in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment.

Project 2025 Education Agenda Items Completed

Source: Project 2025 Tracker | Department of Education – Rustic Gorilla

• October 13, 2025:

  • Rescind the equity-related regulations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

• July 4, 2025:

  • Reverse efforts towards student loan forgiveness and income-driven repayment plans.

• March 12, 2025:

  • Ceased all Title VI disparate impact investigations by closing most civil rights offices.

• January 31, 2025:

  • Rescind Title IX policies that strengthen prosecution efforts for sexual assault and discrimination cases.

• January 29, 2025:

  • Increased federal funding for school choice programs.

  • Provide tax credits for private schools.

• January 20, 2025:

  • Establish guidelines that position “sex” as a biological fact, abandoning the prior Title IX definition of sex: “sexual orientation and gender identity.”2

  • Rescind the “non-binary” option in civil rights data collected from schools.

What Can You Do? | Action Roadmap

As an everyday, ordinary citizen, you have a few options at your disposal to make a difference in your region’s schools:

Vote

Keep track of and remember to vote in the primary and general elections in your state, especially when the members of your local school board are up for election.

There are elections happening every year. Always stay informed. Always stay registered.

Check your voter registration every year and months before every election. Your votes are powerful. If they weren’t, then people wouldn’t be trying to restrict your right to vote.

Civil Protest & Outreach

Identify your local politicians and school boards. Then find their websites and review their schedules. Your politicians will hold town halls. Your school boards will hold school board meetings. Both are events accessible to the public; both will give you opportunities to address or confront the individuals deciding the policies for your region.

Also, stay up to date on large-scale protests being held in your area and which organizations are organizing them. No Kings is an example of an organization holding regular civil protests across the country. There is nothing more American than civil disobedience.

Run for Office

Consider running for your local school board, state legislature, or federal legislature. The organization, Run for Something, has a plethora of resources to help you run for the elected office of your choosing.

Outreach Checklist

In order to effect change at the ground level, you need to know who your elected officials are and the territories that they cover. Professional lawyer, Leeja Miller, has created a Local Politics Cheat Sheet that will serve as a foundational guide so that you always know:

• Which Congressmen represent you at the state and federal levels

• Which school district you fall under, and who your school board members are

• Which political parties are most active in your state

• When your local, state, and federal officials will be up for election

Reading Resources

• Books for This Current Moment | What’s On My Mind

  • Part 1

  • Part 2

• The Constitution of the United States | National Constitution Center

• Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)

  • Recommended Books

• Ground News

  • Affirmative Action

  • Charter Schools

  • DEI

  • Education

  • Education, Economics, and Public Policy

  • Education Reforms

  • Higher Education

  • High School Students

  • Project 2025

  • Public School System

  • Student Loans

  • U.S. Department of Education

• KeepTrack

• Policy & Pedagogy

Organizations & Individuals to Support

• Adrienne Cobb (RusticGorilla): Author of Project 2025 Tracker and KeepTrack, an independently run news website dedicated to documenting the forces shaping American politics.

• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): The ACLU has been fighting for the civil and human rights of American citizens and immigrants since the early 20th Century. From combating centuries-long racial inequities in our schools to defending the rights of LGBT students nationwide, the ACLU is challenging injustice wherever it persists in our judicial system, electoral system, and incarceration system to ensure that this nation lives up to its creed to seek “liberty and justice for all.”

• Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE): FIRE has been fighting to protect the First Amendment rights of American citizens since 1999. They are the front-runners challenging book bans in primary and secondary schools and defending the free speech rights of students on college campuses across the country.

• Leeja Miller: Leeja Miller is a Minnesota lawyer who, since 2020, has provided her legal and political expertise as a lens to discuss American political news as a professional content creator. Miller has provided a plethora of accessible resources that help ordinary people become politically engaged citizens.

• No Kings: No Kings has positioned itself as one of the most prominent organizers of nonviolent protests and displays of civil disobedience in the age of Trump-era politics. Their mission is simple: to provide the outlet and resources necessary to practice one of the United States’ foundational principles—that we are a democracy, not a monarchy, and no man is above the law.

