Today’s edition covers:

• My 10 favorite book lists for December…

• What I am working on at Shepherd.com…

• What am I reading?

Want to share your 3 favorite reads of the year?

It takes 10 minutes, and you get a beautiful page showing off your top 3 reads.

Plus, your votes go into our Readers’ favorite reads of 2024! This helps other readers find books they will love and highlights authors you want more readers to find.

Create your account and share your favorites here 😀 .

My 10 Favorite Book Lists For December…

What is Shepherd building now?

Where am I at?

December is starting to slow down, and I am looking forward to the next two weeks.

I plan to re-read Harry Potter, bake cookies with my son, visit Christmas markets, and chill.

What am I working on?

My ambitious goal is to have 5,000 readers submit their 3 favorite reads of 2024 by January 31st (for the Readers Favorite Reads of 2024 program). We just hit 1,500 submissions, and I am doing everything possible to grow that.

I hope we get a big spike in January once everyone takes stock of their 2024 reading.

New feature → What is your community reading?

We built a new feature that allows book influencers, book communities, famous authors, companies, and other groups to gather votes and share what their group loved in 2024.

Here is one from the Reddit group BooksThatFeelLikeThis that we created for their community: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2024/reddit-rbooksthatfeellikethis

I’ve got a lot more planned for groups in 2025!

Highlights from the build blog:

• Build blog: Goodbye ugly display ads and my plan to replace them with book ads.

• Build blog: We are putting the finishing touches on our reader referral program...

What am I reading?

I just finished...

• In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté —I read this in my book club with my dad and brother, and we had an enjoyable multi-hour conversation about the topics it raised. I learned so much about addiction. This book should be mandatory reading in high school, and I wish I had read it in my 20s or early 30s.

• KJ Parker’s The Siege series—How do I describe these? They are three hilarious character studies set in a fantasy world. The story starts with a city under siege and goes from there. There isn’t big world-building or complex plots; rather, you are riding along with one funny character in each book who is driving the train. Great books!

I am reading...

• Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter - I’ve heard great things about the story behind the sabotage of Iran’s nuclear efforts, and I picked it for our book club. I'll start it tonight!

•  Book 10 in The Bernicia Chronicles by Matthew Harffy is fantastic. I highly recommend this adventure historical fiction about Vikings. He is also one of the co-hosts on the podcast Rock, Paper, Swords, which covers historical action and adventure authors and books (his co-host Steven A. McKay is equally fabulous).

What have I been up to outside of Shepherd?

I’ve been utterly exhausted after this last work sprint, and I’m taking some downtime to read, watch movies, and chill.

I highly recommend Sword Brethren by Jon Bryne. I read an early draft and loved it! This is a moment of history that I knew NOTHING about! Did you know about the Baltic/Northern Crusades? Pope Alexander III decided to go after pagans in what would now be Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia…