10 Favorite Books in 2025

The best books I read this year.

Hi Friends,

I read 25 books this year, breaking my personal goal of reading over 20 in a year! I haven’t been able to crack the 20 book mark since I started keeping a list five years ago. Here’s 10 of my favorite books from this year:

My 10 Favorite Books in 2025.

1. Endurance by Alfred Lansing.

   I spent the better part of the cold and dark early winter months of this year re-reading Lansing’s classic. It’s one of my favorites and a fascinating non-fiction book that reads like fiction. (I wrote about Shackleton’s List.)

   
   

2. The Ship Beneath The Ice by Mensun Bound.

   I read Mensun Bound’s book on searching for the Endurance shipwreck first, then had to go back and re-read Lansing’s book to complete the saga. Bound’s logs detailing his two expeditions searching for the wreck are the perfect bookend to the logs and diaries of the Endurance crew.
   
   

3. How To Listen To Jazz by Ted Goia.

   Ted Goia is one of my favorite writers on Substack so I knew I wanted to read one of his books. I love jazz and thought I ‘knew’ how to listen to jazz but learned a ton! Goia’s wealth of knowledge on music and music history made this a fun read.
   
   

4. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

   One of my goal’s this year was to read more fiction. I’d just finished watching the television series based on Atwood’s novel so I had to read it. Atwood doesn’t disappoint; it’s up there with dystopian classics 1984 and Brave New World.
   
   

5. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

   I love finding books at free libraries or out on the curb. I have this idea that these books were ‘meant’ for me because they crossed my path. I’d heard a lot about Station Eleven so when I found I picked it up. Another dystopian novel that’s super creative, imaginative and musical! (Read before watching the TV series!)
   
   

6. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.

   Back in May I took a fiction writing workshop and was recommended this novel. I read No Country For Old Men last year and loved it. Blood Meridian is an epic masterpiece. The writing floored me. It’s the western Moby-Dick.
   
   

7. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson.

   Reading this was one of the highlights of my summer. I started working my way through Thompson’s work two years ago with Hell’s Angels and Rum Diary. It’s hilarious, outrageous, even frightening, but also some damn good writing.
   
   

8. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.
   Maybe my #1 book this year. What a ride! Tom Ripley reminds me of Breaking Bad’s Walter White, a villain we can’t help but love. Highsmith’s writing is thrilling and easy-to-read. I couldn’t get enough of following Ripley across Italy from one crime to the next. (Another book recommended to me at the writing workshop.)
   
   

9. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
   Stevenson’s 1886 horror novella is one of those books that everyone’s heard of but I was surprised to learn it’s more complex than I anticipated. I loved how Stevenson imbues dreary, foggy London with the hint of something supernatural, strange and unnerving.
   
   

10. Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck.

    One of my favorites, period. I re-read Travels with Charley once a year usually while I’m travelling because it gets me into the mindset of letting the experience of the trip take over, rather than following an itinerary. I started reading while visiting Lake Tahoe and it carried me through the end of the summer.
    
    

Some more books I read this year:

• Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Marukami

• Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion

• Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

• Discipline Is Destiny by Ryan Holiday

• Zero Day by David Baldacci

• 2182 Kilohertz by David Maisel

• The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John Le Carre

• Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
  
  

Check out my Five Bullets newsletter for more books, reading and writing.

I read a lot of fiction this year plus a few non-fiction titles. I read books that were on my to-read list but also left room for books that grabbed my attention. Summer was definitely the high point of my reading year because the workshop gave me some great recommendations to check out.

Let me know your favorite book this year in the comments.

Happy Reading!

-Keith

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