Best of 2025

[Dazrin]

I just finished The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. Its horror / historical fiction was a very interesting take on

Spoiler:

vampires and how Native Americans in the late 1800s might have perceived that curse.

Highly recommend. The audiobook had 3 narrators who all did great for their respective sections.

This was very good and it was published in 2025.

[John F]

This is a tough one for me, as I enjoy most of what I read and have a hard time picking a "best", and my memory fades so what I read earlier in the year is fuzzy.

But one that I enjoyed a lot was The Good Lord Bird (historical fiction) by James McBride.

I also discovered T. Kingfisher, probably the "best" "new" author for me. I'm on a reading kick with her and mix her in every other novel.

Although I'm currently reading the Ana and Din Mysteries (2 books, detective fantasy) by Robert Jackson Bennet and they are very good.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by John F

This is a tough one for me, as I enjoy most of what I read and have a hard time picking a "best", and my memory fades so what I read earlier in the year is fuzzy.

But one that I enjoyed a lot was The Good Lord Bird (historical fiction) by James McBride.

I also discovered T. Kingfisher, probably the "best" "new" author for me. I'm on a reading kick with her and mix her in every other novel.

Although I'm currently reading the Ana and Din Mysteries (2 books, detective fantasy) by Robert Jackson Bennet and they are very good.

T. Kingfisher (real name Ursula Vernon) lives very close to me and we frequent the same indie bookstore. She took donuts in for the booksellers last week.

I also really like the Ana and Din books!

[issybird]

Last day of the year and here's my top ten. I usually aim for half fiction, half nonfiction, but for this year I've ended up with only three novels. In no particular order:

• Make Peace before the Sun Goes Down: The Long Encounter of Thomas Merton and His Abbot, James Fox by Roger Lipsey
  
• The Travel Writing Tribe: Journeys in Search of a Genre by Tim Hannigan
  
• Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center by Daniel Okrent
  
• I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally
  
• The Waiting Game: The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens: A History by Nicola Clark
  
• Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America by Sam Tanenhaus
  
• Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century Dana Stevens
  
  
• Orbital by Samantha Harvey
  
• Temptation by János Székely
  
• Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

Great Fortune was my single favorite book of the year. I note that three of the ten were published this year, which is a lot for me. Usually I can discern a pattern or two among my bests, but this year they seem to have been all over the place.

[jackm8]

A rough list. My reading is chaotic and unorganised. As is this list.

Non-fiction Or a complete list of nonfiction that I finished this year, with two exceptions:

Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused
Effectively a collection of transcripts from interviews. Still, I liked it enough to read all of it.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High: Cameron Crowe
A more coherent read as Alright, Alright..., but also less interesting.
Charles Spencer - A Very Private School
Memorable and disturbing.
Letters of Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford
It's not a collection that you can recommend to anyone that has not exhausted all other options about the two. It does manage to clear a few misunderstandings from Paula Byrne's fabulous partial biography. I may return to it, or I may abandon it, but I got what I wanted from it, and it was good.
The Story of San Michele, Axel Munthe
On hold currently. It's a kind of pause where you put it on a special place, so as not to forget it, but you are then anxious to pick it up again, because you know that reading it will hurt.

Fiction:

Helena, Evelyn Waugh
I saw hints of Flaubert's Salambo, a few hints of brilliance, but also Waugh too serious, without his usual mirth.
Poor relations, Compton Mackenzie.
Simple comedy dealing with class status. Albeit in a typically obtuse Mackenzie prose (joke). It led into a short foray of this genre.
The Darkening Green, Compton Mackenzie.
I know of only one written review of this novel online, so excuse some impromptu rambling. The novel wasn't touted as autobiographical at the release, but judging by Mackenzies autobiography, it was autographical, at least party. It comprises two separate holidays of a boy in a country village at the turn of the 19th century. First part is introduction of the inhabitants and locale. The second part turns into a melodramatic romance. It's the first part that works, with its romantic look at the village that is no more. It also offers some interesting insight, some intentional humour, and some unintentional humour as well. Compton complains and nags about cyclists ruining the idyll, about an ugly petrol station. His annoyance with hikers is present here as well, not in a full humorous furry of Monarch of the Glen, but it's enough to make you chuckle. There is some of that also in the 2nd part, but all of it is really overshadowed by a predictable and tiresome romance plot.
Snobs, Julian Fellowes.
Funny and touching. Without doubt the best book that I've read this year. Probably because of this, his Belgravia was one of the biggest disappointments that I've tried reading this year.
The Affair of the Blood-stained Egg Cosy, The Affair of the Mutilated Mink, The Affair of the 39 Cufflinks by James Anderson
They all quickly turned into some of my favourite whodunits. I devoured all three of them in a rapid fashion.
Three Man in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
I don't reread many books. I was dealing with some sad family things, and I'm glad that I could pick something like this again.
Lord of the World, Robert Hugh Benson
Proto-scifi in Catholic clothes. It maybe deals a little too much with overarching philosophy for my taste. Personal hints of it in Huysmans En Route are better for my soul.

2025 books:
Zero.
Hallmarked Man will be the first 2025 book that I'll read this year. It shouldn't disappoint to be an entertaining read, but who knows.

[rrr]

Nick Jones "And Then She Vanished". Very good indeed. Gripping page-turner. Time travel.

Can anyone recommend others like this?
Preferably: standalone (so a proper ending); gripping (so I don't fall asleep); not too long (<~ 400pp); SF or general thriller.