Shoutout to the Missives From Samsara blog, which helped inspire me to do this blog post: missivesfromsamsara.com I appreciate the honorable mention from January 6, 2026 post titled “5 Recommendations”! It’s one of my daily bookmarked reads for this year, written by someone who is a voracious reader and longtime history teacher, Buddhist, and deadhead. I highly recommend it. The Missives From Samsara blog has also experimented with including AI images, and included more post-related photos, not just long text like here. I hope to follow suit.

I have also made a commitment to not use AI tools in altering my writing here. I have found typos occasionally, and I try to fix them when I do. At most, I like to use AI search for errors, or fix sentence fluency for writing, or maybe brainstorming, and finding source material. But having finished my Master’s degree program, I am usually very good at reading and re-reading my content for perfection. My goal here is more “stream of consciousness” oriented, rather than perfection. From my experience, the more formal education I’ve acquired, the less helpful AI is in writing itself. More often than not, AI paraphrases my writing in a way that undermines the substance, as well as “personal voice” of what I really want to say. It’s a cool tool, don’t get me wrong. But that’s it. Sometimes it can phrase things in a better way than me, but usually not, and even then, only once I recognize it, and think for myself that it’s what I wanted to say all along, and not a bunch of powered silicon chips at some massive industrial data center at a top-secret location.

I wanted to include some thoughts on reading. Learning how many Americans just don’t read AT ALL from the Missive From Samsara blog was pretty eye-opening (granted, I think there are many worthwhile mechanisms by which to be entertained or informed, with books or audiobooks just being one medium).

I didn’t formally keep track of how many and exactly which books I read last year cover-to-cover. I’d guess close to only about 6 or 7 for 2025, although several more I started but didn’t finish. I definitely want to increase that number for 2026, including print edition, especially in laying down to read and sit still. The big development for me last year was reigniting an interest in fiction reading. Ever since struggling through Shakespeare and old English style literature in middle and high school, fiction began to intimidate me more and more. I always felt unsure and insecure about what supposed important details I comprehended versus didn’t. Worse yet, why go through that inner turmoil of being lost, when a nonfiction book can seemingly teach me something, much more directly, tangibly, and efficiently? The ostensible “deep” messages just didn’t resonate with me. The “so what” factor just… eluded me. I’m sure there is beauty and depth with this literature, I just assume I wasn’t well-equipped to see it easily.

I’ve had such an intense productivity and information-absorption mindset towards reading, especially via grad school, that I nearly always sought out and got good at consuming strictly expository, nonfiction content, no matter the form. That’s why I’ve begun to think, sometimes reading something easy, and/or fun is valuable in a different, cool, and unexpected way. Case in point, my wife had been reading many romance books and eventually figured out how much self-doubt I had in following it. I took baby steps with her nudging, and I listened to a dual point of view book. The plot and characters were simple enough to follow and I developed better confidence, and I realized the amount of character depth and emotion that could be discovered. I mean, sure, reading a newspaper or history book is valuable, but can’t fully replace fiction by itself. Same probably goes true for probably any book category.

Many books I read as audiobooks on the Libby app (which has helped me keep track a bit from past titles).

I’m pretty tired tonight so I may go into finer detail another time but I’ll list a few honorable mentions where I read all books, cover to cover!

  1. Abby Jimenez’s “Part of Your World” series, all books.
  2. Elsie Silver’s “Rose Hill” series, all books.
  3. “Out of the Woods,” by Hannah Bonam-Young.

Also, I must mention, I haven’t read many autobiographies/memoirs, but “On Call” by Anthony S. Fauci, is a highly recommended read, and while long and in-depth, very well done. An incredible doctor and public servant.

I’ll make another post about other past books I’ve read sometime soon!