Parisian Phoenix Publishing

Let’s take a look at what I read in 2025. According to Goodreads, I read more than 15,500 pages in published books. I say published books because I also read unsolicited submissions for Parisian Phoenix and piles of pages for editing and critique.

The shortest book I read was Exactly how I Promote and Sell Books: A 15-minute Read by Kathy Dee. A whopping 16 pages! The longest book I read was Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros at almost 650 pages.

I missed my goal by one book, and not even a whole book as I have three partially read books near my bed. My five-star reads included (not including any Parisian Phoenix books):

1. A People’s Guide to Publishing by Joe Biel of Microcosm Publishing
2. Writing for the Soul: Instruction and Advice from an Extraordinary Writing Life by Jerry Jenkins
3. Intuitive Editing by Tiffany Yates Martin
4. Red Agenda, a vampire novel by William Prystauk
5. You’re Telling My Kids They Can’t Read This Book?: Our Hundred-Year Children’s Literature Revolution and How We’ll Keep Fighting to Support Our Families’ Right to Read by Andy Laties (see more about his bookstore below)
6. Forest Family: A Foster Care Story, a children’s book explaining foster care, by Kayla Erin Woods
7. Dead Squirrels Everywhere, a children’s book fit for the Addams family, by Gabrielle Ferrera
8. Ethan Weiss and the City Between Two Rivers, a dystopian young adult novel by R. Diskin Black (whose poetry-memoir comes out with us in March, paid subscribers can read one of his poems at the end of this newsletter)
9. The Tale of the Rose, a memoir about her relationship with her husband, by Consuelo de Saint-Exupèry
10. The Intuitive Author by Tiffany Yates Martin
11. The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick
12. Still: Based on a True Story by Geraldine Donaher (whose young adult novel Mouth Shut Head Down comes out this month!)
13. The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman
14. What Was and Will Be, poetry by retired Lehigh Valley journalist Eric Chiles