favorite books of 2025
past annual favorite book lists:
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I read 40 books in 2025. My reading-for-fun definitely dropped off during both my spring and fall semesters but I finished a slew of things in December after wrapping up. (I also read hundreds of pages both semesters for various classes, but journal articles and singular book chapters don't factor much into these end-of-year stats!)
I attribute much of my year-end total to the many audiobooks I listened to on my two 20+ hour cross-country drives this summer. I have been trying to clear out older things from my to-read list, either by deleting items I don't actually plan to read, and on the other hand prioritizing on audio some books that I haven't otherwise gotten around to reading in book/ebook form. Overall this culling of my to-read list is a Sisyphean task so I don't think I will pursue that with the same fervor in 2026.
In my ongoing attempts to give less money to billionaires, I also am slowly phasing out my use of Goodreads. I now have an account on Storygraph and on Fable, so let me know if you are on either of those platforms!
As always, here are my favorite books that I read in 2025 (with a few honorable mentions), in no particular order:
How About Now: Poems // Kate Baer
I love Kate Baer and her work so much. This collection was so beautiful and I got to hear her read several of the poems at her hometown book tour stop in Doylestown, PA with my friend Angie. Of her three previous collections, my favorite has been her first, "What Kind of Woman," and "How About Now" is up there for me too. This book felt like a celebration of women and our strengths that are often cast as weakness by the patriarchy. It also felt like these poems are opening a door and beckoning—what if? how about now? I will return to this one often.
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America // Richard Rothstein
This has been on my list to read for years and I finally read it this year. We referred to several parts of the text in my planning law class this fall, and I did a cover-to-cover read-through as well. Rothstein's impressive legal background underscores the work he presents in this book—an exploration of the intricacies of de jure ('by law' or 'in fact') segregation in the United States, as enacted through policy decisions of numerous agencies and entities within the public and private sectors, but notably including government. Rothstein's central argument is that racial segregation in the United States is largely perceived as a matter of personal bias, rather than as something enacted and supported through legal means in the country. He deconstructs this misconception held by too many Americans, in each chapter exploring one such mechanism of segregation. The book explores labor practices, highway construction and planning in the mid-20th century, interest rates, home ownership, zoning, and so much more. Rothstein's extensive research illustrates these examples in great detail, at both a systems level and at a personal level. He cites examples from around the country and weaves in anecdotal experience to illustrate the impacts and how they were felt by Black Americans subject to government-endorsed segregation. It is a remarkable book and I think it should be required reading for every American.
Empire of AI // Karen Hao
This is easily one of my top recommendations from the year and I am adding it to my list of what I think should be required reading for everyone. If you know me well, you have undoubtedly heard my AI diatribe, but I will spare you here and instead talk about this book. This is an incredibly well-researched and clear-eyed discussion of AI and specifically the company OpenAI (which created ChatGPT) within the broader artificial intelligence sector of the tech industry. As a technology reporter for several high-profile national publications, Hao was covering AI and related topics long before ChatGPT came on the scene. She writes at length and in detail about OpenAI and other tech startups and behemoths (like Microsoft and Meta) in Silicon Valley and the broader tech context in which AI developments have rapidly occurred. She also dedicates several chapters to the environmental and human impacts of AI in the Global South, with the human workforce powering content moderation and other low-paying labor, the siting of data centers in South America, and more. All of this reveals the broader context in which the AI boom is happening, and the extent to which the AI industry has obfuscated its tangible and material impacts and exported its negative externalities. She draws connections between this “empire of AI” and the European colonial empires that relied on economies of extraction and abuse (of Indigenous people and the Global South) and makes the case that AI is continuing that ideological system in this technological age. Hao also explores the narrative spun by Sam Altman and how OpenAI founders and executives believed they were doing virtuous work but how ultimately the pursuit of power and wealth has overpowered any virtuous intent that was present at the outset.
I am a person who is pretty staunchly anti-generative AI and I appreciated the way Hao addressed these topics—she defines the technology clearly for what it is and what it isn't, noting the (positive and negative) impacts of the technological advances *as well as* their limitations. I found the last chapter of the book to be especially compelling in illustrating a different way forward—how people are successfully doing things differently in a way that is more responsible and responsive to the people most impacted by generative AI's development and use. In a world that treats the increasingly rapid adoption and deployment of these technologies as a foregone conclusion, I appreciate the way Hao articulates a possible future that we still have the ability to choose.
