Thank you for this episode. 2025 was a year that had many positive moments for our family including adopting the sweetest English Bulldog in December. I work in academia so it was a very tense year at work. I love Sarah’s comment about refusing to let him ruin my 2026. It reminds of the comment that Joy is an act of resistance.
My favorite books I read in 2025 were “Remarkably Bright Creatures” and “Everything is Tuberculosis.”
Re: the dismantling of agencies that provided needed protections… Friends, I care for you and this community, and I want you to know now might not be the time for a bagged salad. 🙏
I was actually thinking of the "discours indirect libre" of a Flaubert type, which in English is, apparently, "free indirect speech," but I haven't read the book she's referencing and I am admitted not all that well-read, actually! I tend to read stuff I teach (19th century French lit) and, like, Stephen King/John Grisham for fun haha :)
I read The Grapes of Wrath this summer and was just floored by it. Reading that book while watching DOGE and the tech bros and AI boom and widespread layoffs and horrific othering of immigrants was like a looking in a fun house mirror. Also was a very good precursor to reading Habits of the Heart, thinking about individuality and big business and the ideal of communal values.
It's a long time ago, but I do remember when I first read that it was such a revelation. I still think about the chapter about the turtle crossing the road.
This message is for Ms. Stewart-Holland. Your Substack has the coolest name ever. I’ve been meaning to say that, and the conversation reminded me to do it. Clever, clear, concise. And alliterated which I understand you favor. So you write in two PPs.
I just want to shout out anyone who works in or is funded by the federal public sector this year. When your job is tied to the federal government, the president and his policies absolutely do have the ability ruin your professional life. It has been a year of complete chaos and uncertaintly for all of us-unclear and constantly shifting guidance, pivoting, looking over our backs. That the Supreme Court seems to believe that a president can and should wreck havoc on the federal workforce if he so choses (and all of those who are funded and supported by federal programs) means that I don't think that there will be a way forward to convince good folks to go into public service in the future. My career, as a public health professional, is personally in tatters and I am struggling to even figure out a way forward for myself but am more worried for the profession as a whole. Public health has essentially been gutted from the inside. If you are with me in this mess, solidarity. May there be some hope in the darkness in 2026, despite the same people who wish us harm being in power.
Two bright reading lights for me in 2025: "Stone Yard Devotional" by Charlotte Wood and "Wellness" by Nathan Hill. My most propelling read was "Wild Dark Shore" -a great escape for your holidays if you need it.
I work in federally funded research, and this administration has impacted my career at a very pivotal time… right when I should be finding my footing. I will never say this administration ruined my year because I had my first baby. However, it ruined by year professionally and really impacted my stress levels because I’ve spent a ton of time trying to find new funding and apply for grants instead of enjoying every single moment about my son’s first year of life.
I am so sorry to hear that. I work in academia (clinical position doing unfunded research) and very much understand how impactful the timing of this in your career can be. Praying that a good grant without ridiculous restrictions based on recent changes is coming your way in addition to lots of baby snuggles.
So much wasted time trying to respond to cuts, to poorlly written/border line illegal new funding requirements, and to unclear guidance (or not guidance at all). Just waste, waste,waste all around. And for what? So that there is less research-fewer scientific breakthroughs? Less health and environmental projection? Its infuriating.
Congratulations on your baby-what is a baby but a signal of hope that we will endure and go on? Children are such a gift and ground us in what matters, every day.
One thing I have noticed this administration, especially being off of social media except Substack, I have experienced way more real world ramifications from the administration impacting myself and my friends (especially the refugees in my life) but am way less emotionally/spiritually affected. I know my values, I know what I believe and I can continue to live those values no matter who is in power. Beth's prayer "Give me the resilience to love and study the world without tethering my mood the president" has been a guiding light for me this year. Thank you.
This resonates so much with me. My organization is 75% federally funded. We have been on the roller coaster, lost colleagues, just generally felt the impact daily. And yet I find myself so much more regulated this time around.
