The Wrap Up

2025, like all the years before it, was a mixture of good and bad around here. Health issues became a little more challenging this year and took up more time, but I feel like I’m still in pretty good shape for an old-timer. My writing production isn’t what it once was, but I managed to turn out more than half a million words, which amounted to almost six novels. No short stories this year. Most importantly, I feel like the work is still pretty good quality. My schedule is fairly full again for 2026, but changes are looming. But when aren’t they?

Of course, reading is still very important to me, as it has been ever since I first visited the bookmobile when I was six years old. I read 149 books this year, a nice number but down some from last year. Here are my ten favorite books (not best, necessarily, but favorite) that I read this year, alphabetical by author:

SHARPE’S TIGER, Bernard Cornwell

GANGLAND’S DOOM: THE SHADOW OF THE PULPS, Frank Eisgruber Jr.

RANCHO BRAVO #1: CALHOON, Thorne Douglas (Ben Haas)

THE CHRONICLES OF HANUVAR, VOLUME 2: THE CITY OF MARBLE AND BLOOD, Howard Andrew Jones

LONGHORN STAMPEDE, Philip Ketchum 

SARA AND THE MAD DOG, Stephen Mertz

ROBERT E. HOWARD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A TEXAS WRITER, Willard M. Oliver

SOMETIME LOFTY TOWERS, David C. Smith

STORYTELLER: HELPFUL HINTS AND TALL TALES FROM THE WRITING LIFE, Carlton Stowers

’NADA, Daniel Boyd (Dan Stumpf)

At least a dozen more books could have made this list and some of them probably would have on a different day. I read a lot of good books. I believe all of those listed above are still in print and easily available except for the Western novel by Philip Ketchum.

So what does 2026 hold in store? Who knows? I plan to keep writing and reading for the foreseeable future, and I figure most of the other stuff will take care of itself. My thanks to all of you reading this, some of whom have been here for more than twenty years. We’ll see how long we can keep it going.

UPDATE: In response to a request in the comments, here are the other books I considered for my top ten list, in the order in which I read them: THE RULE OF THREES, Jeffrey Deaver; THE ART OF RON LESSER, VOLUME 2, Robert Deis, Bill Cunningham, eds.; ONCE A FIGHTER, Les Savage Jr.; SWITCHEROO, Emmett McDowell; GUN LAW AT VERMILION, Matt Stuart (L.P. Holmes); HAMILTON'S HAREM, William Kane (Ben Haas); THE JOY WHEEL, Paul W. Fairman; KNIGHT OF DARKNESS: THE LEGEND OF THE SHADOW, Will Murray; THE WILD ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, VOLUME 5, Will Murray; OVERBOARD, George F. Worts; THE BULLET GARDEN, Stephen Hunter; THE RED TASSEL, David Dodge; DREAM TOWN, David Baldacci; MARIHUANA, William Irish (Cornell Woolrich); and EYE WITNESS, George Harmon Coxe. Any of these books are well worth your time.

Review: Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author - Willard M. Oliver

I never get tired of reading about Robert E. Howard and his work. I’ve read several biographies and books about his writings and countless articles on those subjects. So I am definitely the target audience for ROBERT E. HOWARD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A TEXAS AUTHOR, the massive new REH biography by Willard M. Oliver published by the University of North Texas Press in hardcover and e-book editions. (It doesn’t hurt that I’m a graduate of UNT, or as it was known when I went there, North Texas State University.)

I really enjoyed the other biographies I read, even the deeply flawed DARK VALLEY DESTINY by L. Sprague de Camp, Catherine Crook de Camp, and Jane Whittington Griffin. It was the first real REH bio, and a friend of mine helped the de Camps with the research. Plus we didn’t really know at the time about much of the stuff they got wrong or misinterpreted. Anyway, before I wander off in the weeds . . .

ROBERT E. HOWARD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A TEXAS AUTHOR will likely be considered the definitive REH biography from now on, since it’s exhaustively researched, extensively footnoted, and brings together in one place all the information that’s available about Howard’s life, plus adding some things that I’ve never come across before in nearly 60 years of being a Howard fan. Academically, I just don’t see how anybody could ever top this volume.

However, I’m not an academic. I’m a guy who likes Howard’s yarns and have ever since I spotted the Lancer edition of CONAN THE USURPER in Barber’s Bookstore in downtown Fort Worth lo, those many years ago. And I feel a strong kinship toward Howard dating back to the moment I opened that paperback with its purple-edged pages and read in L. Sprague de Camp’s introduction that Howard was from Cross Plains, Texas—a town I’d heard of all my life because both sides of my family come from the same general area in west central Texas. I mean, here was a guy from a little town in Texas who forged a career as a writer when everything seemed stacked against him, and that was exactly what I wanted to do!

So what I look for in a biography of Robert E. Howard is a sense of who he was, what he did, how and why he did it (as much as it’s possible to figure out the why), and the same feeling I get when I stand in the Howard House in Cross Plains and look into that tiny room where Bob lived and worked . . . and this new book delivers on that. It delivers on that magnificently, in prose that’s clear, straightforward, sometimes poignant, and very compelling.

I haven’t been to Cross Plains for Howard Days in a number of years and I’ve never met or been in contact with Will Oliver, so I say this not as a friend of his but as a long-time reader and fan of Howard’s work.

ROBERT E. HOWARD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A TEXAS AUTHOR is the best book I’ve read this year. For Howard fans, I give it my highest recommendation.