Every December, I love looking back at my year in books. My reading always ends up reflecting everything else in my life. It shows what I’m curious about, what’s inspired me, and how I’ve grown. This year, I feel like really got to fall back in love with reading so much more deeply.
For the first time in a while, I wasn’t reading for research or a challenge. I was just reading for fun, enjoying late nights turning pages, underlining favorite lines, and chasing that feeling of being completely swept away. I dove into the romantasy craze, rediscovered my love of epic fantasy, and loved more than a few fascinating reads on sociology, philosophy, and metaphysics.
It all added up to one of my most satisfying reading years ever. It was fun, thought-provoking—full of books that made me think deeply and feel everything. Here are some of my favorite reads from 2025.
Total books read: 93
Fiction to non-fiction ratio: 61:32
(Note: All links are Amazon affiliate links.)
Fiction
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
OMG. I don’t know if this was actually better than the first book (which made my list last year), or it’s just that I’m well and truly hooked now, but I freaking loved this book. Best novel-reading experience I’ve had in probably ten years. I was experiencing literal anxiety toward the end as the suspense kept ramping and ramping. And the cliffhanger… no words. I was just happy I came to the series late enough that the third book was literally a week from coming out when I finished this one.
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros (affiliate link)
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
I found the first book in the series intriguing (even though it totally threw me when it shifted MMCs). But this one… this one was perfection. Loved the usage of a single POV, the incredibly rich characterization across the board, the beautiful and delicious romance, the stellar worldbuilding, and the beautiful prose. Tour de force.
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas (affiliate link)
A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
This one wasn’t quite as electrifying as the previous one (above), but the delectable and deep characterization, the well-realized world, and the deft progression of plot and stakes makes it eminently readable and enjoyable.
A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas (affiliate link)
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Sublime. It’s a profound poem of magical realism that stays grounded in the never-ending charm of its humor. Amidst the taken-for-granted absurdities of Orlando’s very long life, there arises an almost ineffable perspective on the infinities that reside within us all amidst our strange relationship to time—the paradox of our short and finite lives feeling like they are somehow attached to all things and all time at once.
Orlando by Virginia Woolf (affiliate link)
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
I started this book many years ago when I was too young to “get it.” Returning now, after watching the film adaptation and the Broadway musical, I was delighted and swept away by the story, which in many ways is as different from the musical as it is from the original Wizard of Oz. The prose is a delight, as is Elphaba, the main character. The first half of the book is by far the strongest, and the second half doesn’t pack quite the same punch as the first, especially those heady years of Elphaba as a budding radical at Shiz University. On the whole, I feel that where the musical falters, the book is better, and where the book falters, the musical is better. Particularly taken together, they are a tour de force of that rare thing: a frothy entertainment that is powerful in its thematic subversiveness.
Non-Fiction
The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins
One of my resolutions this year was to get clearer on financial strategy (especially as a self-employed person). This book was a favorite. It has a cult following and is as good as everyone says it is. In my experience so far, I’d say that if you’re only going to read one book on finance in your life, this is the one. Collins’s advice is simple, straightforward, and cuts to the chase. It’s a fast read, and every page is packed with solid, practical advice.
The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins (affiliate link)
The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks
If I could give this book more than five stars, I would. What can one say about Rumi that is even sufficient? Sacred transmissions and poetry of the soul. So much wisdom and pathos and cheekiness and depth beyond depth. I will read Rumi all my life.
The Essential Rumi (affiliate link)
The Social Construction of Reality by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann
When I first picked up this book back in 2017, the first sentence blew my mind so hard I literally couldn’t keep reading: the claim that our conception of reality is a social construct, and that the sociology of knowledge must uncover how this happens. That idea stayed with me for years and in many ways completely reshaped the way I thought about my life, the world, even about writing.
