Books read 2025

Every year I list the books I read in the past year, and that's below, in the order that I read them. A few observations:

-- I read about the same number  of books each year. I read 58 in 2025, 59 in 2024 and 49 in 2023. Some of these are re-reads, such as Moby-Dick and The Great Gatsby. 

-- My volunteer work as a judge for the Prometheus Award and Prometheus Hall of Fame Award takes up a significant amount of my reading, 18 books or so in the past year.

-- I read four Hilaritas Press books last year, including my own Robert Shea book and a re-read of The Sex  Magicians. Buying most Hilaritas Press books is a significant part of my "Robert Anton Wilson activism." Hilaritas Press needs the support of your wallet; it's part of keeping RAW's legacy alive.

-- Favorite fiction I read last year: midnight's simulacra, Lake of Darkness, Moby-Dick, The Great Gatsby, Cloud Atlas, The Great When. Favorite nonfiction: The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium, Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties, Kumano Kodo: Pilgrimage to Powerspots, Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All. But I liked most of the books I read, many of them quite a bit. 

1. Alliance Unbound, C.J. Cherryh and Jane Fancher.
2. Love and Loss: The Short Life of Ray Chapman, Scott Longert.
3. Cancelled: The Shape of Things to Come, Danny King.
4. Terra II ...A Way Out, Timothy Leary.
5. Knowledge, Reality, and Value: A Mostly Common Sense Guide to Philosophy, Michael Huemer.
6. Interstellar MegaChef, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, 
7. Waffle Irons vs. the Horde, Dr. Insensitive Jerk.
8. midnight's simulacra, nick black.
9. The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1: 1969-73, Allan Kozinn.
10. Invasion! Rome Against the Cimbri, 113–101 BC, Philip Matyszak.
11. Alien Clay, Adrian Tchaikovsky.
12. Beggar's Sky (Rich Man's Sky Book 3), Wil McCarthy.
13. The Glass Box, Michael Straczyki.
14. Epicurus and His Influence on History, Ben Gazur.
15. Moby-Dick or, The Whale, Herman Melville.
16. Shepherds Among Us: A Poetic Memoir, Trenda Geller.
17. Shadow of the Smoking Mountain, Howard Andrew Jones.
18. The Crying of Lot 49,  Thomas Pynchon.
19. Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London’s Lost Artist, Phil Baker.
20. Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life, Emily Austin.
21. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
22. The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium, Anthony Kaldellis.
23. Every Tom, Dick & Harry, Elinor Lipman.
24. The KLF: Chaos, Magic, and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds, John Higgs (the updated edition.)
25. Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.
26. Lake of Darkness, Adam Roberts.
27. Eight Million Ways to Die (Matthew Scudder, #5), Lawrence Block.
28. Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age, Ada Palmer.
29. Platinum Pohl: The Collected Best Stories, Frederik Pohl.
30. Xen: The Zen of the Other, Ezra Buckley (Joseph Matheny).
31. Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties, Lucy Moore.
32. Sell More Books! Book Marketing and Publishing for Low Profile and Debut Authors: Rethinking Book Publicity after the Digital Revolutions, Steve J. Miller. 
33. The Sound of Utopia: Musicians in the Time of Stalin, Michel Krielaars.
34. Keys to a Successful Retirement: Staying Happy, Active, and Productive in Your Retired Years, Fritz Gilbert. 
35. Salt, Adam Roberts.
36. The Sex Magicians, Robert Anton Wilson.
37. The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, James Warren.
38. The Book of Forbidden Words: A Liberated Dictionary of Improper English, Robert Anton Wilson. 
39. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley.
40. The Star Dwellers, James Blish.
41. Kumano Kodo: Pilgrimage to Powerspots, J. Christian Greer and Michelle K. Oing.
42. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, Philip K. Dick. 
43. Cloud Atlas, David K. Mitchell.
44. Every Day is a GOOD Day: Robert Shea on Illuminatus! Writing and Anarchism, Robert Shea.
45. Vineland, Thomas Pynchon.
46. The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told, Bill Janovitz.
47. All the Humans Are Sleeping, John  C.A. Manley.
48. Don't Try This at Home: Convention Reports, David Langford.
49. Melmoth the Wanderer, Charles Maturin.
50. For Emma,  Ewan Morrison.
51. Operation Wandering Soul, Richard Powers.
52. A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005, Robert Anton Wilson.
53. Vanishing World, Sayaka Murata.
54. The Crooked Hinge, John Dickson Carr.
55. Powerless,  Harry Turtledove.
56. The Great When, Alan Moore.
57. Days of Shattered Faith, Adrian Tchaikovsky.
58. If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All, Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. 

