Reading Tastes

 

London Public Library
   I received on Dec.16, from the LPL a list of the "25 most-borrowed Books of 2025". It came under the heading, "Best Books of 2025" and the sub-heading, "This Year's Hottest Books" and I will add that apparently these are "The Most Popular Books" requested by borrowers this year. (I discussed the issue of "good books" and "popular books" in: A Branch Library For Good Books. )
   What I noticed was the large number of readers waiting for books and the large number of books that have to be ordered. It appears that around 500 copies of these 25 books were purchased and that was really not enough to satisfy the demand. (These would include books in a various formats - print, large print, e-books and audio ones.) All of this translates into a considerable work that has to be done by librarians, and the people delivering your "Hold" to the library of your choice. 
  I admit that I don't follow popular reading trends or authors (who are excluded here from my cut & paste job), but I did notice that a few of the books were featured on Oprah and Reese's Book Clubs, which probably accounts for some of the popularity. Fiction (F) appears to be more popular than non-fiction (N) and there are more women authors than men. (I had to check and learned that both Taylor Jenkins Reid and Mel Robbins are female.) When checking, I learned that Mel, the author of ,The Let Them Theory is also the author of The 5 Second Rule and The High 5 Habit, while Taylor also has produced some titles with numbers, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & the Six. What this all means, I am not sure, but if you aspire to be a popular author, perhaps you should include a number in the title. As for titles, I think that, The Book Club for Troublesome Women..." is a clever one, which is likely to be chosen by many book clubs.

   Two of the non-fiction titles are about food and another is by our Prime Minister. I was surprised by the "Tuberculosis" title, but learned that the author is also a popular Y.A. novelist.
    One of the fictional works is by an author who lives in London, but has an international following. 

   Below this list, you will find another, indicating what they are reading, or waiting to read in Toronto. 

                                                                                   HOLDS COPIES Alchemised (F) 80      10 All the Way to the River Love, Loss, and…(N)   75        12 Atmosphere a love story (F)    148         26 A truce that is not peace (N)    35        13 Careless people a cautionary tale of power…(N)    28         13 Don't let him in (F) 80 39 Every salad ever : from grains to greens…(N)…. 81 18 Everything is tuberculosis the history and (N) 51 7 Great big beautiful life (F) 70 30 Hello, Juliet (F) 2 15 Katabasis a novel (F) 28 13 Mother Mary comes to me (N) 88 12 My friends a novel (F) 162 25 Nightshade a novel (F) 26 25 One day, everyone will have always been against (N) 35 10 One golden summer (F) 57 27 She didn't see it coming (F) 116 25 The book club for troublesome women a novel(F) 51 11 The essential cottage cookbook simply delicious…(N) 11 8 The let them theory a life-changing tool that …(N) 126 40 The Paris Express a novel (F) 122 31 The river is waiting a novel (F) 176 25 The tenant (F) 17 23 Value(s) building a better world for all (N) 53 13 Whistle a novel (F) 0 22   

Toronto Public Libraries
   The TPL list is under the title, "What Toronto Read in 2025." It includes only the Top 10, and shows that almost 3000 copies of just those 10 books were ordered. Fiction is again more popular and it is noted that: "Torontonians went genre hopping: fantasy (Onyx Storm), romance (Great Big Beautiful Life), thriller (The God of the Woods), dark humour (The Wedding People), historical fiction (The Women) and literary fiction (Intermezzo). Nonfiction hits (The Let Them Theory, Atomic Habits, The Anxious Generation) show a desire for self-improvement and calm amid modern life’s stresses. Together, these titles were borrowed over 195,000 times.

 

                                                                               Holds      Copies

1. Onyx Storm (F) 84 191

2. The Let Them Theory (N) 851 333

3. The Women (F) 197         221
4. The Wedding People (F) 247 189

5. The God of the Woods (F) 310 146
6. Great Big Beautiful Life (F) 127 286
7. Funny Story (F) 100 192
8. Atomic Habits (N) 476    210

9. Intermezzo (F) 167 369

10. The Anxious Generation (N) 209 193

New York Public Libraries Here are the most checked out books in New York City and Mel is again the author of one of them.

