The 5+ Club Annual Update: Organizing my pathways to "author completionism"
Checking in on the author rankings in my literary leaderboard
Regan’s newsletter publishes book recommendations on a theme and the occasional essay. Past newsletters have covered building translator syllabi, reading routine, women in translation, and more.
Last November, I shared my method of keeping up with favorite authors and tracking my paths to completionism, which I call: the 5+ Club.
Rather than set the high goal of becoming a completionist for all of my favorite writers and face overwhelm in the attempt to read every single thing they’ve ever published, I admit writers to my personal 5+ Club after I’ve read, yes, five of their books. You can catch up on the system, the color-coding, and how I set up my Notion page here:
A year has passed since I shared that newsletter, and I felt it was only right to check in with my favorite writers and see who’s moved up in the rankings or been added to my Notion scoreboard in 2025.
Rankings Within the 5+ Club
In January, I read the final installment of the Neapolitan Quartet, The Story of the Lost Child, and the novella The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante, moving her from 5 books to 7 books, and bumping her up into a three-way tie for 2nd place, which she now shares with Ernest Hemingway and Haruki Murakami!
On my flight home to visit family over the holidays, I finally read Parade by Rachel Cusk, a reading experience that felt somehow geometric, like light refracting through a prism. This read moves Cusk from 5 books to 6 and shifts her up into a four-way tie for 3rd place alongside Ann Patchett, Annie Ernaux, and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Admissions to the 5+ Club
Five authors have found themselves with invites to my 5+ Club in 2025!
In March, I flew through Suzanne Collins’ newest in The Hunger Games series, Sunrise on the Reaping.1
In June, I listened to the audiobook of Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life, which I liked more than Happy Place but found less charming than Beach Read, Book Lovers, or Funny Story. Could I be getting tired of the Emily Henry rom-com formula? Even with the slight genre shift in this one, I never felt very engaged.
My autumn read of German writer Jenny Erpenbeck’s slim new memoir-in-essays, Things That Disappear, was my first encounter with her nonfiction (but won’t be my last).
I attended Lily King’s launch event and reading at the Strand this fall and was not disappointed by her newest release Heart the Lover (despite its questionable title). Still, I might prefer her earlier works, The Pleasing Hour and Euphoria, just slightly over the later story collection, her novel Writers & Lovers, and this one. It’s a tough call! Father of the Rain sits waiting on my shelf.
Just this week, I finished the third in Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle series: Boyhood Island. That makes three from My Struggle, one from the Seasons Quartet, and his little book in Yale’s Why I Write series, based on the Windham-Campbell Lectures. Loved them all, what can I say. I’m looking forward to checking out his fiction before long!
The Completionist List: Invitations and Demotions
I read my first by Argentine writer Aurora Venturini, Cousins, in late spring and followed it quickly with my second, We, The Casertas. These are the only two of her novels available in English (thanks to translator Kit Maude!), and as a result, she’s an author I now can consider myself as having read in full.
Two writers have been demoted from my completionist list, sadly.
First is the great Harper Lee. While I’ve read her novels To Kill a Mockingbird and the posthumous Go Set a Watchman, I have yet to pick up her collected stories and essays, The Land of Sweet Forever, which came out this October.
Second is German writer Caroline Wahl, whose Sally Rooney/Emily Henry love-child duology I loved, 22 Bahnen and Windstärke 17. Unfortunately, her August 2025 release, Die Assistentin, hasn’t been received very well at all—and I don’t feel a strong desire to find myself a copy.
The Authors Closing In
Outside of my 5+ Club and completionist lists, once I’ve read two books from any writer, I add them to my overall Notion page, so I can keep updated as they inch toward admittance. Five writers have crept closer to the Club in 2025.
I flew through three of Carolyn Keene’s very classic, very nostalgic Nancy Drew mysteries this summer, sending her all the way up to four books on my list. (If I’d have started keeping track of my reading in early elementary school, she’d be the top of my 5+ Club with at least 20+ reads to her name, I’m sure.)
Over the summer, I was a little let down by my third Claire Keegan, her story collection So Late in the Day, which was too bad because I loved Small Things Like These when I read it a couple holiday seasons back and enjoyed Foster, although found it almost too sparse.
