My top reads of 2025
Well, 2025 was another year of my adult life where I just kept on going despite the increasing horrors, and nothing truly momentous happened. I did do some things, though:
- Put a couple of my short stories out there, elsewhere on my site and in issue 18 of The Kleksograph. The former came out of a creative project at Orford Ness, which was one of the highlights of my year. I’d love to take part in something like that again.
- Advocated for my sensory/wellbeing needs for the first time in my life, despite massive anxiety and the mean voice in my head telling me I was being awkward and dramatic.
- Got a couple more Emotional Madness performances under my belt.
- Continued with my board game hobby/compulsion.
- Supported the arts (primarily discovering/buying books and music, and going to gigs and the theatre).
Here are my top 2025 album releases, if that's of interest.
- Cloakroom - Last Leg of the Human Table
- L.S. Dunes - Violet
- Wisp - If Not Winter
- Die Spitz - Something To Consume
- Nation of Language - Dance Called Memory
- Skunk Anansie - The Painful Truth
- Suede - Antidepressants
- Miki Berenyi Trio - Tripla (yes, my 2025 list is very 1996-flavoured)
- Cutouts - Snakeskin
- AFI - Silver Bleeds The Black Sun
As ever, I’ve had to split my favourite reads of the year into categories as there were just so many books I wanted to include. All the books below got ratings of 5 or 4.5 stars from me.
Authors I couldn’t get enough of
A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers
The Race, by Nina Allan
The Old Goat and the Alien, by Veo Corva
Service Model, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Path of Thorns, by A.G. Slatter
Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells
These are my favourite reads from the authors who popped up multiple times when I was planning this post. For now, I’ve read all of Becky Chambers’ books (*sniff*), but I have a few left to read by Nina Allan, Veo Corva, A.G. Slatter, and Martha Wells, while Adrian Tchaikovsky seems to bring out a new novel every other month!
You might be able to tell that I went big on genre fiction this year, especially soft, being-centred (is that a term? I think it should be!) sci-fi. Hence the next, slightly oversized, category…
Sci-fi, fantasy, and alternate history
The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow
Herald Petrel, by Strange Seawolf
The Fox Wife, by Yangsze Choo
The Whisper of Stars, by Cristin Williams
Opposite World, by Elizabeth Anne Martins
In the Lives of Puppets, by TJ Klune
If it featured quirky robots, portals, shapeshifting, space travel, and/or general weirdness this year, I was all over it.
I might not even have encountered some of these books without blog tour opportunities, and I really enjoyed sharing my thoughts about them in my reviews. Looking forward to seeing which ARCs especially capture my imagination in 2026!
Short stories
An Orchid in my Belly Button, by Katy Wimhurst
A Sunny Place for Shady People, by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell
An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It, by Jessie Greengrass
Barrowbeck, by Andrew Michael Hurley
The Witching Hour, by various authors
ECO24: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction, edited by Marissa van Uden
As they’re the main thing I write, it’s no surprise that a few short story collections made it onto my end of the year list! Also reflecting my own interests, these were mostly horror/Gothic and speculative.
Non-fiction
Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me From Success, by Miki Berenyi
Named: A Story of Names and Reclaiming Who We Are, by Camilla Balshaw
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, by Adam Higginbotham
Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller, by Oliver Darkshire
Untypical: How the world isn’t built for autistic people and what we should all do about it, by Pete Wharmby
As ever, I peppered my reading with non-fiction. These were the books I found especially captivating, thought-provoking, and/or relateable.
The best of the rest
A Council of Dolls, by Susan Mona Power
That Bonesetter Woman, by Frances Quinn
The Hymn to Dionysus, by Natasha Pulley
The Original Daughter, by Jemimah Wei
Home Before Dark, by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, translated by Victoria Cribb
This final category is kind of a bucket for general/historical/crime fiction reads that stood out to me. I just love books that do something notably creative/rather unusual and pull at the seams of their genres, and hopefully that comes through across the other categories, too.
Here’s to another year of brilliant books!