1.James by Percival Everett

2.The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

3.Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

4.Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

5.All Fours by Miranda July

6.The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About by Mel Robbins

7.Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

8.The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

9.Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

10. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver The Bonus

I had never heard of Ms. Yarros, but learned this: "She is best known for the Empyrean fantasy book series, which will be adapted into a television series with Amazon; Yarros will serve as a non-writing executive producer. In July 2023, Waterstones indicated that it became the "fastest selling pre-order title in a single day on [the] website with [the] special edition selling out in just seven hours".The third book, Onyx Storm, was released in 2025. Yarros has indicated that the series will ultimately include five books." Don't begrudge her popularity. I also learned this: "Rebecca Yarros is disabled. She has hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS), which causes chronic pain, joint instability, and other connective tissue-related challenges."

U.S Bestsellers - 100 Years Ago

1925

Source:

Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller, 1900-1999. Michael Korda, p.49.

Libraries and Christmas Shopping

   Doing this post will give me an excuse to avoid shopping. Reading it will have the added benefit of allowing you to avoid shopping. As a bonus, I will provide you with some gift suggestions, which could be useful if you ever get around to going out. 
 

Oxford Libraries
   I have documented the decline in the number of libraries on the campus close by, along with the reduction in the quality of collections held within them. While Oxford clearly had a head start when it comes to libraries, it is unfortunate that Western stopped paying much attention to them. At least we can still read about libraries. Here is a link to, Oxford Libraries Architecture. 
  To assist you in making the purchasing decision, see this review: "Timeless Temples of the Written Word: Oxford Might Best Be Described as a City of Books," William Aslet, The Critic, Sept.6, 2025.

   "The Bodleian is the most famous of Oxford’s libraries, but it is far from being the sole subject of this book. Indeed, the Bodleian is actually a collection of 26 different library spaces. Nor are these the only libraries available to scholars at Oxford. Every one of the University’s 39 constituent colleges has its own library, added to which is the Bodleian’s formidable and increasingly popular online offering, Digital Bodleian.

   It is a reflection of the astonishing diversity of Oxford’s libraries that the 46 examples (one at Oxford Brookes) described and illustrated in this book only constitute a fraction of the total number of library spaces that are today available to students and scholars."

   The book can be ordered online, but unfortunately it won't arrive before Christmas and costs over $100.

Biscuits and the Bodleian

     Evidence of entrepreneurship is also found among the books at Oxford. The librarians partnered with Sky Wave Distilling, winner of the World's Best Gin, to host a special tour in "the stunning Divinity School, including a romp through the history of gin and tasting notes to match the gin you will be tasting." Unfortunately that tour is over, but one can still shop at Oxford. Although one can find items cheaper than the book, they also will not arrive before Christmas. Some more examples:

Digital Bodleian
   The librarians at Oxford are not Luddites. If you cannot afford the book or even the biscuits, and don't want to go out shopping, you can spend this year and even the next one reading the books and manuscripts found by clicking on the link above. You will even find photographs. Here is one of Tom Stoppard, who recently passed.

The Bonus:

  Older and cheaper options will be found in these past posts:
"More Books For Christmas" 
"Books For Christmas"  (more links are found in this one.)

The World Cup

 If you are planning to attend the World Cup, these figures may be useful and I will get them to you quickly without any comment.

Ticket Prices

Hotel Prices 

From FIFA

Citation Justice

 
Or Knowledge Justice Or Epistemic Justice
   I was searching for a book and encountered this screen, where a reasonable question is asked. It is also a good thing to do some re-thinking from time-to-time. I had a quick look at the Open Resource, which led me to a brief consideration of "Citation Justice" and to reading a bit about it. 
   The basic notion seems to be that we need to pay much more attention to the identity of the person behind the citation, than the quality of it. The evaluation of citations should be identity-based, rather than evidence-based. That summary, coming from a guy who has read a bit, should not satisfy you. I will not consider citation politics further, but there is no reason why you shouldn't re-think your research methods. Here are some suggestions.