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials Book I) // Phillip Pullman
Last January, on a roadtrip to Moab with my friend Ron, I had just finished the novel I had brought and was craving more fiction instead of the other book I'd brought. Ron had brought a couple books as well and was rereading the His Dark Materials series and leant it to me during the trip. I really loved this first installment in the series, and it felt like a very fitting winter read, given the Arctic setting of much of the book. I loved Lyra and found her a refreshing heroine as she is scrappy and a bit rough-around-the-edges. This is a slight spoiler—Mrs. Coulter is up there for me with the best villains of children's literature alongside Esme Squalor of the A Series of Unfortunate Events books. I loved the world-building of this story and the idea of the daemons, or a small animal companion that each person has that evokes their inner-self. I also found a lot of beautiful ideas represented in the narrative; it reminded me of other favorite children's literature that I loved as a kid and still as an adult. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
"Their eyes were gleaming with hope and excitement. And all through the canteen the message was being passed around. Lyra could tell that the atmosphere had changed. Outside, the children had been energetic and eager for play; then when they had seen Mrs. Coulter they were bubbling with a suppressed hysterical fear; but now there was a control and purpose to their talkativeness. Lyra marveled at the effect hope could have."
The Will of the Many // James Islington
A moment of silence for the truly horrible cover design that most copies come with, in addition to that of the sequel (just released in November)—these are not doing these books any favors. This was one of my top favorites of the year. I am considering rereading it before I read the sequel, just so the story and events are fresh in my memory, and because I enjoyed the reading experience so much. This is a great reminder to me that every once in a while I should veer outside my well-trodden genres because there are great things to find in other genres; I don't read a lot of fantasy but The Will of the Many has me strongly reconsidering that position. Islington's world-building is exquisite and engrossing and the Catenan Republic is troubling and fascinating in equal parts. The Catenan civilization relies on a caste system in which lower-rung people cede their "will" to the next level up, with each successive tier receiving more and more will in a very pyramid-scheme-esque configuration. The protagonist is an orphaned young man who the reader does not initially know much about, but he is singled out as someone with potential and sent by his benefactor to an elite boarding school, in part to learn and be trained as a Catenan citizen, and in part to uncover the mysteries lurking beneath the surface at the school. The boarding school has its own hierarchical system which the narrator moves through, making friends and making enemies as he tries to navigate an unfamiliar world. The top-tier students train to compete in a high-stakes competition, evoking something of the Hunger Games while the boarding school atmosphere felt somewhat nostalgic as a longtime HP reader (although the resemblances pretty much ended at "boarding school").
If you liked other YA series such as those referenced above, if you are interested in ancient civilizations (or current ones) or political theory, or if you simply love a good book that you cannot put down, I think you should read this book (and probably the sequel). James Islington has another book series which I am adding to my list stat.
“They ask something small of you. A thing you would prefer not to do, but is not so terrible. You think you are working your way up, but in fact they are changing you. Moulding you into what they think you should be, one compromise at a time.” He says it simply, but there’s rock-hard belief beneath the words. “I am not suggesting you should have ignored what Scitus said. I am just saying that in this place… each man has to find his line. Has to find it ahead of time, and be resolved never to cross it.”
The Ministry of Time // Kaliane Bradley
This was one of the first books I finished reading in 2025 and remains one of my very favorites from the year. Kaliane Bradley's debut follows a protagonist working in Britain's "Ministry of Time," an experimental government division exploring the possibilities of time travel. Recognizing the butterfly effect of making changes in the past, the Ministry has identified a handful of individuals from disparate time periods who died young or prematurely, and has flagged them as the experimental time travelers, bringing these 'refugees of the past' to the present (their future). Our protagonist is a handler for one such time traveler, an Arctic explorer. The infrastructure and procedures for time travel in the book are fascinating and it explores a lot of idiosyncrasies of the present day that the time travelers must adjust to. I loved the cast of characters in this novel, and especially the time travelers and the main character. There are some excellent twists and the writing is superb. I don't want to say much more lest I give away major plot points, but I highly recommend it. My friend Elizabeth had initially recommended it to me, which was very fitting as we are both Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next fans, and I very much felt that this could co-exist in the same universe as those books.