• Run for Something: Since 2017, Run for Something has made it its mission to recruit and support young progressives to run for political office. They provide tactical and strategic support, mentorship, and resources to help guide candidates on their way to becoming the next congressman, governor, or senator of their local community. Since their founding, they have helped elect over 600 candidates from every walk of life—from activists to doctors to college students.

Policy & Pedagogy and What’s On My Mind are reader-supported publications. For more articles on education and political advocacy, subscribe to our free Substack newsletter!

Subscribe now

If you’d like to share this resource with others, consider our referral program. For every couple of people you refer to us, you can earn up to a six-month subscription to our paid newsletter for FREE!

This has been a long time coming.

Our last entry in this series was posted in early June of this year. Normally, I try to give you monthly reviews of the best books I’ve read. These books represent my highest recommendations. I give my sincere thoughts on each book and how it impacted me. But there’s been a problem between the last volume of Fresh Off the Shelf and now: I hadn’t finished enough books that I felt were worth recommending.

It has been to my extreme frustration that—out of the 32 books I’ve completed during four of the last five months—I couldn’t bring myself to give a full-throated recommendation for any of them.

My disappointment at not being able to deliver anything substantial, oddly enough, contributed to the reading slump that I experienced during that exact same period. That’s not to say I read nothing during this time frame. But of the many books I dabbled with in between lulls at the office or listened to on commutes, not enough books really pulled me to finish them. Many of those that did weren’t worthy of inclusion in this list.

That changed last month.

After this hiatus, I am finally back with a selection of four books that you should check out. These books have challenged me creatively. They’ve informed and infuriated me. They are emotional outlets for a degree of frustration and aimlessness that I have been experiencing lately.

I hope to dive into those themes much further in future articles, but without any further delay, here are the books that deserve your time right now.

Read more

The time has finally come for the 2025 general elections! Whether you took part in this year’s primary elections or not, the time has come to make your voice heard and help decide the direction your community takes moving forward.

In this article, I’m going to walk you step by step through the process of getting ready for the elections in your area.

Is There An Election Coming Up in Your Area?

The first step is to know if there’s an election coming up and where those elections will be. The elections will occur in two stages, with a primary election for candidates of a given political party (typically in May) and a general election across all political parties (typically in November).

You can discover if there’s an election in your state or county by searching for the official websites of your state and local government. Those websites will offer specific information on the election dates, polling locations, and registered candidates.

If you’re unable to identify where your government resources are, you can also check out Ballotpedia. Ballotpedia is a nonprofit resource to inform ordinary people about recent and ongoing events in American politics.

Using Ballotpedia’s Simple Ballot Lookup tool, you can look up information about the upcoming elections in your area, giving you all of the links you need to help you register and prepare to vote. You will be informed of what positions are being elected, what ballot initiatives are being proposed, and when the votes will be cast.

Are You Registered to Vote?

Once you can confirm that there will be an election in your region, it is important to verify that your voter registration is up to date and that you have filled out an application for the upcoming election.

How elections will be handled will vary from state to state. It is vital that you confirm your registration yourself when you know an election is coming up. Even if you’ve voted in a recent election (including the most recent primary election), it is never a bad idea to ensure that you’re still on the voting rolls, so that you are not surprised on Election Day by not being allowed to vote.

To register to vote in your region or to update your voting registration, go to Vote.gov and follow their instructions. You will then be directed to the proper voter registration portals to register to vote in your state and local elections. After that, you can also find information on how to apply to obtain an absentee/mail-in ballot to vote without having to wait until Election Day.

Make a Plan to Vote

Once you’ve gone through the registration process, the next step is to make a plan for how you will cast your ballot.

On your state and local governments’ websites, you’ll find information on local polling places. Find one that’s nearest to you and make a plan for how you’re going to get there during voting hours. If you know other people eligible to vote in your area, consider giving them a ride to your polling place as well or tag along with them.

When filing/updating your voter registration, you may have also opted to vote via mail-in/absentee ballot. This ballot will arrive at your home shortly before Election Day via the postal service.

Once received, carefully follow your ballot’s instructions and reseal your completed ballot in the provided envelopes. After this, place a stamp on your envelope and either take your envelope to your local post office or place it in a USPS collection box in your neighborhood.