The Proselytizers

Start with, "Whose Knowledge Counts?... from the Western Libraries. 
  Other Canadian libraries are clearly on-board. A quick search indicated that "Citation Justice" is "hot topic" among librarians.
UBC - Citation Justice
"Citation justice is the process of being intentional about who you cite in your own work to uplift and center gender-diverse, Black, Indigenous, People of Colour, S2LGBTQIA+ folxs."
UVIC - A Critical Look at Citation Practices
"Critical citation or "Citation Justice is the act of citing authors based on identity to uplift marginalized voices with the knowledge that citation is used as a form of power in a patriarchal society based on white supremacy."
McGill - Citation Justice in STEMM
 "Citation justice involves intentionally acknowledging and citing the work of researchers from underrepresented groups. Research indicates that women, and Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPoC) scholars are cited less frequently than their white, male counterparts (Dworkin et al., 2020; Kozlowski et al, 2022). In science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine, practising citation justice means striving to equalize citation rates between white cis-male authors and those from diverse backgrounds and identities."
University of Toronto - Thinking Critically About Citations
  [This guide from the flagship is the most thorough. If you are only concerned about the justice part see the section - "Considering Your Positionality."]

Some Critics
   It take not take long to determine that some are questioning the emphasis on author identity.

  "The Problem With “Citation Justice”: A Seemingly Noble Ambition Excessively Politicises Scholarship," Freddie Attenborough, The Critic, Aug. 26, 2025

  "America’s Boston University has just introduced a “Citation Justice Pledge”, encouraging students and staff to “commit to intentionally uplifting and centering” the work of “authors who are Black, Indigenous, persons of color, of varied abilities [aren’t we all?], and part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community”. Those who sign the pledge are invited to attend workshops on diversifying reference sources. They also receive branded tote bags and stickers.

   Although presented as voluntary, the pledge has renewed concerns about a shift in higher education towards a form of soft (or not so soft) compulsion. What begins as an effort to do the right thing — in this case, broadening academic reference points — can easily become a de facto political litmus test, displacing genuine scholarship in favour of identity politics."

"When ‘Diverse Citations’ Replace Diverse Ideas," Erin Shaw, Oct. 20,2025, Heterodox Academy

  "Within academia, a new metric of “diversity” may be gaining traction—not in admissions, faculty hiring, or funding, but in the references of research. Nature Reviews Psychology shared their new journal guidelines on “citation diversity statements” in which authors should “draw attention to citation imbalances” among scientists from different demographic backgrounds, and “confirm that they made efforts to cite publications from a diverse group of researchers.” Unfortunately, citation diversity statements reduce scholars to statistics, threaten academic rigor, and add yet another ideologically conformist hoop for academics to jump through."

  It seems to me that there are clearly occasions when the identity of an author matters, but that it is only one variable to be considered. Discernment should be fostered rather than diversity preached.

   I used to work in libraries before they were makerspaces and often noticed the eagerness with which new ideas, resources, etc. were embraced. Also in libraries was the OED, which now may just be provided electronically. In it one will find two words that are useful:

"Neophiliacs"

"Neophiliacs suffer from a collective fantasy which leads them to describe every change as inevitable and an improvement on what preceded it."

Daily Telegraph,1991

"Neophiliacs will want to grok both books."

New York Times 8 October
  According to AI, this is what that sentence means:

"The sentence suggests that people who love novelty (neophiliacs) will want to deeply understand ("grok") the contents of both books, which offer contrasting views on computer jargon."
 [ I suppose determining the identity behind AI will be difficult. In any case "grok" the librarian links and the critical articles, and be sure to vet your citations.]
"Bandwagon"

"We tell the whig leaders, with their four band wagons, their foreign silk flags, and their Giraffes, that the days of humbuggery have gone by."

