Catherine V. Wolf's 3 favorite reads in 2025

I met the author at an annual author's day at the gardeners market in Logan, Utah. She was promoting her book, Mad Marienne, and was a delight to talk with. I asked her what the book was about and she eagerly said Sky Pirates- Steampunk. I laughed, because this was a genre I knew absolutely nothing about. But local author, self-published...I had to give it a go.

I am so glad that I did. Of the books I read in 2025, Mad Marienne was my hands down favorite. The world that Yates creates is detailed and immersive. I was so impressed with how deftly she writes about gears and mechanisms and how all of the machines work. The aspect of luma as the driving force of this steampunk world is so convincing.

Beyond the delightful and believable world that Yates creates are the amazing characters, the intricacies of their relationships, and the fantastic clothes that they wear! I feel like I know Marienne, Katherine, Robert, Todd, and all of the crew members of the sky ships that are their homes. Have fun in the World of Luma!

Admittedly, I do not read a lot of history books. My non-fiction choices are usually related to science and nature or adventure memoirs. I'm not sure what led me to choose American Nations, but as soon as got into the book, I was immediately intrigued by Woodard's approach to thinking about how the regions of this country were settled based on religious, political, and country of origin attributes, and how the culture that grew out of these regional realities have affected our history to the present day.

I learned a lot from this book about how the persisting cultures in this country were really founded. It is mind-blowing what we don't know about our own country, and the founding of what is so clearly not a unified culture. It is clear from Woodard's detailed account of our history that we are a fractured country originating from fractured beginnings.

My only criticism of Woodard's approach is what feels like an incomplete account of how these invading peoples interacted with the existing native nations and populations. I know that this was not Woodard's focus, but it still feels like an incomplete history to me without giving more focus to this part of our history.

That said, I recommend this book as a 'must read' for everyone who wants to know where we came from and how we got to be the head-scratching, confusing muddle of a nation that we are today. Woodard follows up American Nations with several books that hope to help follow up on what he begins here. I look forward to reading Union, Nations Apart, and American Character.

Gyasi's style of storytelling in Homegoing is quite original and unexpected. The story moves forward in time, through generations, from two original characters born centuries ago in Ghana. We meet Effia and Esi at the beginning of the novel, and follow the story of their lives and their descendant's through life and time to the present day.

I like a good puzzle, and, beyond the rich and descriptive storytelling, is an intertwining adventure that kept me winding my way back through later characters lives to the stories of their ancestors. The book is part history, part character building, and part genealogy, as all of our lives are really.

The real center of this book is colonialism, slavery, and how the histories of these interconnected realities touch the core of who we are today. They are inescapable, in our history, and Gyasi's heart-touching telling of this history through the lives of half sisters Effia, married to an Englishman, and Esi, sold into slavery, and their descendants is unique and engrossing.