Some believe the end of the calendar year to be the best time to publish your book awards for said calendar year. I say that’s makes as much sense as using Labor Day to actually labor. For this reason (and having nothing to do with busyness of life during this transitional time), I like to wait until all of my students’ projects have been graded the day designated by the Farmer’s Almanac as the best time for chickens to set eggs according to the lunar phase—obviously that’s today.
But if I spend my whole time justifying it, then the moon’s phase will shift enough to ruin the idyllic egg-setting time. So enough of that—let’s recap last year’s journeys in reading!
Does 2.2 million words sound like a lot? Well, let me provide some comparisons to give you an idea for what that amount would equal. In order to facilitate this, I will divide it up according to demographics:
Infants: ≈40,000 lullabies
Youth: ≈22,000 letters to Santa clause
Teens: ≈78,500 text messages (so, probably a week’s worth?)
Young adults: ≈3,385 college application essays (approximately one for every certified college in the U.S.)
Adults: ≈440 true crime podcast episodes
Mid-Life Crisis: ≈14,667 bottles of hair loss product with instructions
Golden Girl/Guy: ≈73,334 prescription medicine containers
All that aside, 2.2 million words is actually a low year for me. It’s the lowest in the last four years and if you account for inflation it’s … well … still the same because there is no inflation on words (that I know of—anyone looking for a dissertation idea?).
Now, I’ll get into some nitty gritty awards. If you were looking for more pithy and/or witty remarks, then here is a good place to stop. If you want to just see the big winners, jump to the images. If you have nothing better to do, allow me to invite you into a glorious realm of nerddom by suggesting you read every last word!
For reference, here are previous Mooks™ Awards winners: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024. And here is a list of book ratings and reviews that I wrote on Goodreads.
Original Reads-15
Re-reads-3
Total-18
Oldest-Prometheus Bound (479 BC)
Newest-James (2024)
Average Year Published-1904
Most Productive Month-August (357,548)
Shortest-Crows (15,500)
Longest-(Non-fiction) The Road to El Alamo (248,301); (Fiction) Doctor Zhivago (198,358)
Average Words Per Book-128,618
Average Words Read Per Day-6,180 (≈18 pages per day)
Average Days Per Book-≈20
Most Repeated Authors-Dorothy Sayers (2)
Prometheus Bound
Æschylus’s natural progression in his works seem to mirror the progression of humankind from barbarism to civilization to altruism. Prometheus Bound is the long and wordy but inspiring account of a merciful and graceful god willing to nobly suffer for mankind simply because he cares for them. It’s a great moment in theological, political, and ethical history, and it’s a great moment in playwriting as well.
Three Roads to the Alamo
I’m going to be honest, it was not a very competitive year for non-fiction newcomers—my rereads were excellent, but they don’t qualify for this award, so forget them! The other option of newcomers, Crows, was a good book too, but neither it nor this one were blow-me-away awesome. (The third option was not good at all, so I’m ignoring it here.) I did appreciate the historical context of Davy Crockett and the Texas revolt. It helps me understand the time period and culture in a very helpful way.
Most Well-Known-Œdipus Trilogy
Most Satisfyingly Dissatisfying-Prometheus Bound
Most Disturbing Scene(s)-Œdipus Trilogy
Most Inspiring-Prometheus Bound
Best Duo-Billy and Saxon Roberts (The Valley of the Moon)
Best Book Read with the Kids-Great Expectations (Angie)
Best Re-read-Two Years Before the Mask
Funniest-Barmy in Wonderland
We’ve seen the British Aristocracy, the film industry, and American prohibition lampooned in plenty of Wodehouse novels before. This one gives insight and parody to another area of Plum’s expertise: musical theater. While we learn some of the behind-the-curtain moments, most importantly we are entertained with the hijinx that fill out the details of the plot.
Most Obscure-Barmy in Wonderland
Unlike previous years, this one is actually in print … and available at the school library! It is a lesser known Wodehouse, to be sure, but nothing like the pieced together obscure titles I usually have here.
Best Surprise-The Valley of the Moon
I kept expecting this Jack London book to take its reach an inevitably gloomy finish based on where things had been, were going, and some of London’s previous stories (*cough* Martin Eden *cough cough*). And while the lows are certainly devastatingly low, the direction the story takes is both surprising and satisfying.
