Here in the North Country, we had a few days of 50-degree weather, but yesterday it snowed again. Those few days of warmth, though, were a foretaste of the feast to come.

We are told that ICE is drawing down its numbers here in Minnesota, but reports on the ground remain unclear as to whether that is mere rhetoric or reality. With this Orwellian administration, of course, what they say means nothing. Let’s face it: scoundrels just lie.

I have mentioned here at ClimbingSky before that I have developed a habit of re-reading certain works at certain times of the year. Right now, I am re-reading The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. In the upcoming month of March, it will be Hemingway’s excellent short story, “Big Two-Hearted River”—a story I have read every spring now for more than 40 years.

Here is the pattern I seem to have fallen into over the past few years, and no doubt the pattern that will continue into 2026.

• January – Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson
• February – War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
• March – “The Big Two-Hearted River,” Ernest Hemingway
• April – Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
• May – Tortilla Flat, John Steinbeck
• June – The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
• July – Cannery Row, John Steinbeck
• August – For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
• September – Dracula, Bram Stoker
• October – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
• November – The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Stephen King
• December – The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle

I have a similar pattern, I think, in my daily poetry reading. What differs is that my regular poetry re-reading choices do include some writers of color and women—though admittedly, not enough. It is something more to think about over the course of this year, I guess.