Also, I had a friend (in a loving, trying to be helpful kind of way) say that layoffs are a reality of the private sector too. I acknowledge there is truth in that, but I haven't been able to get my thoughts/feelings/words together enough to explain why I think this is different. The chaos of it all matters. And no matter how good I feel about my work and how much I rationally know this administration's opinion of it doesn't make it less valuable...it is hard not to internalize the "you do meaningless work and also you're a piece of shit person for doing it" messaging. I don't think I'll ever feel secure in a job again, and job searching is an entirely different (and terrible) thing now.
Ooof so well said. The way that all of our work and effort and values were just completedly invalidated and written off. With almost an air of glee. It really shifted something in me. The public sector recovering from this is going to take TIME if it ever happens at all.
For me this year has been an emotional roller coaster between despair and hope, depending on the headlines. I tend to go into an election with more anxiety than excitement, especially right now when the stakes are so high.
On affordability (maybe this is a Friday comment?) I need candidates to stop running on the lie that they can lower prices in any life changing way. That is now how our economy works. What we need are candidates to get brutally honest about the fact that we can't afford anything because we are grossly underpaid. We have millions of Americans on Medicaid and SNAP because corporations take advantage of those programs in order to chronically underpay their employees. I will vote for the first candidate who comes up with a workable idea for reigning in the gross profits built on the underpaid labor of their employees and our tax dollars - I don't care what their political party is.
💯 I saw an ad for one of our Democratic senate candidates in Minnesota and the whole thing was about how she was going to lower prices if elected. I was so appalled that she chose to use the same talking point as Trump while knowing full well it doesn’t work that way and if elected she would face the backlash of it not working that way. I wasn’t planning to vote for her in the primary anyway, but that solidified it.
I would be 100000% in favor of a C-suite salary cap with the mandate that the extra revenue needs to be spent on payroll/benefits for the rest of the employees (not passed on to shareholders). I don’t care what laws have to be passed or political machinations need to be done to make that happen, I’m for it.
I love that Beth's favorite book of 2025 was Little Women. I usually only think of new(er) books as in contention for that prize, but now I'm going to think about that differently! I'm planning a Little Women re-read myself sometimes over the next two weeks.
Some of my favorites from the year were These Summer Storms, The History of Sound, Awake by Jen Hatmaker, The Names, and Table For Two. I'm also thisclose to finishing Buckeye and that book has sucked me IN.
Can I admit to being a little confused about the social media? Because when I say to myself "I'm online too much. Things here are toxic. I need a break." I'm talking about my Google News feed. And there's nothing social about that. I think I have a minority experience with social media. I'd spent some time on the usenet in the 1980s and early 1990s. I understood that if you look at every single person's opinions, many of them are going to suck and there's going to be more arguing that productive conversation. I strongly resisted Facebook. I was working and in grad school at the same time, and it was when both groups -- my work group and my fellow students -- said that they needed me there that I joined. Because of my early experiences, I came with rules. I wasn't going to allow anybody on my feed that I didn't want to listen to. And I did get the same speech about joining Instagram and Twitter, but the projects there were small and contained and I left as soon as they were done. So anyway, the thing where there's way too much political arguing was just not my primary experience. So is it something else besides politics that you find toxic about social media? Or did you just not walk away before?
I started Wolf Hall a number of years ago and didn't get very far. It's still on my shelf though! Sarah's comments make me want to try again. Maybe I'll check out the Simon Heisel resource to help me out.
Stephanie, DO IT! I joined the Wolf Hall slow read with Simon this year after hearing Sarah talk about it. I knew almost nothing about that historical period or group of people, so there were many times I didn’t understand what was happening or why upon first reading, but I learned so much from the weekly posts & comments over there on Footnotes & Tangents. The force and the beauty of the writing was so compelling that it kept me going even when I felt confused (and actually I ended up doing a not-so-slow read of the final book, as I just really couldn’t put it down). The series was by far one of the best things I’ve ever read. And surprisingly, there were many easy comparisons to be made between those at the top of our government and those of Henry VIII.
