2025: My year in reading
We’re almost two weeks into January and I am just getting around to my 2025 reading round-up, mostly because the last two weeks of 2025 were… not great. We all got Flu A (along with approximately 95% of the Eastern Seaboard) and then both my parents ended up hospitalized for pneumonia. The whole thing was scary and exhausting for everyone, and now that my parents are home and recovering, I am finally catching my figurative breath.
Okay! Let’s get into the books, shall we?
The stats: I completed 41 books and started but did not finish five. My completed books number is seven lower than in 2024, and last year I blamed school, and this year I’m also gonna blame school, and the fact that, once again, my reading habits leaned heavily towards tomes. A couple of the door-stoppers I read this year included The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (688 pages), Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (560 pages), and Flashlight by Susan Choi (464 pages). This year I read 57% print, 41% digital, and 2% audio. I read 74% fiction and 26% non-fiction. And I got 37% of my books from the library, which is lower than in past years because, again, school.
Superlatives ahoy!
Novel I am telling everyone to read: Flashlight, Susan Choi
Weirdest (in the best way): Sky Daddy, Kate Folk
Best novel in translation: What We Owe, Golnaz Hashemzadeh Bonde
Best literary mystery: Heartwood, Amity Gaige
Book I had to read for school and actively despised, despite said book being considered a modern literary classic: Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson (come at me, MFA bros)
Most inspiring craft book: Story is a State of Mind, Sarah Selecky
Most harrowing non-fiction: Ask Not, Maureen Callahan
Health/wellness paradigm shifters: Healing Back Pain, John E. Sarno M.D. and Mind Your Body, Nicole Sachs
Best cookbook: Grains for Every Season: Rethinking Our Way with Grains, Joshua McFadden
Favorite book club book: Dream State, Eric Puchner
Most eye-opening celebrity memoir: tie between Sister Wife, Christine Brown Woolley and Dinner for Vampires, Bethany Joy Lenz
Creepiest: The Fifth Child, Doris Lessing
Most pleasantly surprising: Intermezzo, Sally Rooney
What was the best book you read this year? Are there any here that you have strong feelings about, good or bad? There are a couple books on my list that I could go on and on about because I loved them so much: Flashlight (I am officially a Susan Choi super-fan) and Sky Daddy are probably a the top of the list. And, like every year, I read a couple of overhyped flops. But overall, 2025 was a satisfying reading year, even if it wasn’t my most prolific. Now that I’m done with school, I am looking forward to a year of reading freedom (and yet, as I write this, I am currently in the middle of two craft books; you can take the girl out of the MFA program, etc., etc.).
Let me know what you are reading in 2026!