Conclusion - The Rest is Up to You

Taking the time to vote is the most essential component for taking action in a democratic society. It allows our voices to be heard and is the first step to manifesting the change we want to see in our communities and in our country.

Keep this article as a handy resource throughout the election season and share it with those around you who need to get registered to vote.

For every couple of people you refer to us, you can earn up to a six-month subscription to our paid newsletter for FREE!

Refer a friend

For more articles on education and political advocacy, subscribe to our free Substack newsletter!

I find it very hard to believe that 2025 is almost over. It feels like it was just yesterday when I felt the panic and anxiety in my inner circle that prompted me to release my list of books for the cultural climate of the time1. I was filling up the shelves of my personal library and was finishing more books than I can even remember having read. It is that reading journey that prompted the beginning of this series.

Our reading lists say a lot about who we are in the present moment. They cover not only our present influences but also serve as a snapshot of who we are at this particular stage of our literary journey. Our notes in the margins portray our evolving thoughts and personality traits. We grow into newer and more fully-formed individuals with every passage, chapter, and book read.

So what does this month’s reading list have to say about me? Where am I in my literary journey?

In the following month, it will have been one year since I ceased research on a long-spanning education book project that had preoccupied my attention since late 2022. My note cards have been filed away. My research books are stacked neatly (or haphazardly) back on my library shelves.

I felt my thesis crumble at the onset of a new political culture that made the solutions my project wished to provide impossible to implement. Despair, more than apathy, kept me from revising and starting over. In the words of Steven Pressfield, I let Resistance win. So where does that leave me now?

I have been in what can affectionately be called a “reading slump” since last July. I have been reading less and found my interest in doing so waning. Still, I do find some time here and there to read. I will still be working on a few of my selections from the previous reading list.

And while I have finished a number of books, a very meager selection of those completed reads felt worthy of inclusion in our series, Fresh Off the Shelf. My hope is that this dynamic may shift soon, and I will soon be sharing more books that I feel are worth your time.

Nevertheless, this month’s list has been constructed to tackle the themes and questions that have weighed most heavily on my mind lately. Is it possible to restore faith in democratic institutions, and what changes will we be willing to make to get there? Can partisan and racial divisions be bridged in a way that allows us to recognize the complete humanity of our fellow citizens? Is it possible to have an open dialogue that heals the wounds of a scarred nation propped up by an equally wounded populous?

That is where I plan to take us these next two months2, and I hope that you will join me in this.

Restoring Faith in Democracy

To tackle the subject of democracy, at its best and worst, I’ve returned to a select few of my favorite writers and political commentators. Given the recent heaviness of this subject, I’ve also supplemented this section with some of the more positive and patriotic writings by writer and novelist, E. B. White3.

• Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.

• On Democracy by E. B. White, edited by Martha White

• Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism by Cornel West

• Truth Matters: A Dialogue on Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division by Robert P. George and Cornel West

• The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians by Carlos Lozada

Bridging the Racial Divide

This is where the material gets a bit heavier, both in premise and page length. From historical accounts of racial injustice across the 20th and 21st centuries to the letters of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest organizers, this section tackles how race is deeply entangled in the root of the American psyche and how we imperil ourselves by forgetting that fact.

• Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.

• The Evidence of Things Not Seen by James Baldwin

• Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism by Derrick Bell

• I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin’s Life in Letters, edited by Michael G. Long

• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

• White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson

Finding Inner Peace Through Hardship

I don’t often include my self-help reads here, or at least I try not to. This isn’t even everything that I’ve dabbled with off and on for the last few months. But finding the strength to persevere and push forward is part of my current life goals. It only makes sense to share the books I’m reading along the way to that goal. This is also a fine opportunity to catch up on the Stoic Virtue series, as author Ryan Holiday plans to release the final book in that series, Wisdom Takes Work: Learn. Apply. Repeat., later on this month.

• Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain

• Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave by Ryan Holiday

• Right Thing, Right Now: Good Values. Good Character. Good Deeds. by Ryan Holiday

• Wisdom Takes Work: Learn. Apply. Repeat. by Ryan Holiday

• You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

Happy Reading!