Just last month, I adored the first novel I read by Joan Didion, A Book of Common Prayer. I’ve previously read her memoir Blue Nights and essay collection Let Me Tell You What I Mean, and while I really enjoyed them both, this one might be my favorite yet. I have Slouching Toward Bethlehem on my bookshelf but might just have to grab Run, River or Play It As It Lays from the library to read next.
Thomas Mann moves from two to three titles. After Mario and The Magician and Buddenbrooks, I read, then reread, Death in Venice for two syllabi this year, in the spring and again in the fall.
After a teenage read of White Noise, I read two more novels by Don DeLillo in 2025, although I can’t say I particularly loved Cosmopolis or The Names.
New to the Notion
I added ten new writers to my notion page this year, meaning I read a second book by them in 2025, or they’re new to me and I read two of their books over the past twelve months.
Joseph Conrad, having read early 20th-century classics The Shadow-Line this spring and Lord Jim last fall
Dennis Cooper, after reading The Sluts and Frisk this spring (proceed with caution)
Don DeLillo—he’s up to three books! See the category above
James Ellroy, after My Dark Places and The Hilliker Curse were back-to-back road-trip audiobooks this summer
Jacqueline Harpman, after reading I Who Have Never Known Men and Orlanda this summer and fall
Carolyn Keene—she’s up to four! See above
Katie Kitamura, whose Intimacies was one of my favorite reads of 2022; my feelings about this year’s Audition were more complicated
John McPhee, having now read and loved two of his masterful works of travel writing/narrative nonfiction: The Pine Barrens and Rising from the Plains
Maggie Nelson, after I read Bluets back in 2020 and picked up Jane: A Murder this summer—wow
Aurora Venturini, added to the Notion and the completionist list—see above!
And that’s that! Please do let me know if you track your reading, and how. Are you making progress toward completionism for any favorite authors? Do you have a list of books that’ve made you cry, books you’ve hated, books you’ve read recommended by friends, etc.? I’m always curious and looking for new ideas.
If you’re looking for more…
I’m so thrilled for Martha, one of my favorite writers on Substack, to be starting a book club! And not only that, but her first pick is one of my favorite reads of this year, Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall. While I very sadly have conflicts preventing me from joining for the first two bimonthly meetings, I’ll be looking forward to Martha’s selections for next summer.
Sara Hildreth wrote a fun newsletter recently about tracking your reading, and the comments are wonderful to read, very creative.
And lastly, I’ve been watching as publications’ “Year in Reading” and “Best of the Year” lists have been coming out, and recently, I’ve read and enjoyed Words Without Borders’ The Best Books in (and on) Translation We Read in 2025, The Paris Review’s Our Favorite Books of 2025, and The New York Times’ Our Book Critics on Their Year in Reading. In case you missed it, I sent out my own annual Year in Reading newsletter earlier this month:
I’ve generally had a separate little section of my notion where I’ve made note of young adult authors who entered into the 5+ Club back in my tweens and teens, but because I’m still so eagerly reading everything out from Suzanne Collins, I’ve elected to include her here. (Same goes for Carolyn Keene.)
Thanks to you, my TBR is now really a tracker of reaching completionist status for the authors I love. This year I completed all of Constance Debre, Aysegul Savas and Claire-Louise Bennett! I don't have my journal with me so I know I will miss someone, but right now I am working my way through Erpenbeck (thanks to you), Deborah Levy (thanks to Kate Jones), Elena Ferrante (thanks to Laurel!!!), Katie Kitamura (I need to read her first book), Annie Ernaux and Nicole Krauss - who wrote my most favorite book of all time The Great House.
Amazing tracking system! I’m impressed, I only have a BoB to track what I read. I think i’m a completionist for contemporary writers I like (like Claire-Louise Bennett, Cusk, Sayaka Murata, Banana Yoshimoto and other translated Japanese lit, Aysegul Savas, etc). For my most favorite writers (who happen to have written a lot of novels, like Muriel Spark or Iris Murdoch), i’m a slow completionist, I like the idea that I can always pick up a new novel by them, so I tend to re-read and pirouette in place a lot before passing to a new one.