Ken Burns, RAW fan

 

Ken Burns. Creative Commons photo, source. 

Ken Burns,  the famous documentary filmmaker, is back in the news again for his new TV series about the Revolutionary War, which I have not seen yet, but want to. 

Something I did not know, until recently, is that Burns is a fan of Robert Anton Wilson and was an Illuminatus! fan back in the day. 

Rasa, who of course runs the day to day affairs Hilaritas Press and the RAW Trust for Christina Pearson, mentioned Burns in a recent email chain.

"Hampshire College, my alma mater, had a reunion in October, and while there I met up with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, one of the college's more famous alums. I gave him a copy of our RAW Memes book, and I just got back this nice letter," Rasa explains.

Burns wrote, in a letter dated Dec. 16, "Thank you for the gift. I have no idea how much Wilson's ideas have meant to me once I devoured the Illuminatus Trilogy in the 70s. Love,  love his thinking." The letter closes with some friendly remarks for Rasa.

One thing I have in common with Ken Burns (other than knowing Rasa) is that I like the RAW Memes book. I bought it right after it came out. Details at the Hilaritas  website.

Happy new year to everyone! 

The Templars and the Assassins, in one book

 

A British historian, Steve Tibble, takes on both the Templars and the Assassins in a new book. Of possible interest to Illuminatus! fans of course, also the Templars figure prominently in Robert Shea's All Things Are Lights. The full title of Tibble's book is Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood.

Here is the publisher's blurb:

The story of the medieval world's most extraordinary organisations, the Assassins and the Templars.   

The Assassins and the Templars are two of history's most legendary groups. One was a Shi'ite religious sect, the other a Christian military order created to defend the Holy Land. Violently opposed, they had vastly different reputations, followings, and ambitions. Yet they developed strikingly similar strategies–and their intertwined stories have, oddly enough, uncanny parallels.   

In this engaging account, Steve Tibble traces the history of these two groups from their origins to their ultimate destruction. He shows how, outnumbered and surrounded, they survived only by perfecting "the promise of death," either in the form of a Templar charge or an Assassin's dagger. Death, for themselves or their enemies, was at the core of these extraordinary organisations.   

Their fanaticism changed the medieval world–and, even up to the present day, in video games and countless conspiracy theories, they have become endlessly conjoined in myth and memory.

Michael Johnson on smart plants

 

Photo by Sergey Shmidt on Unsplash

Michael Johnson takes on a fascinating topic and shows off his erudition with his latest Substack newsletter, "On Plant Intelliegence And/Or Consciousness." 

"If it turns out to be slam-dunk correct that trees, plants, bushes and all their cousins, were intelligent all along? Why it’s just damned embarrassing at the very least. On the other hand, with the way we’re heating up the planet, the plants may all just be muttering to each other that it’s only a matter of time before the Golden Age of Cretacious II and the mammal parasites are mulch."

Michael promises, "I will get to Robert Anton Wilson’s experiences with plant mysticism in a future article."

My favorite series

During the recent discussion of science fiction writer Philip José Farmer, Mark Brown wrote in the comments, "The Riverworld series is actually my all-time favorite science fiction series."

