Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s prompt was: Bookish Discoveries I Made in 2025 (New-to-you authors you discovered, new genres you learned you like, new bookish resources you found, friends you made, local bookshops you found, a book club you joined, etc.)

1. 2025 was the year my husband I discovered a small bookstore in a tiny village about 30 minutes from where we live, which is sad considering we’d lived here for five years before we found it.

The store features mostly used books, some antique books, and a few new ones.

There are books from all kinds of genres, including a large history section.

The cozy mystery/mystery mass paperback section was the most exciting for me because they sell those for $1.50 each. I picked up some Murder, She Wrote books that I have enjoyed so far. The ones by Donald Bain anyhow. Not so sure about the Jon Land ones. I started one and … well, it was rife with odd writing in only the first few pages.

We haven’t been back since the end of summer but I think another trip there is due soon. I am hoping to explore their shelves for Nancy Drew books which they’ve had a collection of the last couple times we’ve been.

2. 2025 was also the year I discovered Storygraph to track the books I’ve read. I track my books in my reading journal but liked the idea of doing it via an app too. I don’t use Goodreads to track because my mom is connected to my Kindle/Goodreads account and reads a lot more than I do. I can’t find the books I’ve read in the mass amount she’s read so I wanted a place I could track my reads.

Storygraph does that for me. I enjoy logging on as I progress in a book and marking the progress as I go along. It also helps me keep a list of books I want to read.

I’m not as worried about the other stats it provides at the end of the year. I read to have fun and stats aren’t as important to me as they once were.

3. 2025 was when I discovered P.G. Wodehouse.

I have started with the Jeeves series by Wodehouse and have enjoyed the first two books I read. The dry British humor/sarcasm is perfect to me because it fits my sense of humor. That’s probably I’ve often preferred British shows, sitcoms, and books to American ones.

I’m looking forward to reading more of his books this year.

4. I discovered that my new favorite genre is “gentle vintage fiction.”

I would describe this genre as fiction that takes place in a small village or simple location and is written before the 1970s. They are usually books that are almost about nothing in particular. They detail the everyday lives of the main characters and take the reader on a leisurely walk that doesn’t lead to too much stress or sadness.

I would place the Miss Read books by Miss Read and P.G. Wodehouse books in this category.

I have a list of books in this genre that I hope to read this year, including more by both of those authors.

5. Another new author for me in 2025 was Sharon Mondragon.

I read two of her books in 2025 — Grandma Ruth Doesn’t Go To Funerals and The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady.

I hope to read the sequel to The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady sometime this year.

6. I discovered Murder, She Wrote books by Donald Bain in 2025.

They are actually not bad. The books give a more detailed look at Jessica’s personal life, with a lot of emphasis on her emotions as she solves the murders, and also on her being a widow. In the first book of the series, Gin and Daggers, she remembers her late husband Frank quite a bit, and it’s bittersweet to see her spending time in London in the same hotel she and Frank once stayed in.

Bain also included a lot of history of wherever Jessica was visiting in his books.

I haven’t read any of the books in the series by other authors but I will be trying a couple of them this year while also reading Bain’s books.

The attribution for the books is actually Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain, but…you know…there is no real Jessica Fletcher so Donald really writes them. Other authors took over later because he passed away. line up. I plan to read more of them for fun in 2026.

8. I rediscovered my love for The Chronicles of Narnia in 2025 and decided to re-read the series, which I had not read in 30 years. I read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe in 2024, but in 2025 I read The Horse and His Boy, The Magician’s Nephew, Prince Caspian, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

I will be reading The Silver Chair and The Last Battle this year.

9. In 2025, I discovered more Golden Age Crime Fiction authors such as Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham. I read one by Dorothy Sayers and enjoyed it and hope to read more of her and Allingham this year as well as discover other authors in this era/genre.

10. In 2025, I let go of reading what I thought others would want me to read or suggested I read – unless it was a super good suggestion. I just mean that I worried a lot less about reading what was popular or everyone else was reading and just read whatever I wanted to. If it interested me, then I read it, even if I hated it later. I also stepped out of my comfort zone several times to try a book that looked interesting to me but that I wouldn’t have tried in the past. I definitely plan to do more of this in 2026.

---

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.

If you would like to support my writing (and add to the fund for my daughter’s online art/science classes), you can do so here.

---

---

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.