If it helps, I joined up for next year! I got my books from ThriftBooks.com and they all arrived yesterday. I have never done a slow read and I am looking forward to it
I read Mrs. Dalloway for the first time this year and now I finally understand what people like about Virginia Woolf. I don't know if getting older made the difference, but that novel hit different than my previous attempts with Ms. Woolf.
Also read Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall and, wow, what a modern book! Definitely my favorite among the Bronte books. It's a little eery, actually, how much that book holds up after 200 years.
All my best reads this year were classics (also including Tuck Everlasting, Great Gatsby, A Room with a View, and The Secret Garden), and it's no coincidence that they were all read in community with my pilgrim group from the 2022 Jane Eyre pilgrimage. I'm telling y'all, there's nothing like reading with a group of people who enjoy applying sacred text practices to secular texts!
I also got my book club to read Paul Tremblay's Head Full of Ghosts before moving cross country. Their willingness to read and discuss one of my favorite horror books with me was the best going-away gift!
Like Beth, I am very worried that voters are going to keep demanding lower prices and throwing out the party in power when they don't deliver (because they can't; prices don't come down like that). I guess we just have to hope we're the ones holding the bag when voters finally acclimate to the new price level. Though we do need to do something about housing, education, healthcare and child/elderly care. But there are levers to pull. Kinda.
Like Sarah I am angry about the east wing of the White House, because of what it symbolizes. He's turning the White House into his presidential palace. He wants to be a king. But we don't have palaces in America, we don't have kings. The next Democrat president must ruthlessly tear it down, and do it gleefully, as part of a broader "Liberalism Has Teeth" agenda. The spoils of authoritarianism - all the spoils - must be fleeting and pyrrhic for liberalism to thrive.
Two other things made me furious. First, the murdering of Venezuelan boat crews done in our name and the rampant apathy and complicity to it. There must absolutely be accountability for this. And second, the SCOTUS decision that it's fine for ICE to racially profile people when demanding to see papers. I struggle for the words to describe how un-American, disgusting, and irredeemably hateful that is.
At the top you talked about how we always despair, a bit irrationally, when our enemies win power. But I think some things are truly gone. Among the many things that are irrevocably broken or only coming back with extreme effort: USAID and other gutted federal competencies, all the canceled research, the norms around non-partisan parts of the government, the canceled green energy projects, and the world's view of America as a reliable force for good. You can't count on a country when its people are so rotten that they only elect decent leaders half the time.
I do worry about the Democrats stressing affordability too much because the president and Congress don't have a ton of authority over the economy. The tariffs and decimating the federal workforce definitely exacerbated our economic problems, but I don't know that the Democrats can do a ton beyond being more sensible about these kinds of things.
I have never thought about moving abroad. I am too old and not rich enough for any country to take me on a long term basis. However, this is the first year that I have thought that I would be OK with it if one of my kids decided to move overseas. Everything seems so bleak in the US right now. I am trying to take Beth's advice of one step at a time.
I loved living overseas and long to do it again, but the fact is that we take America with us. Unless we renounce citizenship, we are still tied by taxes and other institutional entanglements to this country. Either way, we still need to use our voice and our vote. We still have obligations.
Curious if Sarah has heard of Liza Mundy’s Sisterhood of the CIA or Code Girls? I listened to them. So so good! And I don’t generally like nonfiction. She is an excellent writer. I also did Wolf Hall this year. I feel so sad it is over.
Thank you for this episode. 2025 was a year that had many positive moments for our family including adopting the sweetest English Bulldog in December. I work in academia so it was a very tense year at work. I love Sarah’s comment about refusing to let him ruin my 2026. It reminds of the comment that Joy is an act of resistance.