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century // Timothy Snyder
This short, slim volume should be required reading for all Americans. Snyder is a historian who has written extensively on the United States and Eastern European governments. This book summarizes his observations about the way regular Americans (or people anywhere) can contribute to preventing the backsliding of democracy into a more tyrannical form of government. Each chapter holds one piece of advice, which he elaborates on, and together these chapters form the 20 lessons referenced in the title. He emphasizes things like media literacy, reading, and building community with your neighbors. Regardless of your thoughts on the current presidential administration, I think many of the lessons are simply good reminders of how to be an active participant in democracy, and in preserving and maintaining democracy.
Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places // John Stilgoe
I found John Stilgoe's work through colleagues and friends in grad school and I love his writing. His book Shallow Water Dictionary is sitting next to my bed to read soon and also feels quite resonant with another of my favorite books Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane. Outside Lies Magic is a wonderful volume documenting Stilgoe's ethos around noticing things in the built environment. He dedicates each chapter to a common, often taken-for-granted element of modern life in a busy world and traces the threads of how these things came to be. He looks at the postal service, old train tracks, Main Street, with evocative chapter titles like "Beginnings," "Lines," and "Enclosures." His ethos resonates very much with my own; his throughline in the book is that walking or biking are excellent ways to take in the details of the places around you and dig deeper into what has shaped them into what they are.
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place // Terry Tempest Williams
I love Terry Tempest Williams' writing so much. Her book When Women Were Birds has been a favorite of mine for at least a decade and The Open Space of Democracy was another favorite of mine that I read last year. I have more of her books on my shelves and want to make my way through them; it's so nice to have books to look forward to and she has a new release scheduled in 2026 as well!
Refuge is part memoir, part environmental essay, documenting the birds of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge on the Great Salt Lake and tracking the Great Salt Lake's record-high elevation in the 1980s. TTW also explores her personal connection to the Salt Lake Valley and the generations of her family affected by radiation fallout from the Nevada nuclear testing site. She weaves these threads together beautifully, and we are so lucky to have her voice as a naturalist, conservationist, and steward of these places, with the staying power that literature provides; even as she has long since moved to southern Utah, her words on the GSL reverberate to these current times of the lake's record lows and threats of its toxic dust, reflecting how we might show greater care for this world around us.
On a personal level, 2025 was when my friend Sam observed that "you have an east coast personality, but the west is in your blood" (during my dreamy Colorado summer) and honestly that is one of the most prescient things someone has ever said about me. This particular volume from TTW really resonated with me on that level and will be a forever favorite book because it captures my love of the desert and how I feel when I am in the desert. TTW also has connections to Mormonism and her writings on the complicated religion of her upbringing is another aspect of this book which resonates deeply.
Tom Lake // Ann Patchett
I will read anything she writes; Ann Patchett is one of my favorite novelists and one of my favorite essayists, and I enjoyed this novel so much. Tom Lake is the second novel I read in 2025 which occurs during early COVID social distancing and lockdown. It has something of an insular feel, with the protagonists family needing to carry on their family business of harvesting their cherry orchard, with a workforce greatly reduced by the pandemic restrictions, but who are otherwise sheltered from the greatest shocks of the early pandemic. In this setting, they retreat into the past—the three daughters (obviously another reason I loved this book) drawing out the long-alleged story from their mom of the summer she dated a major Hollywood movie star, then-on the cusp of stardom.
The summer romance occurred when the two met as actors in a summer theater production of Our Town. I love the slow reveal of who she is married to now; as the reader, we know the non-end from the beginning (aka that she doesn't end up permanently with the Hollywood dreamboat) but the edges of the actual story slowly come into focus through the course of the novel. I love Patchett's writing, and I loved the gentle, quiet nature of this book. It felt very resonant with the ethos of Our Town and was a great reminder of the power of fiction during trying times.
The Architecture of Disability // David Gissen
In my design education, accessibility has typically been discussed only briefly and in terms of complying with ADA; in my efforts to prioritize accessibility and universal design in my work, I learned about this book and made it a priority to read it this year. This is more of a theoretical text than an instruction manual, which was exactly what I'd been seeking; new approaches will require creativity and new ways of thinking, and I find a background in theory to be extremely helpful in shaping new ideas as a departure from previous ways of doing things. Gissen argues for an "architecture of disability" in design that centers and celebrates disability rather than treats it as an afterthought, denies its existence, or frames it as a negative or diminished state of being. Chapters in the book deal with different aspects of disability in the built environment, including the role of labor in building construction and its connection to disability, monumentality in cities and how this relates to or creates challenges for disabled people, specific built works that have or have not effectively engaged disability (with the city of Vienna cited as one that centers disability in much of its built environment due to its notable population of disabled veterans in the 20th century), and more. One of my friends was a student of David Gissen and she is reading this with colleagues at the architecture firm where she works so I am looking forward to having more people to discuss this with! I have more books about disability on my list, as well as a lot of writers, theorists, and scholars that I highlighted in the endnotes from Gissen's book, and I think this body of knowledge is an important aspect of fostering an inclusive design culture.
