A Year in Words: What I Read, What I Wrote, and What Moved Me in 2025

Reading by magnetic attraction in a rapidly weirding world

Dear Living Dark readers,

Well, the calendar has rolled ‘round once again to that time of year when we all reflect on what has transpired during the previous twelve months. For me, this always involves taking stock of what I read and wrote. As I did last year, I’m sharing the result of this stock-taking exercise with you since I enjoy perusing other people’s year-end reading lists. I’m also copying most of the format that I used last time, since it feels comfortable and natural.

What I Wrote in 2025

A new book

The obvious headliner here is my new book, Writing at the Wellspring, published just two weeks ago.

I developed it largely from essays that I originally published here, all the way back to the launch of this newsletter in 2022. Early last year I asked my readers (you) for help in coming up with a title for it, even before the book’s actual shape had revealed itself to me. That shape came out in a month-long rush late last year, in July through August 2024, when I was severely ill and incapacitated by my first-ever case of COVID-19. Then in October through December I taught a course at Weirdosphere from the unpublished manuscript. Creativity’s currents and machinations are unfailingly strange and unpredictable.

Sincere thanks to all of you for joining me on the journey to this book’s publication. It was my first venture into self-publishing after 25 years of working through the traditional route. I’m pleased with the result, and I should mention that I had excellent help in this from D. Patrick Miller of Fearless Books through his “assisted publishing” service.

The reaction to Writing at the Wellspring has been gratifyingly positive. It briefly became an Amazon bestseller in one of its subject categories during the preorder period. BookLife from Publishers Weekly has praised it as “an intimate journey into the mystery of creativity and spirit.” Joanna Penn calls it “a guide for writers who welcome the dark and hunger for meaning.” JF Martel calls it “a guide for writers unlike any other.” Kat (Katrijn) Van Oudheusden says it’s “important to any writer ready to see through the self illusion and realize the freedom this brings to any creative work.” Clintavo finds it “the most illuminating book on creativity I’ve read in a long time.” Amanda Saint says, “If you’re seeking permission to trust the dark unknown that guides your work, and your way of being in the world, this book offers profound companionship on that journey.” Some of the readers who encountered the book in its earliest form in the course that I taught from it—an audience of writers, artists, educators, and more—found it “revolutionary,” “the perfect book for this moment in my life,” and “a gift to anyone with a core creative longing.”

It’s available from all the major stores (Amazon, Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and so on) in both paperback and electronic editions:

Most popular posts and essays

My most popular pieces published here at The Living Dark in 2025 are as follows, as measured by a combination of likes, comments, and behind-the-scenes engagement from readers like private messages and emails. Often the posts that generate reactions from readers who say they’ve been deeply moved are not the ones with the most visible public response. I find this oddly appropriate.

• The Imaginal Doorway: When Creativity Meets the Shadow Realm

• Going Silent: A Hiatus for The Living Dark (my February 16 post announcing a hiatus)

• The Path Ahead (my August 5 post upon resuming the newsletter)

• Humans Are the Dreaming Animal

• Reverse-Engineering the Dream of Your Life

• Disinvesting from the World Nightmare

• Frankenstein’s Warning: Don’t Deny Your Daemon

• We Are All Artificial Intelligences

• On UFOs and the Death of Astonishment

• Ray Bradbury’s Method for Discovering What You’re Meant to Write

• A Winter’s Benediction: Joy to the World on Piano

• Reclaim Your Reading: On Curating a Personal Digital Digest

• What Good Is Art in a World on the Brink?

• Writing at the Wellspring: Cover Reveal + Early Praise

• The Hidden Force That Shapes Your Art

• Reflections on Bibliomancy, Storytelling, and Emerging Patterns

• On What The Living Dark Has Quietly Become

What I Read in 2025

Below are two book lists plus a shorter list of essays and articles. The book lists are divided into 1) books that I finished this year, whether by reading them in their entirety or finishing them after having started them in 2024, and 2) books that I started or continued in 2025 and will continue in the new year. The list of essays and articles represents, naturally, a fraction of the total number that I read.

For no particular reason, I have arranged the books alphabetically by author but the essays and articles alphabetically by title.

As always, this list reflects curiosity rather than completionism.