I like the first two books of Farmer's Riverworld series very much, but I never finished the series. But Mark's comment made me think about my favorite series, here are what comes to mind for me:

1. Illuminatus!, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Yes, I know it was meant to be a single work, but it was first published as a trilogy. I also like Wilson's Schroedinger's Cat and Historical Illuminatus series. 

2. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. I have read it several times. 

3. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe. I also have read this several times. 

4. The Culture novels, Iain Banks. I have one or two left to read. 

5. The Matt Scudder novels, Lawrence Block. My favorite modern detective series. But everyone loves the Sherlock Holmes stories, right?

Many science fiction fans would likely cite George R. R. Martin's A Song of Fire Ice novels, but I tried one and couldn't get very far. Other fans would likely mention N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series, but I thought the first book, The Fifth Season, was much better than the other two. Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy also is famous, but as a teen, I thought Foundation and Empire was the only really good novel (I have not read them since). I really like Philip José Farmer's World of Tiers series. Jack Vance is another favorite of mine, his Lyonesse series is very good and in fact most of his books are connected in one way or another. I love Roger Zelazny, but the Amber series is not my favorite works of his.  There are probably other SF or fantasy series I should mention. Most of my favorite mainstream writers did not write their fiction as part of a series, but Tom Perrotta wrote two Tracy Flick books, both excellent, Election and Tracy Flick Can't Win. 

Cat Vincent's origin story

People on Bluesky have been posting "origin stories," here is Cat  Vincent's. He posted the above book cover and wrote, "Origin story

"Read it when I was thirteen; gave me the tools I needed to survive. Ten years ago, I made a guest appearance in John Higgs's intro to the new edition.

"Funny how it goes."

James Joyce books roundup, including 'Straight Outta Dublin'

Over at the Finnegans Wake blog, Peter Quadrino does a roundup of "A Few Notable Books on Joyce and His Afterlives," and the books he considers includes the Hilaritas Press book released this year, Straight Outta Dublin: James Joyce and Robert Anton Wilson, by Eric Wagner, with a big contribution by R. Michael Johnson. Here's what Peter had to say about the book (which he says he hasn't finished yet):

"This book examines the influence of the works of Joyce on the work of the Robert Anton Wilson, especially focusing on Finnegans Wake. The author Eric Wagner has been hosting Finnegans Wake reading groups for many years and has previously written a guide to the works of Robert Anton Wilson. Here, in a fragmented and digressive approach drawing from a wide array of disciplines, Wagner indulges in in-depth discussions of the Wake, drawing on the insights of John Bishop, Hugh Kenner, Joseph Campbell, while also venturing into other modernists like Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, and thinkers like Alfred Korzybski and Wilhelm Reich. In the latter half of the book, R. Michael Johnson (otherwise known as the OG, author of a great Substack) provides a detailed survey of the Joyce elements that appear across all of RAW's books. "

Merry Christmas

They used to "laugh and call him names."  Now they're all dead. (Caption by Bruce Sterling, source. )

Merry Christmas to everyone.  Thank you to Tracy Harms for pointing out the above. 

Bruce Sterling is a science fiction writer; my favorite is his novel Islands in the Net. I will always feel it should have won the Hugo. For more of his sense of humor, perhaps not always gainfully employed, see here.  For How I attended his New Year's Eve party in 2000, see here. 

 

Boing Boing posts about RAW

Mark Fraunfelder (Creative Commons photo). 

The popular Boing Boing blog (originally a magazine, which I subscribed to back in the day) has recently had two posts about Robert Anton Wilson.

The first, which went up Dec. 1, was by Mark Frauenfelder and covers the latest Hilaritas Press book, A Non-Euclidian Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson's Political Commentaries 1960-2005. Mark writes, "reading it today, his thinking feels more urgent than ever."

The second, also by Mark and posted Dec. 17, talks about RAW's love for  mystery writer John Dickson Carr and links to my blog post on the subject. And, in turn, my post began with a post on BlueSky by RAW Semantics. 