Socials:

• Substack: bryceallenreads.substack.com

• Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/bryceallen.bsky.social

• Twitter: twitter.com/bryceallenreads

• Threads: threads.net/@bryceallenreads

• Glasp: glasp.co/#/bryceallen

For more articles on reading, writing, and the creative process, subscribe to my free Substack newsletter!

You can support my writing by buying me a coffee!

You can also show support by purchasing from the affiliate links in this article.

It’s been quite an emotional set of months since our last iteration of this series. After dealing with the increasing demands of my day job, I then took TWO extended trips through the southern United States. I discussed briefly the extent of the first trip in the last reading list. This month’s reading list is about that second trip.

At the start of this month, my family and I took a trip down the Mississippi Blues Trail. From Clarksdale to Indianola to Greenwood, we experienced the rich history of the blues tradition, steeped in the roots of the African-American experience. We visited museums and memorials, went to famous blues clubs and bars, and even got to listen to live performances along the way.

As a lifelong musician, I left that ten-day trip inspired and rejuvenated. And of course—because I am me—I came back with plenty of books to read.

History of the Blues

The following books explore the history of the blues across the United States from the Mississippi Delta to Memphis, Tennessee to Chicago, Illinois. They delve into the blues’ origins in African spirituality, southern U.S. and African work songs, and musical genres ranging from country to hymnals.

Some of these books offer a broad stroke of blues music, while others are biographical accounts or recorded interviews of famous blues musicians.

• Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B. B. King by B. B. King with David Ritz

• Blues Before Sunrise: The Radio Interviews by Steve Cushing

• Blues People: Negro Music in White America by LeRoi Jones

• Lift Every Voice: The History of African American Music by Burton W. Peretti

• Thriving on a Riff: Jazz and Blues Influences in African American Literature and Film, edited by Graham Lock and David Murray

• Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow

Bonus: Bourbon, Whiskey, & History

As a bonus, I wanted to include a biographical account of the life of Nearest Green, America’s first African-American master distiller and mentor figure of Jack Daniel. The book in question is Love & Whiskey: The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel, His Master Distiller Nearest Green, and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest by Fawn Weaver.

Whiskey is my alcoholic beverage of choice, and Uncle Nearest is my whiskey brand of choice. You can’t explore the history of Mississippi Delta blues without dropping into a few bars and blues clubs along the way. Uncle Nearest was my companion the whole journey. This book and this amazing story explain why I hold the legacy of Nearest Green so close to my heart.

Happy Reading!

Socials:

• Substack: bryceallenreads.substack.com

• Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/bryceallen.bsky.social

• Twitter: twitter.com/bryceallenreads

• Threads: threads.net/@bryceallenreads

• Glasp: glasp.co/#/bryceallen

For more articles on reading, writing, and the creative process, subscribe to my free Substack newsletter!

You can support my writing by buying me a coffee!

You can also show support by purchasing from the affiliate links in this article.

If there’s one thing that characterizes this explosive month of reading for me, it is fiction. Between my ongoing theatre research and the hyperbolic waves of progress I’ve made on my next book, I’ve added a lot more novels, short stories, and plays into my regular reading rotation.

Many of our first encounters with the written word are through stories—tales of fiction. We may then be encouraged to check out more books through school library programs, but by the time we age out of assigned readings, many of us fall out of fiction entirely.

Even though I continued to read, both after high school and throughout college, much of my reading since my academic years has been in nonfiction—primarily psychology and history. This month saw me get back into reading contemporary fiction and also paying my respects to some of the greatest writers from the last century.

Read more

The time has come once again, not only for the summer but for my annual pilgrimage to the sites of the Civil Rights Movement. In mid-June, I’ll be reading a number of these books as I travel everywhere from Greensboro, North Carolina, to Memphis, Tennessee.

