2025 Reading Round-Up: My 6 Favourite Books of the Year
Today I’m looking back at my 2025 reading. Here are some of my absolute favourites I read this year, both fiction and non fiction. Read them and talk to me about them!
Penance – Eliza Clark (fiction, crime)
Penance is initially the story of a group of teenage girls in a rundown seaside town who torture and kill one of their peers, but as the book explores the girls’ characters and psychologies, as well as the strange town where they came of age, it becomes a fascinating patchwork of true crime weirdness, teenage trauma, and online shared psychosis. Delightfully weird, unexpectedly funny, and definitely my favourite book I read this year!
I Have Some Questions For You – Rebecca Makkai (fiction, crime)
In this novel, Rebecca Makkai sets up a Serial-style whodunnit about Bodie, a podcaster, sifting through the evidence of who killed her roommate, Thalia, 20 years ago, back when they were both students at a boarding school in New Hampshire.
It’s a good mystery, but what Questions For You does best is to create fascinating characters and evoke the boarding school milieu. It reminded me strongly of one of my favourite novels, Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep. Makkai has the same light touch at creating character moments that are quietly devastating.
Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work – Sarah Wynn-Williams (non fiction, memoir)
This memoir from an exec at Facebook is a dystopian account of a tech company careening off the ethical cliff edge in search of profit, but it’s also surprisingly FUN in places. Listening to Sarah Wynn-Williams’ experiences at Facebook is a bit like trading gossipy worst-workplace stories with a friend and realising their workplace is much, much worse than yours.
Hidden Valley Road – Robert Kolker (non fiction, true crime)
This true story of about a large family in middle America — mom, dad, 12 kids – reads like a slow creeping horror movie, as one by one, six of those kids develop schizophrenia. I feared it might be a little dense as a reading experience, but Robert Kolker is an absolute pro at bringing these people to life on the page and differentiating the many, many brothers of this warped family.
Reading Allowed: True Stories and Curious Incidents from a Provincial Library – Chris Paling (non fiction, memoir)
A year in the life of a library worker, this book becomes a patchwork of humanity. The library remains basically the only place in British society where anyone can show up at any time of the day and find someone to talk to. Some of those interactions the author recounts are sweet, some are scary; almost all are desperate. It’s a wonderful glimpse into the important work librarians continue to do.
Behind These Doors: Stories of Strength, Suffering and Survival in Prison – Alex South (non fiction, memoir)
In this memoir from a prison guard, the author writes with such compassion and perceptiveness about both her fellow prison guards and the offenders she comes into contact with. It really opened my eyes to the realities of a profession that’s usually reduced to cliché in the media.
Honourable Mentions
Even more books I enjoyed this year:
The Wife – Meg Wolitzer (fiction, literary women’s fiction)
This gorgeous, character-driven novel takes the classic literary fiction trope of the esteemed professor who begins an affair with his naive young student… but looks at it askance and ultimately skewers it.
Here One Moment – Liane Moriarty (fiction, women’s fiction)
Another character masterclass from Moriarty, this novel follows disparate Australians who all end up on the same flight together and (whether they want the prediction or not) get told their age and manner of death by a psychic.
Any Human Heart – William Boyd (fiction)
This fictional diary of an upper-crust gent, Logan Mountstuart (LMS), begins with his school days in the 1920s and careens from one historically important milieu to the next (he meets Hemingway in Franco’s Spain! he meets James Joyce in Paris!). A good, fun, meaty read.
Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England’s Kings and Queens – David Mitchell (non fiction, history)
A funny romp through many centuries of history; the definition of an easy read.
Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed – Maureen Callahan (non fiction, history)
More history, this time of the soul-destroying variety, but nonetheless fascinating.
A Heart That Works – Rob Delaney (non fiction, memoir)
An account of the author coming to terms with his son’s terminal illness, this is inevitably sad, but also funny and well-written and an enriching reading experience.
Rental Person Who Does Nothing – Shoji Morimoto (non fiction, memoir)
The author recounts stories from his “rental service”, where he takes requests via social media. This really made me look at society in a whole new way, which says a lot.