Romantic Comedy // Curtis Sittenfeld
This was the first COVID-19-situated novel I read in 2025 (the other being Tom Lake, as noted above). My sister has been telling me to read Sittenfeld's novels for years (especially Eligible) and I know I am remiss in not having read her others yet! Romantic Comedy follows a writer on a late-night comedy show (never named the reader basically knows it is supposed to be SNL) who has some chance encounters with one of the musical guests, an attractive pop singer who she underestimates because he is an attractive pop star and she expects him to be vapid and self-obsessed. The novel follows their connection and it was so enjoyable, funny, and refreshing to read. I loved the glimpse at the late-night writer life as portrayed in the book and seeing how the comedy sketches came together. I read it early in the year when it was freezing cold and dismally wintry in Philly and it was the perfect antidote to and escape from the world outside.
The Other Side of Disappearing // Kate Clayborn
This book was recommended by my friend Angie and her recommendations never disappoint. The Other Side of Disappearing follows the story of Jess, a young woman who raised her younger half-sister after their mom disappeared with her boyfriend of a few months. Jess has shielded her half-sister from the truth that he was a con man who is the subject of a local true crime podcast, which is following his last-known con in their current season. Her half-sister wants to track down their mom and the podcast crew is coming along; Jess joins the roadtrip in an attempt to shield her sister from the harsh truth. I really enjoyed this book and found the premise to make for a really compelling plot, with the dual storylines of the podcast and the real-time roadtrip and tracking down of their mom. It's also a romance and I loved the characters a lot. I don't want to give away any crucial details so I'll leave it at that, but it was a fun read and I didn't want it to end.
reread: Till We Have Faces // C.S. Lewis
This is a long-time favorite that I reread early in the year—my initial reading took place a decade previously, before I was sharing my year of favorite books online so I am including it as I haven't written about it before.
This book is a major departure from what most people have likely come to expect from C.S. Lewis's canon; rather than strict religious allegory or subject, here Lewis takes on a retelling of the mythological tale of Psyche and Cupid. It's honestly a strange book and I always seem to have a hard time writing about why I love it and what it means to me. A lot of it relates to perception (of self and of others) and as much of Lewis' other fiction, is legend laced with allegory.
"But one thing was certain: I had never thought at all how it might be with her when I turned first to the Fox and then to Psyche. For it had been somehow settled in my mind from the very beginning that I was the pitiable and ill-used one. She had her gold curls, hadn't she?"
honorable mentions:
Taste: My Life Through Food // Stanley Tucci (I started with a physical copy which I eventually ditched in favor of audio, which I enjoyed much more. Tucci has a very conversational writing style that felt a bit grating to me on the page but in audio format was perfection, and indeed where I think he shines due to his many years as a beloved actor. I loved his stories about his upbringing and his wife and kids and their many beloved Italian food traditions. The print copy is obviously superior though to reference specific recipes he shares.)
Beg, Borrow, or Steal // Sarah Adams (recommended by several friends and it was a fun read. I want to read the other books in the series!)
Every Summer After // Carley Fortune (my comments include a vague but nonetheless spoiler alert: I genuinely loved this one until an 11th hour reveal of my most detested romance trope that somewhat soured the rest of the book for me. but I'll read more from her!)
Red, White, and Royal Blue // Casey McQuiston (I think I may have added an Oxford comma in this title where she had none, but I stand by it. I listened to this on audio and it was a great audio production. I loved the humor and the writing and it reminded me of the humor and gravitas that co-exist in some of my favorite political dramas. And I obviously loved the featured couple and the slight Princess Diaries/The Prince and Me/What a Girl Wants/etc. feel to it all.)
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What were your favorite books or top recommendations from 2025? I decided I am done making specific reading goals for myself (besides a number, this year: 30) because I never stick to them, but I would like to get back into reading more poetry as my poetry reading has dropped off somewhat in the last couple of years. Do you have any titles you hope to read in 2026 or new releases you are looking forward to? Happy reading!
