The “Year in Books”

~ Kana Smith

The first kiss of the New Year tasted like coffee!

We didn’t stay up to usher in the New Year at midnight—we go to bed much earlier than that. We turned on our “white noise” machine, with its sound of ocean waves, to filter out the sound of people’s fireworks, which are distressing to my combat-vet husband (apparently firework rockets sound remarkably like incoming Scud missiles), and we cuddled in under the contented bodies of several cats, and we went to sleep.

Ten years ago, when we were courting, we did stay up, and we were slow-dancing in my apartment living room—and then when the ball dropped, so did Jon! To one knee, with a ring—sapphires, for our birthstone, on either side of my great-great-great-grandmother’s diamond. And then we kissed, the first kiss of 2016. Six weeks later, we were married, on February-Lucky-13.

This year we woke up in the morning, and shared New Year’s wishes over coffee, and started 2026 with a coffee-kiss.

I finished one last book, last night, to go on my 2025 tally, though this time I didn’t make my reading goal. I’d set the goal of 310 books because last year I finished 307—but this year I only made it through 290 books. That’s still a happy year’s reading, and the goal itself was largely arbitrary.

This was the first time that my “Year in Books” included a book of my own among the “read”—several of them, in fact. (I figured I get to count it as “read” when I’ve gone through all the work of writing it—that’s more intensive immersion, even, than your usual read…)

I always enjoy Goodread’s “Year in Books” retrospective, showing everything I’ve read in the year. It’s a tour of my enthusiasms, since I tend to go through themes in my reading. Themes, and authors—this year I read series by Laurie R. King, Robert B. Parker, Robert Jordan, Donna Leon, Craig Johnson, Michael Connelly, M.C. Beaton, J.K. Rowling. I went through one patch of reading about India & Afghanistan, and another patch of books on economics, finance, and investing. I read a number of books about the Old Testament, as I wrote my own books dissecting Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, & Numbers. (I’ve sort of stalled out on Deuteronomy…) And of course there were quite a lot of books about sailing, whaling, and maritime history, as I continue to build my own novel set on a whaleship. Overall the reading-list is a fair map of where my brain has been.

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At the. beginning of a year I don’t usually contemplate the content of the reading ahead of me; I content myself with setting the numbers-goal. (And that’s really just in fun—I’m not troubled by falling twenty short of my 2025 goal. The main reason for this year’s lower reading-number is that I spent more time writing—and I’m happy with that.) Right now, though, I’m thinking about what I might be reading in this upcoming year. Certainly I’ll continue my run of Robert B. Parker’s “Spenser” books, as I’m about halfway through the series. And Robert Jordan is sort of always going on in the background, in the form of audiobooks I listen to when I’m doing dishes or pulling weeds or driving to the grocery store. His “Wheel of Time” is a series of 14 books, at about 800 pages apiece, and I usually cycle through the full series at least once a year in audio format.

And it may be time to turn my thoughts back to Moby Dick.

I’ve taken a break of several months from working on—or thinking about—my whaling novel, and I’m feeling like it’s time to go back to it. I’ve written the first three-quarters or so, and the end, but there’s a missing stretch still to write. And I’d been working on tightening it up, because it’s already rather longer than I’d intended. (If it seems contradictory to be planning both to write more and to shorten the total, well, welcome to writing…) Part of the reason I stepped away from it for a while is to enable myself to read it with “fresh” eyes—to edit with a brain that’s not already immersed in its pacing and phrasing. To enable myself to read it as an editor.

The way I see it, access to a professional editor is one of the most important benefits to be had from a traditional publisher. That and the big one: promotion/distribution. I can do a lot of things for myself—I’m quite happy with my own cover designs, for example—but at the end of the day you need someone to read and edit your work who’s not you. I can turn out a manuscript that’s error-free, in the sense of spelling and punctuation and grammar—but I need someone else’s eye and ear for the cadences, the pacing, the clarity, the stylistic choices… It’s why I’m doggedly reaching out to agents, to see if I can get myself represented, to see if I can get myself (traditionally) published. And it’s time to write to a new one—I give each prospective agent two months to respond before I write them off and move on to another. To this point I’ve at least gotten responses (albeit negative ones) from the agents to whom I’ve reached out, but this time it’s silence.