Worst Surprise-Indigenous Continent
I had been looking for a Native American focused account of American history. This seemed to be the perfect fit! Alas, it was instead the account of the blatant colonizer hatred and a indiscriminate violence apologist.
(Dis)honorable Mention: Doctor Zhivago
Best Traveling Connection-Three Roads to the Alamo
Drove through Texas and got to stop at the Alamo. Not sure if we took one of the three, but it still got us there, all the same.
Best Supporting Character-Joe Gargery (Great Expectations)
When you have a main character as frustrating (but still someone you want to root for) as Pip, a character as genuinely good and decent as Joe, regardless of the circumstances, is crucial. Joe gives Great Expectations the humility and goodness needed to make the story reach the high level it gets to.
Coolest Setting-The Valley of the Moon
This is London’s love letter to rural California. The last third of the book, as we are touring the agricultural landscape outside of California’s big urban centers, we see the promise of paradise. And if you’ve ever been to Jack London’s home in Northern California, then you will find the final scenes of the novel highly familiar and satisfying.
Best Male Character-Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov (A Gentleman in Moscow)
I mean, if you want a picture-perfect definition of a gentleman, and all the beautiful things it represents, Count Rostov is your man. He is ceaselessly polite, unassuming, fearless, honest, romantic subtly amusing, and ever willing to help those under his real or adopted stewardship. We should all be more gentlemanly!
Honorable Mentions: Joe Gargery (Great Expectations); Billy Roberts (The Valley of the Moon)
Best Female Character-Saxon Roberts (The Valley of the Moon)
I’ve heard mention that Jack London could not realistically capture a woman on the page. I agreed with that assessment until The Valley of the Moon. With Saxon Roberts, he gets into the mind and heart and soul of a woman—including the difficulties and trials unique to her sex—in such an intimate way, it truly feels as though he somehow found access to a woman’s mind to get it. And Saxon’s iron (yet feminine) determination, ambition, compassion, and triumph are inspiring to the very end.
Honorable Mentions: Harriet Vane (Strong Poison); Biddy (Great Expectations)
Most Amusing Character-Tom Sawyer (Tom Sawyer Abroad)
He is either entertainingly ignorant or exasperated by the ignorance of his companions (same could be said of Jim). Either way, we’re having a good time hearing his self-serious explanations and worldviews.
Best Villain-Lord Kington (A Darker Sea: Master Commandant Putnam)
Lord Kington represents the worst of a despicable—albeit debatably defensible in an emergency powers sort of way—policy of impressment executed by the British during the Napoleonic wars. The abuse of that power is shown with perfect contemptible aplomb in Lord Kington. His every moment of dialogue and interaction with the other characters of the novel simply twists the stomach of any just-minded spectator.
(Dis)honorable Mentions-Henderson (James); Norman Urkuhart (Strong Poison); Orlick (Great Expectations)
BEST NOVEL
A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW
Perhaps if Great Expectations had not been read in such a prolonged manner (due to me reading it to our very busy oldest child over the last couple of years), the brilliance of a compounded Dickens would’ve surpassed Amor Towles’s excellent work. Regardless, A Gentleman in Moscow, while it doesn’t match the plotting and pacing of a Dickens masterpiece, certainly commands a character and literary aplomb in a way that puts it on par with some of the best. The Count of the story is gloriously, unflappably, delightfully refined, civil, and honorable—a gentleman in all of the best usages of the word. The language that shows this has the eloquent restraint and understatement of the best novelists of the last couple of centuries. I never tired of reading Towles’s character and I often simply grinned from my soul outward at how well he depicted a truly and magnificently composed character in a world of chaos.
Honorable Mentions-Great Expectations; A Darker Sea: Master Commandant Putnam
List of all books and plays read in 2025 in the order read (grouped in the order completed by — respectively — plays, non-fiction, and fiction). Italics represents rereads.
Prometheus Bound
Oedipus Trilogy
The Book of Mormon
Three Roads to the Alamo
Crows
Two Years Before the Mast
Indigenous Continent
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona
A Gentleman in Moscow
Strong Poison
Doctor Zhivago
A Darker Sea: Master Commandant Putnam and the War of 1812
Tom Sawyer Abroad
Barmy in Wonderland
James
The Valley of the Moon
Gulliver’s Travels
Great Expectations
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