Here we are at the end of another year. This was our first full year of the Tildes Book Club, so congratulations are in order for reaching this milestone. Currently we're taking a well-earned December break, until we return in January for more.

This year saw us reading more variety across both fiction and non-fiction, covering scifi, history, autobiographies, and short stories.

Here are some stats for 2025:

• Books Read: 11 (18 if counting short stories)
• Total Pages: 3,919
• Participants: 50 unique users (134 total participations)
• Total Comments: 456
• Nominations Submitted: 55
• Nomination Votes Cast: 233

The superlative awards:

• Most Discussed: Hyperion (68 comments)
• Deepest Discussion: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (averaged 5 comments per person)
• Longest Read: The Ministry for the Future (563 pages)
• Shortest Read: Elder Race (199 pages)
• Oldest Read: Cat's Cradle (published 1963)

The full list of 2025's discussions can be found here:

• Jan: The Ministry for the Future
• Feb: Born a Crime
• March: Hyperion
• April: Elder Race
• May: A People's Future of the United States
• June: A House with Good Bones
• July: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store
• Aug: Cat's Cradle
• Sep: Stories of Your Life and Others
• Oct: The Poisoner's Handbook
• Nov: We are Legion (We are Bob)

Much thanks as always to @boxer_dogs_dance for organizing this club for us. We have a great lineup for 2026, including renowned authors like Kafka, Nabokov, and Pratchett.

Feel free to share your favourite Book Club reads from 2025, or what you're looking forward to in 2026.

Hey folks,

Since we're not reading a book this month, I thought it might be nice to have a short retrospective of the last year instead.

As some of you may know, the book club originally started back in 2023 with a "pop-up event" hosted by @cfabbro. We read Roadside Picnic after a few users expressed interest in the title. The discussion had some great comments, and that helped lay the groundwork for making the book club a regular feature.

A few months later, @boxer_dogs_dance kicked the book club off proper in January 2024 with the first nomination thread. Cloud Atlas was selected based on voter interest and ideal library wait times. Despite being a difficult first book, participation was still high and has remained so for each month thereafter.

Boxer has since organized numerous nomination and voting threads, helped establish our format and rules, and has created many discussion prompts for each book. Huge thanks to you for the efforts, @boxer_dogs_dance!

Onto some stats for 2024:

• Books Read: 9
• Total Pages: 3,277 (average of 364 per book)
• Unique Contributors: 59 (or 140 total, when counting returning participants)
• Total Comments: 476 (across 121 top-level threads)
• Nominations Submitted: 102
• Votes Cast: 508
• Repeat Nominations: 11 titles were nominated twice, and 6 were eventually chosen. Perseverance pays off!

The list of past discussions can be found here:

• March: Cloud Atlas
• April: Piranesi
• May: The Dispossessed
• June: Project Hail Mary
• July: Ocean at the End of the Lane
• Aug: Small Gods
• Sep: This is How You Lose the Time War
• Oct: Kindred
• Nov: The City We Became

A big thank you to all who have participated, helped organize, commented, or quietly read along! You folks are what make the Tildes community so great.

So just to be clear, this isn't a nomination thread or an official post. I just thought it might be nice to look back, recap our progress, and maybe touch on some of the best picks from the last year.

What were your favourite reads from this past year? What are you looking forward to most in 2025?

See you all in January when we kick off 2025 with Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future!