Books: Weekly Summary (January 19-25, 2026)

I keep thinking of the week in books like a pile of postcards you shuffled through too fast and then stopped to read again. Some are travel notes. Some are grocery lists. Some are postcards with tiny watercolor sketches you want to pin up. I would describe the mood as a mix of looking back and trying to decide what to take forward. There’s a lot of inventory going on — of pages read, of shelves kept, of goals set — and a quieter thread about why we read at all.

A year in review, and what that teaches about reading

Two posts this week really dug into the rear-view mirror feeling. Roman Kashitsyn wrote a piece called "2025 retrospective" that reads less like a tidy list and more like someone telling you about a long, strange day. There’s a marathon, a blue belt in Jiu-Jitsu, a lot of programming joy and frustration, and a surprising amount of reading in popular science and personal development. What I’d say stuck with me was how reading shows up as part of a life patchwork. It’s not just books stacked on a shelf; it’s fuel for late-night code sprints, background to recovery, and something that shapes how a person decides to be.

Then there’s the very different, very number-driven report from The Wallflower Digest: "Reading Activity for 2025." Eighty-two books, 319 comic issues, average rating 3.63 stars. It’s the sort of post that feels like peeking at someone’s reading log — satisfying in a small, nerdy way. But it’s also useful. You can see the formats they prefer, which series got finished, what genres moved the needle. It’s not just bragging, either. It’s a quiet experiment in accountability. I’d say it feels like tracking your runs in an app — not to show off, but to notice if you’re getting better, or if you’re repeating the same route.

Those two posts pair well with another Wallflower piece, "Reading 'Goals' for 2026." The author frames goals as experiments, which is an appealing alternative to New Year’s resolutions. They talk about choosing fewer books, reading with more attention, and poking at non-fiction and book-adjacent media. To me, it feels like someone deciding to cook fewer dishes but do them properly, rather than trying every trendy recipe. That idea — fewer, deeper reads — is surprisingly persuasive when it sits next to the stats. When you see 82 books, you start asking: how many of those actually stuck with you? How many were skimmed and forgotten, and how many changed you a little?

If you’re curious, those posts almost make you want to count your own piles. They’re friendly nudges to ask: what am I reading, how, and why?

The emotional weight of books and shelves

There’s a sentimental strain in the week’s writing. Anecdotal Evidence took on Joseph Epstein’s essay about culling a library. The post trips over the same snag most of us do: books are more than objects. They carry years, moods, exes, travel stickers, the faint smell of coffee. The author admits the dilemma — we can argue about keeping the classics or the dusty paperbacks, but it’s always, always personal.

I’d describe this argument like sorting clothes after a breakup. You know you should donate half the wardrobe, but the sweater you wore on that first awkward date still looks like you even if you never wear it again. There’s guilt, memory, identity. The post doesn’t solve the problem, of course. It just makes the feelings visible and a little less ridiculous, which matters. If you like reading long about why people keep books they never read again, this is a comforting read.

That same attachment shows up in Paul Kingsnorth writing in "The Monthly Salon: January." He’s recovering, thanking subscribers, and plugging away at a new book. The tone is intimate and slow, the kind of thing you’d expect from someone who treats books like hearth fires — small, careful, essential. There’s an old-world quality in his updates, which makes you feel the library-as-home idea even more: books are refuge, not inventory.

Walking memoirs and the small, precise observations

Chris Glass wrote about Craig Mod’s walking memoir, "Things Become Other Things." It’s brisk, but it also carries this sense of walking through a landscape and finding the way the walk changes you. He hikes the Kumano Kodō in Japan, and the essay ties the geography to ideas like forgiveness and the Japanese feeling of "Yoyū" — that soft, roomy space that’s more than relaxation; it’s intentional breathing.

To me, these walking books are like taking the scenic train instead of the express. You see more bumps, and you remember them. The write-up wants you to slow down with the book, to treat it as a walking companion. It’s a small kind of travelogue and a reflection rolled together. Good for people who like the smell of damp trail and the slow reveal of a story.

The defense of reading: "Text is king"

This week’s loudest polemic came from Adam Mastroianni. His post "Text is king" pushes back hard against the doom-talk that reading is dead and civilization’s collapsing because of screens. He brings data to the table — book sales holding, indie bookstores doing well — and lays out a blunt reminder: people still want books.

I’d say the piece reads like someone standing up in a pub and listing off reasons not to panic. He’s not doing kumbaya; he’s pointing at numbers and at the stubbornness of reading as a habit. If you’ve been worrying about a future where no one reads, read this one. It’s less about gentle reassurance and more about facts and a little bit of righteous impatience. It’s useful if you want to argue with doomscrollers at family dinners.

Fiction, weirdness, and short things that stick

Not everything this week was essays and stats. There was fiction and weird short writing, too. "The Font of Dubious Wisdom" is a short piece about twins Rafael and Selena — strange, haunted, folded together by a parasitic magic none of us asked for. It reads like a dark folktale told by someone who still remembers playground alliances. There’s a tenderness under the weirdness, a sense of family being the original religion.

And Matt Rutherford drops a personal update from Dublin (#53 - From Dublin) that’s part diary, part recommendation list. He mentions a short story collection he liked, an electronic music album, and a couple of films. Those bits are small, but they act like breadcrumbs. They make the week feel like a group of people in different rooms, all reading slightly different things, all nudging each other across the table.