Fine, I’ll move on.

I’m not much of one for New Year’s Resolutions… but I AM one for making plans! So this year my “plan” is to complete Time & Tide, and to continue reaching out to an agent every two months. There’s a lot that’s outside my control (almost everything, in truth) but those are actions I can take. My 2026 “Year in Books,” like 2025, will be writing as well as reading.

Well, let’s call it a Year in Books-and-Blog.

cartoon of a woman looking out from behind stacks of books

20 thoughts on “The “Year in Books””

  2. Kudos Kana on the voracious reading. You beat me by 289 books. I only finished JAMES by Percival Everett in 2025. I opted for copious hours outside instead.

    Publishing is so incredibly difficult so keep chipping away. Feedback lands few and far between most of the time.

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  4. 290 is… more than impressive! You read a LOT, lol. I am currently reading part 3 of the “Everyone in my family has killed someone” series and felt my heart skip seeing that on your list. Hope you find an agent that suits you and here’s to many, many more books read (and written)!

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  5. I’m thinking your husband, who gives you sustenance, is not Nam.

    Where I am coming from, ain’t no vet who isn’t Nam, and there were no Vets, properly or improperly, after Nam.

    I love Indira Ghandhi, Jibuti, your booty.

    Nehru, a jacket clanging jacket, wants to love the oppressor, in irony.

    In oil we trust, oil annointed ain’t so bad, it is a massage oil, no reason to recoil.

    Nam had no oil, it had green rice fields, patties we called them as we bombed them, for TV.

    Love I don’t know how, rainboweth and bestoweth,

    Give of love a composte? This bad act, of freedom — it redeeming.

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      1. Run through the jungle, the desert shield, the fold of star dust, the lust of camels, their thurst, their humps, their bumbles, their thrusts, dirty stinking camels, ahem, amen,

        UN coming in, scholarship not perfect, but pretty good.

        UN is balanced, searching for the truth, finances research, for the good of mankind,

        Diplomats in a diplomatic square, not far from Broadway, resembles

        Big bird, concord,

        We love what the precarious ships

        Slip in

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  7. Good luck with all your 2026 goals, Kana! A cozy night in, and warm wake-up are great ways to transition with the years. Of the books you read, which made the deepest impression?//mm

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  9. Ok first I want to thank your husband for his service. Second how do you read that many books in one year? Isn’t that like 5 books a week! and finally good luck on the publishing, my wife is writing a book now and will look to publish also.

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    1. Yes, it’s about five and a half per week… I’m a fast reader—but mostly it’s a matter of choosing to spend time doing that, rather than other things. There are things I choose NOT to do—like spend time on FaceBook, for example—that could suck up my time far less productively. ;)

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  10. 290!!!!! The number boggles my mind.

    I too am a fast reader, in 2025, for the first time ever, I recorded my reads. I only managed 102. To do more than that I would require giving up my life, Mind you, I don’t do audio books, which allow you to multitask.

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    1. I do listen to audiobooks when I’m doing chores or driving, so there’s that. I choose to read rather than spend time with, say, things like Facebook—but I hope I haven’t “given up my life” for reading. ;)

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  11. Loved your romantic beginning…
    We did stay up this year, but just to watch the fireworks across the valley. We live in central Italy, on the border of Le Marche and Abruzzo. Usually in bed by 10:00.
    Good luck with your book. Writing is tough, publishing harder, and then there’s marketing. Ouch! I self published this year…been doing OK, but I haven’t fathomed Goodreads yet. Maybe I can call on you for help sometime. I joined, but feel like I need a map of some kind. You seem to have it all worked out.
    Happy New Year to you.

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    1. I self-published this year as well, and yes, the marketing is a bear! There’s one book that seems to be selling itself pretty well—a “how-to” for AA’s twelve steps—but I think that’s because it fills a NEED. My other books (dissecting the first few books of the Bible) are pretty much sitting untouched. Well, I guess that project was more for myself anyway…If there was going to be one that moved, I’m glad it’s the AA one… But anyway, my experience with those books NOT selling has pretty well confirmed for me that my novel (which also doesn’t fill a “need,” per se) would need a traditional publisher to MOVE it once it’s published. So I persist… :)

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