Mark and his wife, Carla Sinclair, founded bOING bOING the magazine, before it became a blog. I once called the phone number listed for the magazine when I was wondering why I hadn't seen a new issue for months, and a young woman told me that "Mark" had been busy helping Billy Idol with Idol's latest album. I was too shy to say, "Hey, are you Carla?!" but I was told later it was likely Ms. Sinclair. 

John Higgs launches paid Substack option

John Higgs' Substack has until now been a free newsletter, filled with news and essays. While the free version of the newsletter will continue, John has announced he is offering paid options, too.

Readers who pay  £6 per month or £60 per year (or in American dollars, $9 a month or $85 a year) will get "The New Moon Letters," essays each new moon, plus a "Midsummer Annual," an entire book that will be mailed to you, plus the free newsletter. Founding members ($150 a year) get three copies of the annual book.

Here is a description of the newsletters for paid subscribers:

"So from January I will also start writing the New Moon Letters - new essays on all sorts of topics that will arrive every new moon. The New Moon Letters will be longer essays than have appeared in past Octannual Manuals, but still manageable in email form."

Here is what the annual books will be like:

"These Midsummer Annuals will build into a nice little collection over the coming years, and they will be quite rare, as the print run will be only a little more than the number of paid subscribers. Who knows, maybe they will worth a few quid on eBay one day? I’m aiming for each one to be around 150 pages or 50,000 words, based on my prejudice that collections of writers’ miscellany are great, but only for the first 150 pages."

Full announcement here.  

Maybe Night followup: New recording, new reading groups

 The video recording of the Maybe Night panel discussion of Finnegans Wake is now available, above. Among the folks I know from the blog are Bobby Campbell, Eric Wagner, Peter Quadrino and Oz Fritz, so I know RAW fans are well represented. Also present at the beginning of the video are Igor Belokrinitsky, Lorenzo Peyrani, Alexander Logvinenko, Amy and Richard Harte. Other folks appear later on.

Note that when you check out the official Maybe Night page, there are two new online Finnegans Wake discussion groups that are beginning. The Winter Wakeans, "the world's slowest Finnegans Wake reading group," is scheduled to do four pages each winter, from 2026 to 2234. That is not a misprint. That seems a bit slow to me, so instead I am going to participate in the Finnegans Wake 2026 Readalong. Here is some information, and here is the actual schedule. It looks like you can participate regardless if you have a physical copy of the book or an ebook.

The Maybe Night page I link to has various other links and contributions, check it out. 

Happy Maybe Night!

 

Maybe Night has arrived! Go here for all of the contributions and details! There are two new Finnegans Wake reading groups, for example, and contributions from quite a few people. Online discussion about to start as I write this. 

There is also a special Maybe Night announcement about an Illuminatus! TV series/film in development, with more details to be announced in 2026. 

Philip José Farmer reading recommendations

Philip Jose Farmer (source). 

Robert Anton Wilson and science fiction writer Philip José Farmer were fans of each other's work. See this blog post for an apparent reference to Farmer's Wold Newton in Masks of  the Illuminati; for Wilson on Farmer's Riverworld novels, and Farmer on Wilson's work, go here. 

A couple of RAW fans, Mark K. Brown and myself, are Farmer fans. So I asked him what his favorite Farmer works are.

Mark answered, "My absolute favorite is the 1st Riverworld book. I love that series, World of Tiers, the Khokarsa books, the fictional biographies."

I like the first two Riverworld books, the World of Tiers series and "Riders of the Purple Wage," his Hugo Award winning novella inspired by Joyce's Finnegans Wake. To find "Riders of the Purple Wage"  see this listing of appearances. 

For more on Farmer, see this elaborate official website.  See also the Science Fiction Encyclopedia entry.  I linked above to the Wikipedia bio. 

As with other classic authors, such as Poul Anderson, Farmer's books often go on sale cheap as Amazon Kindle editions, although I didn't notice any current compelling sales when I looked yesterday.