My favorite books I read in 2025 were “Remarkably Bright Creatures” and “Everything is Tuberculosis.”
Re: the dismantling of agencies that provided needed protections… Friends, I care for you and this community, and I want you to know now might not be the time for a bagged salad. 🙏
I was actually thinking of the "discours indirect libre" of a Flaubert type, which in English is, apparently, "free indirect speech," but I haven't read the book she's referencing and I am admitted not all that well-read, actually! I tend to read stuff I teach (19th century French lit) and, like, Stephen King/John Grisham for fun haha :)
A book I cannot stop thinking about is “Accountable” by Dashka Slater. About the fallout of a racist instagram account at a California high school
This was such a good reflection on the year!
I read The Grapes of Wrath this summer and was just floored by it. Reading that book while watching DOGE and the tech bros and AI boom and widespread layoffs and horrific othering of immigrants was like a looking in a fun house mirror. Also was a very good precursor to reading Habits of the Heart, thinking about individuality and big business and the ideal of communal values.
It's a long time ago, but I do remember when I first read that it was such a revelation. I still think about the chapter about the turtle crossing the road.
This message is for Ms. Stewart-Holland. Your Substack has the coolest name ever. I’ve been meaning to say that, and the conversation reminded me to do it. Clever, clear, concise. And alliterated which I understand you favor. So you write in two PPs.
I was today years old when I realized both her substacks were PPs. -Maggie
I just want to shout out anyone who works in or is funded by the federal public sector this year. When your job is tied to the federal government, the president and his policies absolutely do have the ability ruin your professional life. It has been a year of complete chaos and uncertaintly for all of us-unclear and constantly shifting guidance, pivoting, looking over our backs. That the Supreme Court seems to believe that a president can and should wreck havoc on the federal workforce if he so choses (and all of those who are funded and supported by federal programs) means that I don't think that there will be a way forward to convince good folks to go into public service in the future. My career, as a public health professional, is personally in tatters and I am struggling to even figure out a way forward for myself but am more worried for the profession as a whole. Public health has essentially been gutted from the inside. If you are with me in this mess, solidarity. May there be some hope in the darkness in 2026, despite the same people who wish us harm being in power.
Two bright reading lights for me in 2025: "Stone Yard Devotional" by Charlotte Wood and "Wellness" by Nathan Hill. My most propelling read was "Wild Dark Shore" -a great escape for your holidays if you need it.
I work in federally funded research, and this administration has impacted my career at a very pivotal time… right when I should be finding my footing. I will never say this administration ruined my year because I had my first baby. However, it ruined by year professionally and really impacted my stress levels because I’ve spent a ton of time trying to find new funding and apply for grants instead of enjoying every single moment about my son’s first year of life.
I am so sorry to hear that. I work in academia (clinical position doing unfunded research) and very much understand how impactful the timing of this in your career can be. Praying that a good grant without ridiculous restrictions based on recent changes is coming your way in addition to lots of baby snuggles.
So much wasted time trying to respond to cuts, to poorlly written/border line illegal new funding requirements, and to unclear guidance (or not guidance at all). Just waste, waste,waste all around. And for what? So that there is less research-fewer scientific breakthroughs? Less health and environmental projection? Its infuriating.
Congratulations on your baby-what is a baby but a signal of hope that we will endure and go on? Children are such a gift and ground us in what matters, every day.
One thing I have noticed this administration, especially being off of social media except Substack, I have experienced way more real world ramifications from the administration impacting myself and my friends (especially the refugees in my life) but am way less emotionally/spiritually affected. I know my values, I know what I believe and I can continue to live those values no matter who is in power. Beth's prayer "Give me the resilience to love and study the world without tethering my mood the president" has been a guiding light for me this year. Thank you.
This resonates so much with me. My organization is 75% federally funded. We have been on the roller coaster, lost colleagues, just generally felt the impact daily. And yet I find myself so much more regulated this time around.
