Looking forward, looking back

Sorry, but it’s the inevitable year-in-review post. I know you’ve been subjected to a thousand of these in recent days, but after all, it is the season for reflection and renewal low effort posts. But seriously, thank you for reading. I appreciate each and every one of you.

Readership continued to grow this year, though not as fast as last year. Essentially, I picked up new readers every time I posted, and when Substackers who recommend my newsletter posted. I also picked up readers from across the social media platforms I use, from the book reviews I published in lit journals this year, and two via chatgpt (which is a bit worrying, to be honest).

I now have readers across forty American states (it won’t show me how many provinces), and on every continent (thank you especially to the seven readers in Morocco who make this statement technically true; 2026 is ripe for growth in Africa). Most of my readers are in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Spain, and Australia, in that order.

This year I wanted to see if I could write a post a week, and I came close, taking only a few weeks off. It helped that I banked a bunch of posts last December. In 2026, I’m going to scale back a little bit. Probably I’m going to take most of February and/or March off, and then scale back to 2-3 posts a month.

Adam’s Notes will remain unmonetized. There’s an inherent conflict between wanting to build up a readership and paywalling posts, and I don’t want to put a tax on the people who’ve been my biggest supporters. Also, my interests tend to be a bit eclectic, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, and so I don’t really know what this newsletter is going to be about from one year to the next.

Stuff I’ve published elsewhere this year:

• I reviewed The Exclusion Zone by Alexis Von Konigslow in The /tƐmz/ Review, Issue 33, December.

• I wrote “So Ill Done… Pepys and the Restoration Stage”, for The Samuel Pepys Club Journal, in October.

• I reviewed Bodies of Art, Bodies of Labour by Kate Beaton for The /tƐmz/ Review, Issue 31, in June.

• I reviewed Johnny Delivers by Wayne Ng and Keefer Street by David Spaner for EVENT Magazine, also in June.

• I reviewed Command Performance by Jean Echenoz, for Necessary Fiction, in March.

• I reviewed Living Things by Munir Hachemi, for minor literature[s], in March.

I didn’t publish any short stories this year. I just didn’t put as much effort into it, partly because I feel a little disillusioned with the whole process (especially for genre fiction), but mostly I just knew I had to focus elsewhere this year. I’m also feeling disillusioned with social media. Actually, disillusioned isn’t strong enough for it. Every platform sucks now: Bluesky is preachy, group DMs are broken on X (and that was the only worthwhile part), Instagram is just a horrible endless loop of slop that leaves me feeling alienated. Even the social media part of Substack is awful, especially the so-called literary corner, which is all warmed-over craft advice from people who’ve half made it, and whiny posting from people who haven’t (that said, there are a number of individual newsletters that I really enjoy receiving in my inbox—if I subscribe to you, please keep up the good work). Discord is okay but it’s incredibly balkanized, and the larger servers I’m part of leave me feeling overwhelmed.

So, I’m going to try and stay off social media next year, or at least significantly curtail my use to it. Hopefully I’ll be able to put that time and energy into more useful endeavours.

One last thing: I’d like to ask a favour of you. If you have a Substack of your own, can you consider adding me to your list of recommendations? It really helps me find new readers. And if you don’t have a Substack, I’d like you to consider asking yourself if you know someone who would enjoy reading Adam’s Notes. If there is, send them a link and let them know about me. I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks so much for reading, and I’ll see you next year.

Pepys Posts
January 1662: No more drinking, no more theatre
February 1662: Dancing mania, Valentine’s, arquebus headshot
March 1662: A leather submarine?
April 1662: Sneaking around on his wife
May 1662: Lustful nuns and a grim reminder
June 1662: Pirates, a scam, maggots, and voyeurism
July 1662: Why can’t the King command the rain?
August 1662: “I find myself a very rising man”
September 1662: Restoration Renovations; Or, Pranking Mr. Goodenough
October 1662: Clapped Up Quakers
November 1662: Treasure Hunt!
December 1662: Another Christmas with Pepys
The Strange Case of Mary Carleton

Adam’s holiday movie recommendation list 2025: part one, part two.

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