This list continues my exploration of African-American literature—a throughline of this year’s reading lists—as well as my exploration of the world of poetry. I particularly wanted to explore the history of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee through the perspective of its most prominent leaders. Among them are John Lewis (pictured above at the far right) and Stokley Carmichael, who would later go by the name Kwame Ture.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

• SNCC: The New Abolitionists by Howard Zinn

Stokley Carmichael/Kwame Ture

• Black Power: The Politics of Liberation by Kwame Ture & Charles V. Hamilton

• Saying It Loud: 1966―The Year Black Power Challenged the Civil Rights Movement by Mark Whitaker

• Stokely: A Life by Peniel E. Joseth

• Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism by Stokley Carmichael (Kwame Ture)

John Lewis

• His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope by John Meacham

• John Lewis: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations (The Last Interview Series)

• Run by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, L. Fury, and Nate Powell

• Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by John Lewis w/ Michael D’Orso

Poetry

• The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad

• The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath

• The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998 by Nikki Giovanni

Socials:

• Substack: whatsonmymind.net

• Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/bryceallen.bsky.social

• Twitter: twitter.com/bryceallenreads

• Threads: threads.net/@bryceallenreads

• Glasp: glasp.co/#/bryceallen

For more articles on reading, writing, and the creative process, subscribe to my free Substack newsletter!

You can support my writing by buying me a coffee!

You can also show support by purchasing from the affiliate links in this article.

You have likely heard the saying that “buying books and reading books are two separate hobbies.” And this is true. The joy that comes from walking through the near-endless shelves of a bookstore and coming out of the experience with a stack of new books to read is distinct from the satisfaction of spending hours, days, weeks, etc., reading a book from cover to cover.

The act of buying books can be a rich source of dopamine — a part of an endless drive to acquire more and more, building libraries that tower from your home floors to the ceilings until you find your homespace bleeding books from every possible opening. The next thing you know, you have books not only on your shelves, but your tables and side tables. You have books next to every chair and perhaps even under chairs. You have books stacked horizontally on the shelves and vertically on the floors.

It is all too easy to buy more books. With a single tap on your phone, you can have another book on its way to your home within days or even just one day — and that’s if you’re purchasing a physical book.

But in this endless race to consume and acquire, we may find ourselves reading less and less. You may go from enjoying one book by a new favorite novelist to soon having their entire bibliography in your home before you even get to “The End.” You might be reading a work on nonfiction and then fall into the rabbithole of notes and citations that has you ordering copies of the author’s sources — and then the sources of the author’s sources.

Buying books can get out of hand fast, especially if you’re buying more books per month than you can ever read in that time frame. In my best months, I may read (and finish) as many as 5 or 10 books and buy two or three new ones. And during the worst months, I’ll finish two and purchase twelve.

Needless to say, it gets overwhelming and often difficult to afford. Thus, we’re brought back to the question that burdens all readers everywhere: how do we read more books? In this case, how do we channel the energy (and money) that we spend buying books and direct it into reading more of the books we already have?

I’m going to share with you some of my best tips for curbing your own book-buying impulses and then some techniques to read more of your current library. By the time you finish this, you should be well on your way to not only ending each month with a little more money in your pocket but also with more books knocked off of your “TBR” pile and into your “Recommended Reads” pile.

Reading More for Less: Tips for Saving Money on Books

When I’m thinking about reading a book, the first thing I ask is where I can read the opening pages before making my purchase. While you can visit bookstores and libraries in person for this, it is not a guarantee that the books that you wish to read will be on their shelves. With most modern releases, there is often an easy solution for this: book samples.

If you browse a book on Amazon or other online retailers, they may give you the option to read some of the first pages of a book on the book’s product page. If you’re an Amazon Kindle reader, you can even have these samples sent directly to your Kindle device or app. Library ebook service apps, like Libby, also provide similar services for available ebooks.

Reading book samples this way allows you to read a book and even take notes on its opening chapters, helping you determine whether or not that book is the right fit for you. The added benefit of digital samples is that you can read them easily across multiple sittings. Whereas in a physical bookstore or library, you’re limited to the business hours, you can read your digital book samples from anywhere on your own schedule.

My rule of thumb is that for every book that I want to read, I have to finish the sample for it before purchasing it. I’ve also found it helps to wait a few days after your sample read-through to make your purchase. If you still feel the strong impulse to read the full book, after letting the sample sit for a couple of days, then you’re in a good position to get the book, either through purchase or one of the following means.1

You’re not limited to using digital samples to make direct purchases. If a library near you has the book available, you can use your sample reading as a kickoff into reading the book from their shelves.

Libraries offer a wealth of options for reading in different formats. Access to a library card can not only grant you access to the books physically available on their shelves, but can also, through partnerships with services like Libby and Hoopla, grant you access to a vast library of ebooks and audiobooks as well.