Ohio Democrat (New Philadelphia, Ohio) 15 September

"When I once became sure of one majority they tumbled over each other to get aboard the band wagon."

T. Roosevelt, Letter 28 April (1951) vol. II. 999

"He has blown with every wind; he has bandwagoned with every passing movement." Eugene (Oregon) Register-Guard 25 April 6/1

"What about the bandwagoners who are prone to jumping on the latest thing without really thinking it through?"

Xtra! West (Vancouver) 15 September 21/2

Olde Posts Addenda (7)

    Since all of the news is "breaking" these days, here are some more stories which have broken and are related to older news items in MM. 

Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900) Cropsey has been a subject in MM because I appreciate landscape paintings and, more importantly, because a painting of his was once found on the campus of UWO (Western). Forty-five years ago, the selling of Backwoods of America caused quite a controversy, even though $665,000 was received by UWO. For a discussion of the "Cropsey Controversy" see, Jasper Cropsey and McIntosh Gallery in the Winter, where it is discussed again. In a post about The Hudson River School it is noted that Cropsey's "Autumn Landscape With Cattle" sold for $325,000 (US) in 2021. The work pictured below is now offered by Questroyal Fine Art, if you are Christmas shopping. 

Doug Sneyd (R.I.P.) - Art of a Different Kind
   Back in 2017, I discussed three Canadian Cartoonists, Barry Blitt, Bruce McCall and Doug Sneyd. Mr. Sneyd and my mother-in-law attended the same school in Guelph. He died in Orillia in January, 2025. Apart from my brief bit in MM, more is learned in the obituary from Mundell Funeral Home LTD. Douglas "Doug" Mord Sneyd:
   "Doug was a renowned commercial artist, illustrator, and cartoonist. He was born in Guelph Ontario, one of seven siblings. From humble beginnings, as a teenager, Doug sketched silhouettes at the Canadian National Exhibition. After high school, Doug was employed as a commercial and portrait artist in Montreal and Toronto....

Doug became a cartoonist for Playboy magazine in 1964 and was the longest contributor with over 400 full-page colour cartoons. Also in the mid 1960s, Doug became a daily political cartoonist, first with “Doug Sneyd” in the Toronto Star and later with “Scoops” that he syndicated in over 150 North American papers. These features ran for nearly 20-years. Doug followed up with a heartwarming feature, “Wee Whimsy.”

Photos and the War in Vietnam

   You will have seen the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of the child who is generally referred to as "Napalm Girl", and I provide one in that post. That girl is now a grown woman, who lives in Ontario. In another post, "Napalm Girl" (Again), I discussed the controversy which has developed around who actually took the photo. I provide photos in those posts and will not do so again.
   The addenda is this: a film about the controversy has just been released and there will be more reviews, like this one: "‘The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo’ Review: Freelancing Woes: Was a Freelance Photographer Intentionally Left out of the Famous Vietnam War Photo of “Napalm Girl”?" Beatrice Loayza, New York Times, Nov. 27, 2025.
   "As far as documentaries go, Bao Nguyen’s “The Stringer” is a relatively straightforward work of investigative reportage. Its objective? To uncover the truth behind “The Terror of War,” a.k.a. “Napalm Girl,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Kim Phuc Phan Thi, a naked Vietnamese girl who is fleeing her village with other children in the aftermath of a 1972 napalm attack."
   There is another review in The Globe and Mail: "I Heard the Rumours About the 'Napalm Girl' Photograph Decades Ago: The Question of Who Took It Reflects the Ambiguity of War," Denise Chong, Dec. 5, 2025.
Post Script: 
  The following article was written a day after I posted this. Given that MM has provided so much about this incident, I thought it should be included. The subtitle summarizes the point which is being made by someone who was there: "I Was There When 'Napalm Girl' Was Photographed: The Stringer Does Nothing to Shake My Strong Belief That Nick Ut Captured the Famous Image," David Burnett, The Washington Post, Dec. 10, 2025.