Books I read in full (or finished from the previous year):

As with last year—as with every year when I’m not following an externally imposed course of reading (like for a college degree)—I set my course as a reader this year by pure blind interest. I followed whatever directions and substreams revealed themselves by sheer magnetic attraction. This led me to and through books and authors I wouldn’t have anticipated in advance, including some that don’t “feel” like my mental image of “me” when I survey this list. But all of them contained something of interest that drew me to them.

• Notes on Nothing: The Joy of Being Nobody (2024) by Anonymous

• In Each Wave, the Entirety of the Sea (2024) by John Astin

• The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in life (2008) by Leo Babauta

• Illusions 2: The Adventures of a Reluctant Student (2014) by Richard Bach

• Effortless Being (2023) by David Bingham

• Liberation Beyond Imagination: Discovering Spiritual Freedom through the Truth of Experience (2024) by Peter Brown

• The Yoga of Radiant Presence (2020) by Peter Brown

• The Yoga of Radiant Presence Revealed in the Gospel of Thomas (2020) by Peter Brown

• Dirty Enlightenment: The Inherent Perfection of Imperfection (2012) by Peter Brown

• Essence of Recognition: The Yoga of Radiant Presence Revealed within the Pratyabijna Hridayam for Modern Yogis (2020) by Peter Brown

• Hero (2013) by Rhonda Byrne

• How the Irish Saved Civilization (1995) by Thomas Cahill

• Wishes Fulfilled (2012) by Wayne Dyer

• The Essence of Ribhu Gita (1984), translated by N. R. Krishnamoorthi Aiyer

• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear (2015) by Elizabeth Gilbert

• Already Awake: Dialogues with Nathan Gill (2004) by Nathan Gill

• Being: The Bottom Line (2006) by Nathan Gill

• The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Are Meant to Do (2015) by Jeff Goins

• Real Artists Don’t Starve: Timeless Strategies for Striving in the New Creative Age (2017) by Jeff Goins

• An Anatomy of Inspiration and An Essay on the Creative Mood (1940) by Rosamund E. M. Harding

• Awakening to the Dream (2003) by Leo Hartong

• From Self to Self (2005) by Leo Hartong

• Pouring Concrete: A Zen Path to the Kingdom of God (2023; original edition 1999) by Robert Harwood

• The Art of Unwriting (forthcoming) by Youri Hermes

• The Secret of Think and Grow Rich (2019) by 𝐌𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐳

• The Miracle of a Definite Chief Aim (2017) by 𝐌𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐳

• Know Yourself (2011; English translation of thirteenth-century text) by Ibn ‘Arabi/Balyani

• Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership (2011) by Joseph Jaworski

• The Book of Listening (2008) by Jean Klein

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness (2020) by Eric Jorgenson

• Watchers (1987) by Dean Koontz

• The Kybalion (1908)

• I Am That (1973) by Nisargadatta Maharaj

• Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization (1963) by Nisargadatta Maharaj

• Seeds of Consciousness: The Wisdom of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1982), ed. Jean Dunn

• American Mystic: Memoirs of a Happy Man (2016) by A. Ramana

• One Blade of Grass: Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir (2019) by Henry Shukman

• The Art of Peace and Happiness (2011) by Rupert Spira

• The Personality of Man (1946) by G. N. M. Tyrell

• Selfless Leadership: A Complete Guide to Awakening the Servant Leader Within (2022) by Kat (Katrijn) Van Oudheusden

• Seeing No Self: Essential Inquiries That Reveal Our Nondual Nature (2024) by Kat (Katrijn) Van Oudheusden

• The Sovereign Artist (prepublication) by Clintavo (Clint Watson)

• Open Secret (1965) by Wei Wu Wei

• Abiding in Nondual Awareness (2013) by Robert Wolfe

• Always Only One: A Dialogue on the Essence of Nondual India (2013) by Robert Wolfe

• Awakening to Infinite Presence (2015) by Robert Wolfe

• One Essence: The Nondual Clarity of an Ancient Poem (2011) by Robert Wolfe

• Foolsgold: Making Something from Nothing and Freeing Our Creative Process (2007) by Susan G. Wooldridge

• The Chrysalids (1955) by John Wyndham

Books I read in part (and will likely continue reading into the new year):

• The complete satsang transcripts of Robert Adams

• Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success (2023) by Scott Adams

• Be the Gateway: A Practical Guide to Sharing Your Creative Work and Engaging an Audience (2017) by Dan Blank

• The Art of Slow Writing (2014) by Louise DeSalvo

• Awake: It’s Your Turn (2021) by Angelo DiLullo

• Happiness is Free: And It’s Easier Than You Think (2020) by Lester Levenson and Hale Dwoskin

• Think and Grow Rich (1937) by Napoleon Hill

• Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity by Ken Ferlic (website essays). To repeat what I said in my year-end reading list from last year, this one isn’t a book but a website with a virtually infinite supply of articles on conscious creation, nonduality, awakening, ultimate freedom, and related matters. In 2025, just like in 2024, I read maybe two books’ worth of posts and essays here, finding the high level of bizarre textual errors in most pieces to be outweighed by the general insightfulness of the content.

