The Books I Have Read Since April 2025

It has been a slow cou­ple of months for my read­ing habit. Al­though, now that I’ve said that out loud, I re­al­ize I say that every time. I never quite read enough books by the time I feel ready to write one of these read­ing re­views.

In the in­ter­est of brevity, let’s jump straight in.

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

After read­ing The Midnight Library in January, I was thor­oughly im­pressed by Haig’s work. I wanted more, but was­n’t sure what to read next. So, the next time I saw a book with an in­ter­est­ing ti­tle which hap­pened to be his, I picked it up.

If The Midnight Library was a lit­er­ary ther­apy ses­sion, How to Stop Time is a his­tory les­son. It fol­lows a man who ages at one-tenth the rate of a nor­mal hu­man. De­spite be­ing given the gift of ex­tra life, he reg­u­larly falls into spats of de­pres­sion when his loved ones die be­fore him.

While Haig’s writ­ing con­tin­ues to be sen­ti­men­tal and ap­pre­cia­tive of the small things in life (a trait few seem to pos­sess these days), I ul­ti­mately found the book pre­dictable and un­en­gag­ing. It was a good book, and I felt sat­is­fied hav­ing read it, I had put it down for a few days at a time more than once to do so. If you’re go­ing to read just one of Haig’s books, it should­n’t be this one.

Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green

I’ve been a fan of John Green’s work since I was kid. I re­mem­ber read­ing Looking for Alaska as I cruised down the Mississippi River on a school trip. It was one of the most mem­o­rable books (and ex­pe­di­tions) I’ve had the plea­sure of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing.

Naturally, I was ec­sta­tic to hear John Green pub­lished some­thing new: Everything is Tuberculosis, a book about the facets of our lives (of which there are many) that we can thank TB for.

I liked this book, but I don’t think it matches the re­flec­tive at­ti­tude about the hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence you find in his other books—but that’s a good thing! Everyhitng is Tuberculosis is not a book you’re sup­posed to re­late to, but a book that tells a story about a life most in the west­ern world find com­pletely un­fa­mil­iar. One where each and every day is counted. One where the price of a med­ica­tion is the most im­por­tant num­ber. One where you might not sur­vive.

The fact that I could­n’t re­late to the events in Everything is Tuberculosis is the ex­act rea­son why I’m glad I read it.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

I read How to Win Friends and Influence People (a mouth­ful, I know) not be­cause I needed ad­vice on the sub­ject. I read it be­cause I be­lieve this book to be a telling win­dow into the minds of the busi­ness­men of the early 20th cen­tury.

I’ve been told that this book is still rel­e­vant to­day; that the ad­vice still works. I dis­agree. The pri­or­i­ties, val­ues, and cul­ture are en­tirely dif­fer­ent to­day than when this book was writ­ten. I found it fas­ci­nat­ing to com­pare and con­trast be­tween my own ex­pe­ri­ence and the au­thor’s.