Menus
   In 2018 I told you about collections of menus in Food History. If you are shopping for someone who likes to cook or dine out, this new book is an option: Tastes and Traditions: A Journey Through Menu History, by Nathalie Cooke. Professor Cooke is in the Department of English at McGill, where this is found: 
Nathalie Cooke's Latest Book: Tastes and Traditions. It is published by Reaktion Books and is found on Amazon or available from Indigo, where more can be learned.
   There is also this review by James Chatto in the October issue of the Literary Review of Canada: 

"À la carte: "According to a delicious art form."An English literature professor at McGill University, Nathalie Cooke is an expert at detecting nuances of meaning and historical resonance in the written word. Having set out her thesis that an old menu can tell “the belated reader” much more than simply what was once for dinner, she organizes her material according to half a dozen themes, each one explored through a generous number of examples. Cooke is a skillful curator, and her carefully chosen, clever juxtapositions prevent her book from being a mere list or catalogue. The first chapter, for instance, considers the design and visual appeal of menus, taking us from handwritten and painted mementoes of elaborate feasts hosted by Louis XV in the 1750s to a modern Bangkok restaurant’s bill of fare composed entirely of emoji. En route, we encounter cards designed by Toulouse-Lautrec and Albert Robida, the gorgeous offerings of luxury ocean liners, and the mixed-media assemblages of the 1960s artist-chef Daniel Spoerri’s “New Realism.”
  If you add her 190 illustrations to the ones found in my post about menu collections, you will have a substantial visual resource related to food. If you need more convincing, see also: "Old Menus Serve up a Glimpse of our Past; McGill Professor Nathalie Cooke Whets Readers' Appetite with a Book on the Evolution of Dining," Susan Schwartz, Montreal Gazette, August, 23, 2025.

U.S. College Football Bowl Games

 Bowling For Dollars
   Someone asked me yesterday about the upcoming bowl games, of which there are more than a few. Two years ago, I offered a "Bowl Games Primer", since one is needed, but this year I am less interested. If you are interested, everything you require is found here: "2025-26 NCAA Football Bowl Games".

Big Stadiums
   To make up for what I didn't offer, here is a list of the biggest football stadiums, which provides another indication that college football is far more popular down there than it is up here. The stadium pictured is close by. The ones listed are over 10 times as large.

10 Largest U.S. College Football Stadiums

1.Michigan Stadium (Ann Arbor, Michigan): 107,601
2.Beaver Stadium (University Park, Pennsylvania): 106,572
3.Ohio Stadium (Columbus, Ohio): 102,780
4.Kyle Field (College Station, Texas): 102,733
5.Tiger Stadium (Baton Rouge, Louisiana): 102,321
6.Neyland Stadium (Knoxville, Tennessee): 101,915
7.Bryant-Denny Stadium (Tuscaloosa, Alabama): 101,821
8.Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium (Austin, Texas): 100,119
9.Sanford Stadium (Athens, Georgia): 92,746
10. Rose Bowl (Pasadena, California): 91,136

The Bonus:
  Although the professional football stadiums are smaller than the collegiate ones listed, they have the same purposes: 
   "Stadiums are secular megachurches, where believers gather to share communion, to exalt and mourn, and to don the vestments of faith. There’s nothing like the oceanic feeling of celebrating a touchdown or a home run or a classic guitar solo with tens of thousands of people who are having the same fan experience as you. Jonathan Mallie, a managing director of Populous, the largest stadium designer in the country, calls these venues “cathedrals for memories.” (The firm, which is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, is building the Buffalo Bills’ new shrine, New Highmark Stadium, alongside its predecessor; it will open in 2026.) The difference is that in stadiums, unlike in cathedrals, every inch of the space, and every sight line—not only to the field but also to the sponsors’ logos—is monetized. Stadiums may be the most rigorously monetized spaces on earth."
  That is from: "How the Sports Stadium Went Luxe: Is the race to create ever more lavish spectator offerings in America’s largest entertainment venues changing the fan experience?," John Seabrook, The New Yorker, Dec. 1, 2025.
  The list of stadiums is from, USA Today, Nov. 19, 2024.

