My Favourite Books of 2025
The pseudo-hermit bookworm checks in
Hi friends,
In ye olde Field Notes tradition, this week I’m sharing my favourite reads of 2025 with you. I typically read 100-120 books a year but as of today, I’ve read 164 books, give or take, throughout 2025. A surprising number of those were fantastic 5-star reads which made creating this year’s list a real situation. I’m spoiled for choice here.
My initial plan to “just include every book I loved this year” resulted in about, oh, 35 books per section so yeah, not helpful for you or a “best” list at all. So I’ve gone back and forth, adding and removing, second-guessing, narrowing by genre (i.e. what was my fave mystery? if I could only choose one rom-com which would it be? etc.) and talking myself in/out of certain choices. All of which is to say that this list is certainly not every book I loved this year - there were so many! - but these are the ones that emerged as my favourites. A favourite for me means that I absolutely loved it, recommended it often, loaned it out, loved talking about it, re-read it or want to re-read it soon, and I am still thinking of it. My concession is that I did include an “honourable mentions” section, too.
If you are new-ish here, don’t sleep on the comments for this post. Every year, this is one of my favourite comment sections as everyone shares their own favourite reads. Your own library hold request page or TBR list is about to get a work-out.
FAQs
Whenever I share a book post like this, I’m asked a few particular questions so I thought I’d answer them here, instead of the comment section.
How do I keep track of the books I read?
For my personal reading record-keeping this year, I made the switch from Goodreads to The Storygraph and can I just tell you how much more fun the End of The Year round-ups are over there?1 They have so many graphics and charts and fun insights based on your reading. Plus it’s ad-free, you can search based on mood, content warnings for books are pretty easily accessible, no money goes to wicked billionaires with a rocket fetish, you can review with half and even quarter stars, it’s less “social media” driven, and it was created by a Black female entrepreneur from London.
Interesting stats Storygraph gave me: my reading “mood” this year was overwhelmingly leaning towards Emotional, Reflective, Informative, Hopeful, and Inspiring. And it turns out that I was almost an even split between fiction (47%) and nonfiction (53%), which kind of surprised me since I feel like I’ve always leaned more towards fiction in my reading habits.
What format do you prefer for reading?
I do have a Kindle, which I liked back when I was travelling for work more often and I have listened to a few audiobooks lately, which has been a fun addition. But I’m definitely a physical pages-and-ink book reader - listen, I’m Gen X! I’m old now! - and it’s my preferred medium.
Where do you get your books?
I get almost all of my books at the library. Shout out to our public libraries!
I do receive a lot of complementary books from publishers, particularly in the spiritual lane, too - that’s pretty typical for most writers.
If I really love a book, then I buy it to add to my personal library and annotate the heck out of it. Then I lean towards used bookstores. You’d be shocked how often you can find current bestsellers at thrift stores, too. If I’m buying new, I try to buy at a physical bookstore rather than online whenever possible.
How do you read so many books?
I’m broken? jk jk jk So the best answer I have for you is that I’ve always read a lot (Somewhere out there, my mother is cackling) but I read even more intensely when life is a bit much or I’m under deadline. I’m a fast reader, for sure, and I can read/understand/retain things pretty quickly. The other factor here is that I don’t really watch any television or movies, listen to podcasts or have other hobbies other than knitting and walking. I’m basically a pseudo-hermit bookworm who would rather be reading in the corner of the couch than going out. Since my kids were tinies, I have kept boundaries for my online time in the evenings or weekends, so reading books is just kind of what I “do” when it’s down-time. This all contributes to making me woefully behind in pop culture, prone to being completely out of it for memes and viral stuff, unable to reply to DMs in the myriad of inboxes, and likely to choose a purse based on whether or not it can hold a hardcover book, but yeah, I do read a lot of books.
Have you got a new book yourself coming soon?
How nice and completely unexpected of you to ask! 😉 I do have a new book project I’ll be announcing in early January. I can’t wait to share this one with you all.
And I’m also in the final stages of finishing the first draft of another book manuscript which will be out in late 2026 or early 2027, depending on how the editing process unfolds. All of which is to say: yes and yes and more soon!