Books of 2025: The Books of the Year

For my last book post about 2025 reading, I borrow a bending of the rules from my 2024 final post: I award both a fiction and non-fiction book of the year.  I read 54% fiction this year, nine percentage points higher than last yar.  In some years, I make space for only one atop the mountain, but these two books merit sharing the spotlight.  Each brings its own charms and assets.

Wishing you a year of good reading in 2026!

The Books of the Year

Cabin; Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman, Patrick Hutchinson, 2024

When my friend Tom Persinger calls a title "the most fun book I've read in a while," I pay attention.  He said that about Cabin, and I agree with his assessment.  There's more here than fun, but let's start with that.  Hutchinson oozes self-deprecating charm as he describes purchasing a dilapidated cabin in the mountains outside Seattle and pouring his free time into improving it.  His work as a copywriter has stopped inspiring him, and he finds the cabin fulfilling that role.  Because he acquires this unplumbed tiny home with no electricity in a half-finished state, he organizes tons of work party trips out there with his friends.  Together, they accomplish landscaping and carpentry tasks and then drink beer, cook meat, and generally act like a bunch of little boys.  He encounters neighbors in this not-fancy part of the state outside the expensive city. Sometimes Hutchinson teases menace in house projects or interactions, but happily, they never pay off in anything truly horrifying.  The book generated a cozy glow for me, especially reading it before bed.  The term "shelter porn" usually describes luxury home designs outside most people's reach.  Cabin is a milder form in which the reader can feel the satisfaction Hutchinson felt while shaping this place up.  It doesn't hurt that he's finding himself and a new path in life as the cabin itself improves.  A delight.

James, Percival Everett, 2024

My in-laws lent us this book at the beginning of the year.  Since it went under my competent wife's nightstand, I forgot about it until my friend Tom (there he is again!) asked if I wanted to go see Everett speak in Pittsburgh.  When that event drew near, Paige reminded me that her parents had lent us a copy, and I quickly read the first 100 pages.  Everett entertained in person, but I got the impression he'd been on book tour a bit too long.

A retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the slave Jim - or James - this book is brilliant.  Without spoiling anything, Everett performs a storytelling magic trick by having the slaves in the book speak proper English to each other while code switching into the slave dialect whenever a white person may hear them.  The story flies by because James and Huck are in motion on their run down the Mississippi and also because the book consists primarily of dialog.  Everett benefits from the assumption that his readers largely know this story, so there's no need for backstory or exposition.  I found myself engrossed and delighted by this tour de force.  Already in April, I considered this an early candidate for book of the year. That held up.  I can't recommend this strongly enough.

Books of 2025: Fiction

True confesh: I read several books in crime and spy novel series this year.  That usually indicates that I sought books that would provide an escape, and that rings true with 2025.  I don't write about them here because I want you to esteem my literary sensibilities, but if you are also into escape literature, I recommend both the Thursday Murder Club books and the Slow Horses books.  Both have been made into pretty good TV series.

But back to how I read serious literature that makes me think....  This year, among my favorite novels were three that surprised me because they feature a kind of magic as key plot devices.  That usually turns me off, but I guess Holly Gramazio, Madeline Miller, and Yoko Ogawa write well enough that I could stand the mumbo jumbo. Or maybe I'm changing as a person (talk about magic!)

Books of the Year: Fiction

The Husbands, Holly Gramazio, 2024

My friend and trusty novel-recommender Cassie Christopher listed The Husbands among the books she read and liked in 2024.  I borrowed it not knowing exactly what to expect.  The title could have applied to any number of stories.  It's not spoiling too much to say that this is a fantasy novel in which the protagonist's attic magically produces a new husband every time her current husband goes up there.  This wild premise might have turned me off, but Gramazio plays so wonderfully with it that I got hooked.  The story remained imaginative and mostly fun throughout; Gramazio cooks up a great variety among the partners.  Possibly more surprising is that this wacky world can also produce thought-provoking moments about the blessings and challenges of marriage, family relationships, and friendship.  Although I really want to tell you about some of them, I shall refrain and instead encourage you to experience all that The Husbands offers for yourself.

The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa, 2003

My sister-in-law Lauren Jackson recommended this sweet novel translated from the Japanese to me.  In this unusual book, we meet a housekeeper, her school-age son, and a math professor whose house she tends. The professor's memory lasts only 80 minutes due to some kind of unnamed traumatic event.  The housekeeper supports him in maintaining a small life in a cottage behind his sister-in-law's house, and he becomes fond of the housekeeper's son.  The professor and the boy share a love of baseball. It's a simple story told in simple language and sprinkled with math problems.

Circe, Madeline Miller, 2018

When both my competent wife and my reading buddy Cassie Christopher recommend a novel, I pay attention.  They, or course, did not steer me wrong in the case of Circe.  Madeline Miller makes Greek mythology accessible and of-the-moment in a soothing and satisfying way.  It's been a long time since I've read about these Gods and Goddesses, nymphs, and the mortals they play with and maybe envy.  Miller's Circe, witch of Aiaia, shows her flaws and her fears amidst her mysterious powers.  Actually, a most intriguing aspect of her powers is how practical they seem.  Rather than just shooting lightning bolts out her fingertips, she cooks up her magic and follows protocols to deploy it.  I combined reading and listening to portions of this book; it proved a wonderful dozing companion.  For that, I credit Miller's language and British actress Perdita Weeks's narration.  Overall, I found the story moving and was sad to say goodbye to the characters at the end.

Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano, 2023

When my friend Cassie Christopher (I told you she's good, right?) recommended this novel to me, she had me at "a take on Little Women."  As a huge an of that classic novel, this felt like required reading.  Napolitano's homage is discreetly low-key.  Yes, the main characters consist of 4 sisters and a boy coming into their universe.  Readers, though, will be hard pressed to find one-to-one doppelgängers between these Padavano sisters and the March girls.  And there's not a Marmee in sight.  Also, a humble Chicago neighborhood from the 1980s to 2008 bears little resemblance to Civil War and Reconstruction Concord, MA. Hello Beautiful refers to Little Women but stands capably on its own.  Between its covers, I found sweetness, sadness, and believable humanity.  Napolitano moves the authorial narrator around between the characters at parallel points in time.  It works well structurally.  The story comments on what we do - whether visible to us or not - in response to the strengths and faults of our family of origin.  As a reader, I appreciated that Napolitano saw the story through to completion without nailing down every detail of these characters' present or future lives.