What I read in 2025

My goal for 2025, as usual, was to read at least 52 books (one per week). Instead, I read 109 books, or about two per week. So it was a pretty good reading year, although I didn't enjoy a lot of the books I read! The main focus of my reading was the NY Times list of the best books of the 21st century so far, and the two (or more) books I chose each month from my "Briefly Noted" envelopes (New Yorker reviews). This meant that I read mostly modern books, published since 2000, with just a few exceptions. Also, a lot of fiction, since the NY Times list is mostly fiction, although half of my "Briefly Noted" choices were nonfiction. I've put the "Briefly Noted" books in green and the NY Times books in blue.

Here is a review of what I read in 2025, by category.

Children's Books. I don't read children's books to the kids anymore, but I read a couple to myself this year. I liked both of these very much. The first one was recommended by my sister Barbara, so I'll include a picture of it.

• A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus
• The Game of Silence by Louise Erdrich

 

Young Adult (YA)/Teen Books. Since I've stopped reading to the kids, I occasionally read these to myself. But it's not my favorite genre. Maybe I'll read more in 2026. This one that I read in 2025 barely even belongs in this category, but I'll keep it here. And I did like it.

• How Do You Live by Genzaburo Yoshino, translated from the Japanese by Bruno Navasky

 

Books for the Book Group. My beloved book group continues... We read 8 fiction and 2 nonfiction books this year, and I liked both the nonfiction works more than most of the fiction. My favorite was Killers of the Flower Moon. Loved that book, so good. 

• January: The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
  
• February: The Incredible Winston Browne by Sean Dietrich
• March/April: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, translated from the Spanish by Lucia Graves
  
• May: Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty
• June: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
• July/August: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
• September: The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
• October: The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides 
• November: Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
• December: Tenth of December by George Saunders

Mystery/Thriller. Often a long list, but not so much this year. (One of the Christmas books was a mystery, so that could go here too, but I put it under Christmas books.) My favorite was probably Cahokia Jazz, which is more of a speculative novel than a mystery, but I really enjoyed it.

• Blind Descent by Nevada Barr (again)
• A Dark and Deadly Deception by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• Shadow of the Solstice by Anne Hillerman
• Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford (note: this could also go under scifi/fantasy)

Supernatural Mystery/Ghost Story. I'm not sure any of these books REALLY fit into this category, but they were all somewhat witchy/ghostly. I hope I can find more next year, because it's a favorite category of mine. I didn't love any of these, but The Third Hotel was pleasantly creepy.

• Lolly Willowes or The Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Ashton Warner
• Model Home by Rivers Solomon
• The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg 

Science Fiction/Fantasy. This category was actually empty at first, and then I looked at my list of General Fiction more closely and realized that it included a few different books that are classed as "speculative." So I moved them over here. I loved Piranesi!

• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
• The Blizzard by Vladimir Sorokin, translated from the Russian by Jamey Gambrell
• Termush: A Novel by Sven Holm, translated from the Danish by Sylvia Clayton
• Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (read with Teen B for school)
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

 

Poetry. Not much this year. Citizen was very good, though very upsetting. I'm still thinking about it.

• Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
• Poems and Plays by V. R. Lang with a Memoir by Alison Lurie

General Fiction. I read a lot of fiction this year, between my "Briefly Noted" choices and the NY Times list. I think my favorite was When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut.

• Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
  
• A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin
• 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad
• Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
• Outline by Rachel Cusk
• Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym
• Angels and Insects by A. S. Byatt
• The Years by Annie Ernaux, translated from the French by Alison L. Strayer
• Neighbors and Other Stories by Diane Oliver
  
• Emerald City and Other Stories by Jennifer Egan
• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• Septology by Jon Fosse, translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls
• The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor
• Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
• Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
• The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
• Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
• A Volga Tale by Guzel Yakhina, translated from the Russian by Polly Gannon
• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
• When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, translated from the Spanish by Adrian Nathan West
• Lucy: A Novel by Ellen Feldman 
• Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Olafsdottir, translated from the Icelandic by Brian FitzGibbon
• The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith
• Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
• A Mercy by Toni Morrison
• Runaway by Alice Munro
• Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-zi, translated from the Mandarin by Lin King
• The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
• The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
• Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky
• The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge
• The Road from Belhaven by Margot Livesey
• Erasure by Percival Everett
• A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power

Christmas Books. Just read two of these, and Small Things Like These was definitely my favorite. I put a hold on another Christmas book, more of a romance, but on December 22nd I was still number 6 or so on the list, so I canceled the hold. Maybe next year I can read more of these.

• Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
• Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret by Benjamin Stevenson

Graphic Novels/Memoirs/Whatever. My favorite was Spent, even though I had some issues with it. But Alison Bechdel is just the best.

• Spent by Alison Bechdel
• The Fire Never Goes Out: A Memoir in Pictures by Noelle Stevenson
• Transitions: A Mother's Journey by Elodie Durand, translated from the French by Evan McGorray

Memoir/Diaries/Autobiography. I enjoyed several of these. My favorite was probably Patriot by Alexei Navalny, just because it was so inspiring.

• The Absent Moon: A Memoir of a Short Childhood and a Long Depression by Luiz Schwarcz, translated from the Portuguese by Eric M. B. Becker.
• A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother by Rachel Cusk
• Patriot: A Memoir by Alexei Navalny, translated from the Russian by Arch Tait and Stephen Dalziel
• The Job: True Tales from the Life of a New York City Cop by Steve Osborne
• Underground in Berlin: A Young Woman's Extraordinary Tale of Survival in the Heart of Nazi Germany by Marie Jalowicz Simon, translated from the German by Anthea Bell
• Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
• The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature by J. Drew Lanham
• The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar
• Secrets of the Blue Bungalow: More True Tales of Family Life in the Outer, Outer, Outer, Outer Excelsior by Kevin Fisher-Paulson
• It.Goes.So.Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs by Mary Louise Kelly
• Woman of Interest: A Memoir by Tracy O'Neill
• I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb (read with Teen A for school)
• Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth About Everything by Barbara Ehrenreich
• Whiskey Tender: A Memoir by Deborah Jackson Taffa

 

Biography. Only three of these this year. I guess my favorite was Looking for Betty MacDonald, but I didn't even like that one too much. I hope to read more biographies in 2026!

• Looking for Betty MacDonald: The Egg, the Plague, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and I by Paula Becker
• A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune by Noliwe Rooks
• Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula by David J. Skal

 

Presidential Biography. I'm including one book that isn't really a biography (Original Sin) but I think it belongs here, because it's a description of the end of a presidency. These were all good books. My favorite might have been Truman, because you can't beat David McCullough, but I also really liked Before the Trumpet.

• Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt 1882-1905 by Geoffrey C. Ward
• FDR by Jean Edward Smith
• Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson
• No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Truman by David McCullough

 

General Nonfiction. I actually didn't like a lot of these, including one of my "favorites": Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich. It's a horrible book, tells a horrible story, but it's stuck with me ever since I read it back in January. I also really liked Phenomena and Far from the Tree.

• Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich, translated from the Russian by Bela Shayevich
• The Ozempic Revolution: A Doctor's Proven Plan for Success to Help You Reverse Obesity, End Yo-Yo Dieting, and Protect Yourself from Disease by Alexandra Sowa
• Still Life with Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains by Alexa Hagerty
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper
• Action: A Book About Sex by Amy Rose Spiegel
• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (read with Teen A for school)
• The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen
• Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture, and African American Women by Noliwe M. Rooks
• Women Rowing North: Navigating Life's Currents and Flourishing as We Age by Mary Pipher
• I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine by Daniel J. Levitin
• The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration by Jake Bittle
• The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis by Annie Jacobsen
• Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon
• Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are by Rebecca Boyle 
• ESP Wars East and West: An Account of the Military Use of Psychic Espionage as Narrated by the Key Russian and American Players by Edwin C. May, Victor Rubel, Joseph W. McMoneagle and Loyd Auerbach
• Between Two Worlds: How the English Became Americans by Malcolm Gaskill
• The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.