Coming back to the book this year, I finally read it through—and while it’s short, it’s also extraordinarily (and, for my money, unnecessarily) dense. It’s a fascinating exploration of how so much of what we take as “given” in the world and in ourselves is actually the result of collective human construction. It’s not just about why society looks the way it does, but about why we are who we are and what that means for our sense of identity, agency, and freedom. It’s the kind of book I know I’ll need to reread, but even one pass is enough to crack open assumptions about reality in ways that never quite close again.
Becoming Supernatural by Dr. Joe Dispenza
This was the third and final book by Joe Dispenza I read this year, and each one seemed to surpass the last in impact. I found it deeply inspiring, offering insights that not only encouraged me to live a better life but also helped me bring more structure and clarity to practices I’ve already been exploring. Overall, the experience felt meaningful and valuable, leaving me with a stronger sense of direction and understanding.
Becoming Supernatural by Dr. Joe Dispenza (affiliate link)
My Books
And if all these goodies aren’t enough to fill your To Be Read pile next year, here are a few more! 🙂
Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! What were your top books of 2025? How many books did you read? Tell me in the comments!
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Don’t know how many I’ve read. It’s not the number, but the content that matters to me. Perhaps the best of the year was “The Flower Travelled in My Blood by Haley Cohen Gilliland — Non fiction written better than most fiction books because of the author’s ability to weave history, emotion, horror, hope, determination, and a 1/2 century of search for so many lost children into one book.
What a beautiful title. I’ll have to check that one out!
Thank you so much for your hard work for aspiring writers!
For anyone else looking to add to a never-ending reading list, just be aware that the Maas and Yarro books all include sex scenes, per reviews at romance.io
I feel like a slouch. 93 books read, that’s almost one every four days! Very ambitious. Rumi is a favorite of mine, too. His quotes are like guideposts for life.
I read 22 books so far and my best are”
1. Bitter Orange Tree
2. Kafka on the shore
3. Becoming Supernatural
4. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
5. The Dictionary of Lost Words
6 Memory of Departure
7. Pillars of the Earth
8. Samarkand
9. The secrets between us
10. The creation of half broken people
Pillars of the Earth is on my shelf for next year!
You will enjoy it! It was an experience. It’s great not only for the drama and the characters, but also if you love history. One of the characters is a builder who is working on a cathedral, and I took art history in high school so I kept waiting for the moment when he would figure out about the flying buttress.
Top book read in 2025. By some distance, Elif Shafak’s ‘There are Rivers in the Sky’.
I remember reading Social Construction of Reality when I was working on my PhD in the late 70s (yes). Once read, you never see the world the same way again.
I’m reading another one–Julian Jaynes’s Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind–that is similarly blowing my mind. I’m sure it will make next year’s list.
The Witch Roads by Kate Elliot was one of my top books this year. The worldbuilding is excellent, the protagonist is so deeply identified with her job in a society of intricate hierarchy that feels convincing, and the way she dripped in the backstory made it intriguing all the way through.
I’m currently reading Six Wild Crowns by Holly Race and how she spins a time of repressive rule into a fantasy world with empowered women is so great, plus the tension is crackling. I can recommend it too.
I also would like to say it was inspiring to read your post, and your approach to reading for the joy of it!
Aww, thanks! Reading was a blast this year. Thanks for the further suggestions!
Fiction purchased and read since last Christmas, in order of purchase:
Looking for Alaska, John Green – B
Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell – A+ immersive, emotional
Sink the Rising Sun, Jon Gabriel – B (WWII submariners out of Australia)
If He Had Been With Me, Laura Nowlin – B
After You, Jojo Moyes – B+
Genesis Machine trilogy (K.J. Gillenwater) – B-
Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion – C
Less Than Zero – Brett Easton Ellis – C
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce (trying it again) – C+
Forever, Judy Blume – B-
It Ends With Us, Colleen Hoover – B+
Mrs. Fletcher, Tom Perotta – B
I enjoyed reading “Escapades and Interludes” by Colin Barmby – which you can find on Amazon. It’s an entertaining non-fiction account of living and working in eleven countries, with lots of thrills and spills. Includes the former Soviet Union, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Singapore, Bulgaria… You name it. Recommended!