• Real-World Nonduality: Reports from the Field (2018), edited by Greg Goode

• Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth (1995) by Burton L. Mack

• Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir (2008) by Lisa Dale Norton

• The Seven Laws of Money (1974) by Michael Phillips

• Sensemaking in Organizations (1995) by Karl E. Weick

Notable articles and essays

I didn’t do as thorough a job this year as I did last year in keeping track of the articles and essays that struck me as most memorable. But here are some that definitely stand out.

• “The AI We Could Have Had” by Evgeny Morozov, FT Magazine, June 27, 2024

• “The AI We Deserve” by Evgeny Morozov, Boston Review, December 2, 2024 (“Critiques of artificial intelligence abound. Where’s the utopian vision for what it could be?”)

• “As American as Apple Pie? An Insider’s View of Nichiren Shoshu” by Sandy McIntosh, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Winter 1992

• “Data Free Disney” by Janet Vertesi, Public Books, January 1, 2023 (“In this miniseries, Seeing Past the Tech, social scientist Janet Vertesi un-blackboxes the systems we call ‘artificial intelligence.’”)

• “‘Here I Gather All the Friends’: Machiavelli and the Emergence of the Private Study” by Andrew Hui, The Public Domain Review, November 13, 2024

• “Inside the $621 Million Legal Battle for the ‘Soul of the Internet’” by John Blistein, Rolling Stone, September 29, 2024 (“Major record labels have sued the online library Internet Archive over thousands of old recordings, raising the question: Who owns the past?”)

• “Kingdom of the Solitary Reader” by Ed Simon, 3 Quarks Daily, January 22, 2024

• “The Pathologies of Precision Medicine: The Runaway Logic of Risk Reduction” by Paul Scherz, The Hedgehog Review, Fall 2024

• “The Relations between Religion and Art” by Arthur Osborne, The Mountain Path 1, no. 1, January 1964

• “Sleep Paralysis as Spiritual Experience” by David J. Hufford, Transcultural Psychiatry 42, no. 1, 2005

• “Who Wants to Believe in UFOs?” by Clare Coffey, The New Atlantis, Summer 2024 (“Strange things in the skies of a clockwork universe”)

And what about you? What did you read this year? And next year do you need to consider reading less, or perhaps reading differently?

Looking ahead to 2026

It looks likely that I’ll begin writing a new book in the new year. In fact, a couple of months ago I found myself assembling existing materials, including uncollected posts and essays here at The Living Dark, and meditating on their interconnections and throughlines. The next book—if indeed there is a next book; it’s always good to leave that little door open, or maybe closed, to honor the daemon muse’s guidance—is likely to be more directly inclined in a spiritual direction. Certainly, Writing at the Wellspring is as much about waking up as writing and creativity. It’s actually about how they are, or can be, the same thing. But I’m getting the feeling that the next book may bring the waking-up aspect to the forefront. I may also act on the suggestion, given to me by a close relative a couple of years ago, to write some kind of map or memoir of my personal spiritual journey and outlook. Yes, I know such books are, as the saying goes, a dime a dozen. I also know that I have found great value in some of them. Time will tell. I’m also incubating an idea for a book on sleep paralysis—part memoir, part cultural/spiritual/scientific exploration.

I’m also going to continue publishing new posts here at The Living Dark, including a new intermittent series of posts consisting of thoughts, quotations, and fragments. This will be alongside the ongoing multipolar focus on creativity, the daemon, weird/supernatural horror, and the living novel or movie of the rapidly weirding world around us. In other words, the usual.

I also have a collaborative post in process with another Substack writer whose work on writing and creativity I greatly admire. And a couple of upcoming podcast appearances that I’ll tell you about.

Until then, and as always, it’s a pleasure and an honor to have you here. I wish you much goodness in the coming year.

Warm regards,