2025 was not a great year of reading for me. I was constantly distracted by things going on in the world and found myself unable to concentrate on reading for long periods of time. This led me to mostly read for escape, which meant that I relied on mysteries because those are my comfort read. I did read some very good mysteries which I will summarize in my yearly reading wrap up (coming next).
Although I read a number of books that I enjoyed when I was reading them (some of them I enjoyed very much) most of them didn't stick with me through the year, probably because my mind was so distracted by current events. I did not want to put any book that did not stick with me on a "favorites" list at year end. Because of that, I found that I could not come up with a list of ten books to put on my favorites list. Rather than include books that I liked but didn't think of as a favorite I decided that I could live with fewer than ten books on my favorites list.
The following were my favorite books of 2025. In each case I enjoyed reading them and then found myself thinking about them long after I finished them. In each case I have provided a link to the post in which I originally wrote about the book.
I don't particularly want to rank my favorite books but, without a doubt, Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood was my favorite book of the year. There was a time in my life when I would immediately re-read any book that I loved, mostly to see if I could figure out how the author evoked that reaction in me. I seldom do that now, mostly due to time constraints. But I immediately re-read this novel and even wrote a separate blog post about it. Set in Australia, the unnamed narrator has taken up residence with a group of nuns. The narrator is not a nun and is not religious and it is not completely clear why she has decided to live at the convent. In the course of the novel, three "visitations" occur: the bones of a former nun are returned for burial; a non-cloistered "activist" nun arrives; and an infestation of mice (an infestation of biblical proportions) occurs. Each visitation causes our narrator to contemplate, among other things, life and death, grief, forgiveness, how to live a life where you do no harm, and how to make change in the world. I found this novel unexpectedly uplifting and have thought about it regularly throughout the year.
My remaining favorites are in no particular order.
It was pure serendipity that the first book that I read in January, The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts by Louis Bayard, ended up being one of my favorites. I knew, of course, of the downfall of Oscar Wilde, who famously had his life ruined when the Marquess of Queensberry accused Wilde of having a homosexual relationship with his son. While the author rightly makes clear what a travesty the British laws against homosexuality were for the men directly affected, he is mostly concerned with the affect on the people related to these men, specifically in this case Wilde's wife, mother and sons who ended up changing their name because of the publicity. Although Wilde is portrayed as a loving father, his sons never saw their father again after the trial. This is a novel that could have been "preachy" but isn't, and yet he gets his point across well. The novel is also structured well, moving through a long time period with ease.
Have you ever read a book somewhat grudgingly and it unexpectedly becomes a favorite? That is what happened with My Father's House by Joseph O'Connor. Not being that interested in WWII, I read this only because it was on the Walter Scott Prize longlist for 2024 but I ended up being completely blown away by it. Irish priest Hugh O'Flaherty is stationed at the Vatican during the Nazi occupation of Rome. He organizes a group to smuggle people out of Rome under the noses of the Nazis. It is dangerous work and it is unclear throughout the novel who will survive. The structure of the novel makes this story suspenseful as the reader does not know if a character is referred to in the past tense because the specific narrator is referring to events in the past or because the character is no longer alive. I have recommended this novel to a number of people this year who generally don't like the kind of books I usually like, but I assured them they would like this novel. And each of them did. This novel led me to seek out other books by O'Connor and I was so pleased to have discovered him.
Last year, a backlist book by Carl Zimmer made my list of favorites so this year I was excited to pick up his newest book: Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe. A fascinating non-fiction book about aerobiology, I learned so much from reading this. Zimmer traces the quest to prove that diseases can be airborne, focusing on both crop diseases (e.g. rust) and human diseases (e.g. tuberculosis and measles), among other things. Zimmer writes for the New York Times and knows how to put complicated subjects in layman's terms. I found the portions of the book where he described the military's investigations into the ability to spread anthrax chilling.
I picked up The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer without many expectations. This was a novel that snuck up on me, gradually drawing me into its story. Among the main characters are the painter Edward Hopper and his wife who are vacationing in Cape Cod. They become involved with a nearby summering family, including two young boys each struggling in his own way with the aftermath of WWII. The novel paints a picture of a complicated marriage while at the same time showing the effects of war and questioning the meaning of the American Dream. It also made me search out images of Edward Hopper's paintings to refresh my memory.
Finally, a reason not to publish your "favorites" list in November is because you may read something later in December that should make the list. That happened this year with Whale Fall by Elizabeth O'Connor. Set on an island off the coast of Wales in the late 1930's, the main character is a young woman who dreams of traveling off the island but feels she must stay to care for her younger sister. One day two Oxford scholars arrive to study the culture and stories of the island and, since the main character speaks English, they ask her to be their assistant and interpreter. The Whale referenced in the title is an actual beached whale that rots on the beach until mainlanders scavenge it for meat and oil, a metaphor for the people on the island perhaps and for our main character, all of whom are being "scavenged" by the scholars. This very short novel is a fast read but O'Connor's few words build a vivid picture of the island and its inhabitants.