AI, books, and the uneasy overlap

AI showed up in a few places, not always politely. Otakar G. Hubschmann used his weeknote to riff on AI’s economic impact, new tools like Claude Code, and the need for fresh models. He also lists popular AI and ML books. The tone is practical. It’s less about love of books and more about books as tools for understanding a shifting industry.

Roman Kashitsyn, in his retrospective, also touches on LLMs — the joys and the weird psychological things they bring to programming. There’s a friction here: on one hand, books remain a place for refuge; on the other, new models and new tools create new literatures and new reading habits.

The tension is interesting. Think of it like learning to cook with a new device in the kitchen. The recipe books still matter, but now you’re also reading forums, firmware updates, and quick cheat-sheets. Some of those are ephemeral; some will stick. The week’s posts don’t resolve this. They mostly note the coexistence and sometimes the argument: do we trust slow, careful texts, or do we follow the lightning-fast model releases?

Repeating themes: what the week kept saying

If I pick the recurring threads — the things that pop up more than once — they’re simple but telling:

• Attachment to books. People carry books like living things. You know that feeling when you can’t throw away a ticket stub? It’s like that, but with spines.
• Number play versus depth. There’s pride in high counts and charts, and there’s a counter-voice asking for slower, more meaningful reading. Both voices feel honest.
• Physical books are stubborn. Despite talk of decline, shops and readings and salons live on. It’s a British-tea-in-a-rainstorm kind of stubbornness; you carry your umbrella but you still go out. That’s how bookstores feel in these pieces.
• Books as scaffolding for other work. Running, coding, recovery, teaching — books appear as tools and friends, not just entertainment.
• The new versus the old. AI and new reading formats are woven into these posts, sometimes as excitement, sometimes as background noise. People don’t seem ready to throw away the old rituals.

Those themes don’t line up perfectly, of course. There’s a bit of arguing in the margins. But they do give a sense of the week’s conversation: it’s both practical and wistful.

Little disagreements, small alliances

Not every voice agrees. Adam Mastroianni is loudest about reading’s resilience. The Wallflower pieces are more unsure: proud of the numbers, cautious about what it all means. Anecdotal Evidence brings the sentimental case. Otakar G. Hubschmann pushes the techno-practical angle.

I’d say those differences are healthy. It’s like people arguing whether a garden needs more bulbs or more compost. Both are right in their way. The garden — or the culture of reading — can survive both experiments.

Recommendations from the week (for the curious)

If you like walking memoirs and small revelations, check out Chris Glass’s take on Craig Mod. If stats and reading goals are your jam, the Wallflower Digest will give you the sort of satisfaction that comes from seeing a spreadsheet finally balance. If you want a short, haunting piece of fiction, "The Font of Dubious Wisdom" scratches a particular itch.

If you’re tired of the doom-and-gloom about reading, read Adam Mastroianni’s writing. It will make you less inclined to panic and more inclined to argue with someone loudly about indie bookstores. If you want to feel the drag and pleasure of holding on to books — the sentimental tug — read the Anecdotal Evidence piece. For a quieter, subscription-style field note experience, Paul Kingsnorth’s salon post reads like a careful, warm letter.

And if your job involves tech or investing or machine learning, Otakar’s weeknote names useful books and tools worth scanning.

Tiny observations that kept popping up

• People like lists. Whether it’s books read, episodes of a series, or errands, lists comfort us. They make the mess look intentional.
• There’s an appetite for community. Salon posts, recommendations, and the Wallflower’s charts all suggest people want reading to be a social thing, even if the act itself is private.
• Nostalgia is persuasive. It’s hard to argue with someone who remembers a book by the coffee stain on page 117. The emotional detail does more work than big arguments.

A small digression: I’m thinking of my local market on a Saturday morning. You see the same regulars buy the same cheese, week after week. There’s trust in the rhythm. That’s how reading felt in these posts — rhythms. Folks aren’t necessarily looking for novelty; sometimes they want the same fencepost you always return to.

Where the week nudges you to look next

These posts don’t try to settle anything grand. Instead, they open doors. Want to experiment with a reading goal? Peek at the Wallflower Digest. Want to defend print culture at a family argument? Bring Adam’s data. Feeling sentimental about your shelves? The Epstein thread will make you feel understood and ridiculous in a good way.

I’d say the collective voice was less about prophecy and more about practice. How do we manage our time, our shelves, our attention? Who do we trust to teach us how to read about AI? Which books should we keep because they are anchors, not clutter? You get hints, not commandments.

One mild repetition worth saying plainly: the week keeps returning to the idea that reading matters in very different ways. It’s a hobby, a practice, a tool, a memory bank, and a small religion for some people. Saying that once feels enough, but then you realize it’s worth saying again because it shows up so many times.

If you feel like following up, the posts are the obvious next step. All these writers plant little flags. Go see which ones you want to pull out and keep. The longer reads will give you the details these sketches only point toward.

The week ends feeling less like an argument and more like an invitation. Read something because you love it. Read something because it teaches you. Read something to remember. Read something to argue about. Keep the books you need and let go of the ones you don’t, or don’t. Either way, the heap of postcards keeps arriving.