Also, I had a friend (in a loving, trying to be helpful kind of way) say that layoffs are a reality of the private sector too. I acknowledge there is truth in that, but I haven't been able to get my thoughts/feelings/words together enough to explain why I think this is different. The chaos of it all matters. And no matter how good I feel about my work and how much I rationally know this administration's opinion of it doesn't make it less valuable...it is hard not to internalize the "you do meaningless work and also you're a piece of shit person for doing it" messaging. I don't think I'll ever feel secure in a job again, and job searching is an entirely different (and terrible) thing now.
All that to say...solidarity to you as well.
Ooof so well said. The way that all of our work and effort and values were just completedly invalidated and written off. With almost an air of glee. It really shifted something in me. The public sector recovering from this is going to take TIME if it ever happens at all.
"With almost an air of glee." Yes.
For me this year has been an emotional roller coaster between despair and hope, depending on the headlines. I tend to go into an election with more anxiety than excitement, especially right now when the stakes are so high.
On affordability (maybe this is a Friday comment?) I need candidates to stop running on the lie that they can lower prices in any life changing way. That is now how our economy works. What we need are candidates to get brutally honest about the fact that we can't afford anything because we are grossly underpaid. We have millions of Americans on Medicaid and SNAP because corporations take advantage of those programs in order to chronically underpay their employees. I will vote for the first candidate who comes up with a workable idea for reigning in the gross profits built on the underpaid labor of their employees and our tax dollars - I don't care what their political party is.
💯 I saw an ad for one of our Democratic senate candidates in Minnesota and the whole thing was about how she was going to lower prices if elected. I was so appalled that she chose to use the same talking point as Trump while knowing full well it doesn’t work that way and if elected she would face the backlash of it not working that way. I wasn’t planning to vote for her in the primary anyway, but that solidified it.
Yes 🙌
One start would be raising the minimum wage and restricting executive pay. Agree that prices are so hard to control.
I would be 100000% in favor of a C-suite salary cap with the mandate that the extra revenue needs to be spent on payroll/benefits for the rest of the employees (not passed on to shareholders). I don’t care what laws have to be passed or political machinations need to be done to make that happen, I’m for it.
I love that Beth's favorite book of 2025 was Little Women. I usually only think of new(er) books as in contention for that prize, but now I'm going to think about that differently! I'm planning a Little Women re-read myself sometimes over the next two weeks.
Some of my favorites from the year were These Summer Storms, The History of Sound, Awake by Jen Hatmaker, The Names, and Table For Two. I'm also thisclose to finishing Buckeye and that book has sucked me IN.
The Summer Storms was great!
I stumbled upon The Names and I really liked it, too.
Can I admit to being a little confused about the social media? Because when I say to myself "I'm online too much. Things here are toxic. I need a break." I'm talking about my Google News feed. And there's nothing social about that. I think I have a minority experience with social media. I'd spent some time on the usenet in the 1980s and early 1990s. I understood that if you look at every single person's opinions, many of them are going to suck and there's going to be more arguing that productive conversation. I strongly resisted Facebook. I was working and in grad school at the same time, and it was when both groups -- my work group and my fellow students -- said that they needed me there that I joined. Because of my early experiences, I came with rules. I wasn't going to allow anybody on my feed that I didn't want to listen to. And I did get the same speech about joining Instagram and Twitter, but the projects there were small and contained and I left as soon as they were done. So anyway, the thing where there's way too much political arguing was just not my primary experience. So is it something else besides politics that you find toxic about social media? Or did you just not walk away before?
I started Wolf Hall a number of years ago and didn't get very far. It's still on my shelf though! Sarah's comments make me want to try again. Maybe I'll check out the Simon Heisel resource to help me out.
