The first TTT for 2025 is our favorite reads of 2026. But first, a tease!
“That just tears it then,” Grainier said, quite agitated. “I’m pulling this team up, and you can walk from here, if you want to beat around and around the bush. I’m taking you to town with a hole in you, and I ask a simple question about how your dog shot you, and you have to play like a bunkhouse lout who don’t know the answer.”
“All right!” Peterson laughed, then groaned with the pain it caused him. “My dog shot me in self-defense!” TRAIN DREAMS
(1) Open Season, CJ Box. I am permitting Mr. Box one, and exactly one, entry on this list. This was the start of the game warden mystery-thriller series featuring Joe Pickett that I was obsessed with for two and a half months.
(2) Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, Charles Leehrsen. A comprehensive and readable biography that also rebuts the libel on Cobb’s memory by Al Schmuck.
(3) Provoked: How Washington Created the New Cold War, Scott Horton. A history of DC-Moscow relations since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I have three different draft reviews of this and am hoping to either edit one of them into publishing shape or find a new angle of approach so I can post a review by Feb 24.
(4) Friends Divided, Gordon S. Wood. A history of the friendship between Adams & Jefferson.
(5) Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, Walter Isaaacson
(6) Against the Machine, Paul Kingsnorth. A critique of the machine-industrial complex and its devouring of humanity.
(7) The Life of Billy Yank, Bell Irwin Wiley. A social history of Union soldiers in the Civil War.
(8) The Battle Cry of Freedom, James McPherson. A magisterial history of the Civil War.
(9) Marce Catlett: The Power of Story, Wendell Berry. The latest in his Port William series.
….that was actually it for bolded, five-star entries. For #10, I should mention a book I enjoyed enormously that also guided my film-viewing for quite a bit.
(10) Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend, Jason Bailey
HONORABLE MENTION:
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, full cast audio edition. SUPERB. I started listening to Chamber of Secrets and the sound design is similarly excellent.
Reading Freely 
I wonder what Adams and Jefferson would think of a book being written about their friendship so many generations after they lived!
Thank you for stopping by earlier.
Well, Woods’ book records them being self-conscious about being deified even in their own time — the more anniversaries went by, the more they were hailed as pivotal figures and celebrities.
I was supposed to read Battle Cry for my WEM project, but I chickened out. Whatever was going on in my life at that time, I just was not in the mood. I know I would have read it had I been in a better state of mind. Who knows. Maybe one day I will get on a Civil War kick again and give it a try.
It’s formidable in size, but quite readable if you do find yourself in that mood.
Open Series sounds like a series I might like.
Thank you for stopping by Long and Short Review’s post earlier.
My pleasure! Currently banging my head on the desk trying to find yet-to-be-published books for tomorrow’s prompt…
I was looking forward to this list of yours, so different than mine but fascinating nonetheless. Happy Reading in 2026!
My list: https://headfullofbooks.blogspot.com/2026/01/ttt-best-books-i-read-in-2025.html
And to you!
Not surprised to see Kingsnorth here. And yes, this biography of Frnklin was so good
Battle Cry of Freedom is so good! I first read it when taking a college course on the Civil War. You read some cool books in 2025!
My TTT is here, if you’re curious.
Thank you! More like that to come…
I’m sorry to say I haven’t read any of your books but some sound very interesting.
Thank you for visiting my post.