Louise Penny's Library

   Many of the libraries about which I have written are private ones. To date, they have all been collections of books gathered by men and none of the collectors are Canadian. I am pleased that I learned about Louse Penny who has both written and collected many books, and is Canadian.

  Her house and books are found in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. I was also pleased to learn that her collection is not organized, as a recent interviewer reported:

   "Louise Penny was eager to show me an important book — the one she said is at the core of her wildly successful Armand Gamache mystery series — but she couldn’t find it. The floor-to-ceiling shelves in her bright, fluffy living room are tidy and filled with fascinating works, but they aren’t organized by author, title or certainly color.  
    “And that’s part of the fun,” she explained during a tour this past summer of her spacious and welcoming home, where she lives with her beloved golden retrievers, Charlie and Muggins. “For me part of the joy of not having an order to the shelves is that it’s like going into a used-book shop. You end up finding things you weren’t looking for, that you didn’t even know you wanted.”

   Although I worked in libraries and write about them, the books in my own are randomly arranged, but I can't say that was planned.  Again, I am pleased that she also cannot quickly locate the book she is looking for. 
   Her name was recognized by me, but I confess to having none of her books since I don't read many mystery novels. The public libraries close by have many titles by Penny and most of them are on loan.
   The Haskell Free Library and Opera House, which is on the Canadian/American border not too far from Knowlton, Quebec where Penny lives also has many of her books. Given the recent regime changes to the south, access to the Haskell became problematic and Penny donated a considerable number of Canadian dollars to build a new entrance. She also cancelled her U.S. book tour. 
   

That Penny is successful and has written many books is proven when one takes the underground tunnel from the house to her writing studio and sees the framed covers lining the wall.  
Sources:
   The pictures and the quotation are from: "Louise Penny Gives Us a Tour of Her Book Collection," Nora Krug, Washington Post, Nov. 15, 2025.
    If you are unfamiliar with her books, but interested in them see: "I’ve Read Every One of Louise Penny’s Gamache Novels. Here’s What to Read, and What to Skip," Sarah Zlotnick, Country Life, Oct. 29, 2024. 
    About the border hassles at the Haskell see: "U.S. Limits Canadian Access to Iconic Stanstead, Que., Border-straddling Library," Benjamin Shingler, CBC News, Mar. 21, 2025.
   About Penny's involvement see: "Dismay as Cross-border Library Caught in US-Canada Feud: ‘We Just Want to Stay Open’," Leyland Cecco, The Guardian, April 13, 2025.

   "The tour for Penny’s forthcoming book Black Wolf, which coincidentally imagines plans to force Canada into becoming the 51st state was due to start at the Kennedy Center in Washington. But a recent decision by Trump to fire the previous board of the Kennedy Center for its support of “woke” programming, and to install himself as board chair, has prompted widespread artistic backlash.

   That move and a broader call for Canadians to boycott travel to the United States amid annexation threats and tariffs from the president, led Penny to scrap all of her American tour dates. She plans to conclude her book tour at the Haskell.

   Penny made headlines in recent weeks after donating C$50,000 (US$36,000) to help fund a new entrance to the library, an “elegant” solution to the diplomatic snafu created in wake of new restrictions."

   If, like Penny, you do not plan to travel to the U.S., Knowlton and the Townships are an option. These are some suggestions for book lovers: Brome Lake Books and the Café Three Pines.
The Bonus - For Women Book Collectors:
  The bookstore Honey & Wax, sponsors a contest for women collectors: Women and Books.