Stephanie, DO IT! I joined the Wolf Hall slow read with Simon this year after hearing Sarah talk about it. I knew almost nothing about that historical period or group of people, so there were many times I didn’t understand what was happening or why upon first reading, but I learned so much from the weekly posts & comments over there on Footnotes & Tangents. The force and the beauty of the writing was so compelling that it kept me going even when I felt confused (and actually I ended up doing a not-so-slow read of the final book, as I just really couldn’t put it down). The series was by far one of the best things I’ve ever read. And surprisingly, there were many easy comparisons to be made between those at the top of our government and those of Henry VIII.
Thanks for the encouragement! I will definitely check it out.
If it helps, I joined up for next year! I got my books from ThriftBooks.com and they all arrived yesterday. I have never done a slow read and I am looking forward to it
I read Mrs. Dalloway for the first time this year and now I finally understand what people like about Virginia Woolf. I don't know if getting older made the difference, but that novel hit different than my previous attempts with Ms. Woolf.
Also read Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall and, wow, what a modern book! Definitely my favorite among the Bronte books. It's a little eery, actually, how much that book holds up after 200 years.
All my best reads this year were classics (also including Tuck Everlasting, Great Gatsby, A Room with a View, and The Secret Garden), and it's no coincidence that they were all read in community with my pilgrim group from the 2022 Jane Eyre pilgrimage. I'm telling y'all, there's nothing like reading with a group of people who enjoy applying sacred text practices to secular texts!
I also got my book club to read Paul Tremblay's Head Full of Ghosts before moving cross country. Their willingness to read and discuss one of my favorite horror books with me was the best going-away gift!
Goal for 2026: Read and create more in community!
Like Beth, I am very worried that voters are going to keep demanding lower prices and throwing out the party in power when they don't deliver (because they can't; prices don't come down like that). I guess we just have to hope we're the ones holding the bag when voters finally acclimate to the new price level. Though we do need to do something about housing, education, healthcare and child/elderly care. But there are levers to pull. Kinda.
Like Sarah I am angry about the east wing of the White House, because of what it symbolizes. He's turning the White House into his presidential palace. He wants to be a king. But we don't have palaces in America, we don't have kings. The next Democrat president must ruthlessly tear it down, and do it gleefully, as part of a broader "Liberalism Has Teeth" agenda. The spoils of authoritarianism - all the spoils - must be fleeting and pyrrhic for liberalism to thrive.
Two other things made me furious. First, the murdering of Venezuelan boat crews done in our name and the rampant apathy and complicity to it. There must absolutely be accountability for this. And second, the SCOTUS decision that it's fine for ICE to racially profile people when demanding to see papers. I struggle for the words to describe how un-American, disgusting, and irredeemably hateful that is.
At the top you talked about how we always despair, a bit irrationally, when our enemies win power. But I think some things are truly gone. Among the many things that are irrevocably broken or only coming back with extreme effort: USAID and other gutted federal competencies, all the canceled research, the norms around non-partisan parts of the government, the canceled green energy projects, and the world's view of America as a reliable force for good. You can't count on a country when its people are so rotten that they only elect decent leaders half the time.
I do worry about the Democrats stressing affordability too much because the president and Congress don't have a ton of authority over the economy. The tariffs and decimating the federal workforce definitely exacerbated our economic problems, but I don't know that the Democrats can do a ton beyond being more sensible about these kinds of things.
I have never thought about moving abroad. I am too old and not rich enough for any country to take me on a long term basis. However, this is the first year that I have thought that I would be OK with it if one of my kids decided to move overseas. Everything seems so bleak in the US right now. I am trying to take Beth's advice of one step at a time.
I loved living overseas and long to do it again, but the fact is that we take America with us. Unless we renounce citizenship, we are still tied by taxes and other institutional entanglements to this country. Either way, we still need to use our voice and our vote. We still have obligations.
Curious if Sarah has heard of Liza Mundy’s Sisterhood of the CIA or Code Girls? I listened to them. So so good! And I don’t generally like nonfiction. She is an excellent writer. I also did Wolf Hall this year. I feel so sad it is over.