The 100 Books of 2025

My goal every year is to read 100 or more books. I crossed the finish line this year with 104 books. I often will choose the top books, which I also did this year, but made it a little easier by breaking it up into fiction and non-fiction.

Top Ten Fiction of 2025 

1. The Blacktongue Thief - Christopher Buehlman

2. Spiderlight - Adrian Tchaikovsky

3. Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books - Kirsten Miller

4. James - Percival Everett

5. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk

6. Babel - R.F. Kuang

7. Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein

8. Aftertaste - Daria Lavelle 

9. Circe - Madeline Miller

10. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld - Patricia A. McKillip

Top Ten Non-Fiction of 2025  

11. Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker

12. By the Fire We Carry - Rebecca Nagle

13. Ultra-Processed People - Chris van Tulleken

14. Illumination in the Flatwoods - Joe Hutto

15. The Body Keeps the Score - Bessel van der Kolk

16. Custodians of Wonder - Eliot Stein

17. Cabin - Patrick Hutchison

18. Vagina Obscura - Rachel E. Gross

19. Everything Is Tuberculosis - John Green

20. Enshittification - Cory Doctorow

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January 2025

• James - Percival Everett

• The Wild Robot - Peter Brown

• Snapdragon - Kat Leyh

• Dirtbag, Massachusetts - Isaac Fitzgerald

• Billy Summers - Stephen King

• By the Fire We Carry - Rebecca Nagle

• Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books - Kirsten Miller

• Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker

February 2025

• More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon

• When We Cease to Understand the World - Benjamín Labatut

• The Wild Robot Escapes - Peter Brown

• Human Acts - Han Kang

• Conclave - Robert Harris

• Misery - Stephen King

• The Serviceberry - Robin Wall Kimmerer 

• The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko - Scott Stambach

• The Ministry of Time - Kaliane Bradley

March 2025

• A Heart that Works - Rob Delaney

• A Sorceress Comes to Call - T. Kingfisher

• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson

• The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge - M.T. Anderson, Eugene Yelchin

• A Nose for Mischief - K.T. Lee

• Out of the Dust - Elizabeth Daish

• A Kick in the Head - Paul B. Janeczko, Chris Raschka

• Zeroville - Steve Erickson

• Paladin's Grace - T. Kingfisher

• Leviathan Wakes - James S.A. Corey

April 2025

• Illumination in the Flatwoods - Joe Hutto

• Small Spaces - Katherine Arden

• The Road to Gandolfo - Robert Ludlum

• Lazarus: Volume 1 - #1-9 - Greg Rucka, Michael Lark (graphic novel)

• The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje

• Martyr! - Kaveh Akbar

• The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien (reread #8)

• Maybe in Another Life - Taylor Jenkins Reid

• Forever, Interrupted - Taylor Jenkins Reid

• Enough Rope - Dorothy Parker (poetry)

May 2025

• Ultra-Processed People - Chris van Tulleken

• How to Tell a Story: The Moth - Bowles, Burns, Hixson

• Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

• Pony Confidential - Christina Lynch

• Strong Female Character - Fern Brady

• Paladin's Strength - T. Kingfisher

• Fletch - Gregory McDonald

• Triptych - Will Trent #1 - Karin Slaughter

• Everything Is Tuberculosis - John Green

• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk

June 2025

• Atmosphere - Taylor Jenkins Reid

• Cabin - Patrick Hutchison

• Raising Hare - Chloe Dalton 

• A Wizard of Earthsea (reread #3)

• Charlotte's Web - E. B. White (reread #3)

• I, Robot - Isaac Asimov. 

• Circe - Madeline Miller

• Fractured - Will Trent #2 - Karin Slaughter

• The Forgotten Beasts of Eld - Patricia A. McKillip

• Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata; (trans.) Ginny Tapley Takemori

July 2025

• Aftertaste - Daria Lavelle 

• Custodians of Wonder - Eliot Stein

• The Great Alone - Kristin Hannah

• The Frozen River - Ariel Lawhon

• One-Punch Man Vol. 1 - Yusuke Murata (manga)

• Red Rabbit - Alex Grecian

• Fine Structure - qntm

• Harold and Maude - Colin Higgins

• Riding the Rap - Elmore Leonard

• The Blacktongue Thief - Christopher Buehlman

• The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller

• The Rachel Incident - Caroline O'Donoghue

• Abundance - Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson

August 2025

• Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein

• In Search of Memory - Eric Kandel

• The Body Keeps the Score - Bessel van der Kolk

• Heartsick - Chelsea Cain

• Forest Euphoria - Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian

September 2025

• The God of the Woods - Liz Moore

• Atomic Habits - James Clear

• The Haar - David Sodergren

October 2025

• Enshittification - Cory Doctorow

• Babel - R.F. Kuang

• Remain - Nicholas Sparks, M. Night Shyamalan

• Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

• The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ruth Ware

• Thornhedge - T. Kingfisher

November 2025

• Spiderlight - Adrian Tchaikovsky

• Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Paulo Freire

• Pronto - Elmore Leonard

• To Sir, With Love - E.R. Braithwaite

• Vagina Obscura - Rachel E. Gross

• Audition - Katie Kitamura

• The Reluctant Dragon - Kenneth Grahame

• On Tyranny - Timothy Snyder

• A House with Good Bones - T. Kingfisher

December 2025

• Carrie - Stephen King

• Harriet the Invincible - Ursula Vernon

• Service Model - Adrian Tchaikovsky

• Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami

• A Good Girl's Guide to Murder - Holly Jackson

• Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren

• Band of Brothers - Stephen E. Ambrose

• The Dark Knight Returns -  Frank Miller & Klaus Janson (graphic novel)

• The Wishing Tree - Katherine Applegate

• Catwings - Ursula K. LeGuin

• How to Read Nature - Tristan Gooley