Registering for a library card in most regions is simple, free, and can be done on the same day that you walk into the library. This makes it one of the easiest ways to get a hold of new books at a low cost.

The last option I would recommend — if you know someone who has the book you’d like to read — is to borrow the book. While not available to everyone, borrowing books from friends and family is not only free, but is a great way to build rapport with fellow readers.

If you need some help convincing the people in your life to lend you their books, I recently released an article listing a few easy rules to follow to help you lend your books to others and have them safely returned.

Chipping Away: Tips for Reading More Books

One of the easiest ways to get yourself in the mindset to finish more of the books in your library is to realize that you may not read all of your library. Put simply, you may just not have all of the time that you need to read your shelves upon shelves of unfinished books from cover to cover. Instead of letting that stop you, you can use it as motivation to read with more purpose.

I’ve talked before about being comfortable with dropping certain books if you’re dragging your feet through them. There’s nothing wrong with putting down a book you’re just not in the mood for. Dropping a book you don’t like sooner just gives you more time to read the books that you do enjoy.

I like to set a certain page benchmark for each book I read. If I don’t enjoy a book by a certain page number, I bench it and move on to something else. What that benchmark looks like will vary from person to person, but I find Nancy Pearl’s 100-[your age] benchmark to be more than sufficient.2

Another way to help you get through long books is to read them alongside their audiobook. If available, reading a book with an audio narration playing in the background can help maintain your focus as you read from page to page.

It can also allow you to maintain some of your reading momentum if you have to step away from the physical book and do other tasks. I’ve found that switching from physical book to audiobook when I have to make commutes for work has been integral to my finishing books that I’ve had on hold for months at a time.

Not all companions to the book you’re reading will be in audio form. If you’re reading a work of classic literature or philosophy, you may have difficulty understanding certain concepts and their meaning. In many of those cases, there may be a large treasure trove of companion texts and reading guides — whether individual articles or whole books themselves — that can help you get from start to finish.

A companion series that I’m very fond of is the Cambridge Companion series, published by Cambridge University. These literary companions are helpful when trying to gain a greater understanding of certain writers, philosophical schools, or literary periods. Some of my favorite companions are the ones for James Baldwin and Machiavelli, two authors whose works I’ve been attempting to read in full lately.3

Whether you’re trying to expand your knowledge on a certain author or looking to learn as you read, companion texts like these help you get the most out of your reading experience.

Another one of the best ways you can learn to read more books is to subscribe to our free newsletter. Here at What’s On My Mind, we regularly devote our time to teaching you the best reading tips and techniques to help you not only read more books, but to help you understand even the most difficult books more clearly. If you’d like to catch more articles to help you become a better and more effective reader, please consider subscribing for free at whatsonmymind.net.

Subscribe now

Your mileage with many of these tips may vary. At the end of the day, the effectiveness of techniques such as these will depend on your own self-discipline to put them into practice. With some consistent practice, you’ll not only read more strategically, but you’ll save more money as you do so. That’s more money to spend on the things that really matter to you. And if that ends up being books that you’ve read part of and decided are worth your time, all the better.

Happy reading!

Socials:

• Substack: whatsonmymind.net

• Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/bryceallen.bsky.social

• Twitter: twitter.com/bryceallenreads

• Threads: threads.net/@bryceallenreads

• Glasp: glasp.co/#/bryceallen

For more articles on reading, writing, and the creative process, subscribe to my free Substack newsletter!

You can support my writing by buying me a coffee!

You can also show support by purchasing from the affiliate links in this article.

Recently, Jared Henderson wrote on his Substack about keeping a reading journal. The purpose of this journal is to record all of the books he reads and to provide commentary on each one.

In this article, Jared mentions a few rules that he plans to use for all of his reading journals going forward.

“I should include books I chose not to finish for [a] good reason. There are many books I can say that I’ve read in large part, even if I decided some section was not worth my time while reading. The art of being selective in what you read needs to be cultivated. And, since this notebook is not shared with anyone, this isn’t a matter of ego; it’s my intellectual chronicle, and those unfinished books are part of that tale.

I should make those books in some way so that I can recall if I read the book in whole or in part.

I should write 1-3 sentence reviews of the books to collect my immediate thoughts.”1

Jared lists a few of these rules to address some of the issues he’s encountered with previous reading journals. Two of the problems, he cites, are how to count books you only read part of, or how to handle collected volumes that contain multiple books in them.

To answer the first question, Jared says that for him to count a book as “read,” he

“must read the main contents of the book in order to include it. Introductions, prefaces, postscripts, appendices, interpretive essays, and the like are not mandatory.”2

This is a reasonable definition. In some cases, the front and back matter of a book can take up more of its page length than the main body of the text itself. In the Penguin Classic edition of Aristotle’s Poetics, for example, the front and back matter take up half of the book’s length. I’ve come across introductions to novels that offer a critical analysis of the book’s entire plot, potentially spoiling the experience of first-time readers, if they’re caught unaware. Sometimes it’s better to just read the main text and move on.

On the end pages of my book logs, I document the books that I have finished and the date that I finished them.

I started to do this because, while I can remember what books I have finished, it is difficult at times to remember when I read a book. I like to see the progression of where my reading interests have taken me over time.

If I were to improve this listing format, I would also attempt to include the dates I started each book as well. One aid in providing that extra information would be the log pages themselves.

Each page of my book log is formatted with the date/day of the week in the top header, with each book listed in a bullet point list. Within each bullet is an indicator of how many pages I read in a given session, with each session separated by commas.

It is with these logs that I am capable of producing a record of when I started and finished a particular book. Obviously, marking the finish date is the easy part. The more tedious part would be flipping through the pages of my book logs to find the first day that I started a book. Given that I jump between books a lot, this could result in me flipping through multiple book logs to find the records that I need.

When it comes to collections of multiple books, Jared says that an individual book “is not simply pages bound together. It is something a reasonable person would refer to when they said ‘I read that.’“3

This is admittedly a rule I should also follow to a greater extent. I am currently reading the collected works in Amiri Baraka’s Reader. This book contains a selection of his essays, poems, and the complete scripts of a few plays. Since I recently finished Dutchman, a play that has been printed in its own separate volume, I could easily document that in my book log/journal as a work that I have read, despite not having finished the entire reader.

This is not a rule I currently follow with my own book logs. But as a frequent reader of collected works, documenting the individual works within a book that I have read to completion would provide a clearer picture of what I’ve read in a given year.

As far as specific notebook recommendations go, I currently use LEUCHTTURM1917’s pocket-sized notebooks. I’ve used a number of notebook brands over the years for my book logs, but I’ve opted for LEUCHTTURM1917 for the numbered pages, table of contents, two bookmark ribbons, and inside pockets. However, they are a bit pricier than the previous brands I’ve used, and I would prefer to have a cost-efficient means of buying them in bulk since I tend to order these online.

Over the years, I’ve made a more active effort to chronicle my time spent reading books. Because I have access to books wherever I go—thanks to apps like Kindle, Libby, and Libro.fm—I often carry my book log with me in my pocket to make sure I always document where I’m at with my library. My book logs, as a result, are the source of some of my most frequent writing in any given week.

If I ever opt for a larger notebook size than I currently use, I might consider following Jared’s practice of writing brief reviews of the books I’ve finished. At the moment, such comments get written either in my daily notes in Notion or in my library database entry for the book (also in Notion).

I’m curious to hear what you all think. Do you keep your own reading log/journal? Will you try some of the practices mentioned here? I look forward to hearing what you have to say in the comments below.

And please, if you like content like this, also check out Jared’s Substack, Commonplace Philosophy.

Happy reading!

Socials:

• Substack: whatsonmymind.net

• Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/bryceallen.bsky.social

• Twitter: twitter.com/bryceallenreads

• Threads: threads.net/@bryceallenreads

• Glasp: glasp.co/#/bryceallen

For more articles on reading, writing, and the creative process, subscribe to my free Substack newsletter!

You can support my writing by buying me a coffee!

You can also show support by purchasing from the affiliate links in this article.

Sources:

Henderson, Jared. “Tell Me about Your Reading Journals.” Commonplace Philosophy (blog), April 5, 2025. https://jaredhenderson.substack.com/p/reading-journals.