Books Read in 2025

In 2025 I read 90 books. This was a small step up from 2024 when I read 84 books, but still a far cry from ‘22 and‘23 when I read 110 and 121 books respectively. 

Of these 90 books, 13 were re-reads, 24 were nonfiction, 21 were mystery/ suspense, six were westerns, six were biographies. A couple of fantasies, couple horror, couple science fiction and one play. 

The best books I read last year were “An Oresteia” by Anne Carson, which is her new translation/ adaptation of three great Greek tragedies, one each by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The co-best book of the year was “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant” by Ann Tyler. This may show that I am moving in the right direction, because a couple of years ago I worried that I was not reading enough female-written fiction. This year, however, my two top books were both written by women and , oddly, both written by women named Anne. So good for Anne. 

Runners-up to the best books of the year were “The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway”, “James” by Percival Everett, and “The Onion Book of Known Knowledge”. Lot of laughs in that thing. 

Then there’s “Manalive” by GK Chesterton. The first 10 or 15 pages were as brilliant and wise and funny as anything I'd ever read. I was thinking, “Wow! I have to read everything Chesterton ever wrote because this is incredible!” But then it sort of fell off the table, very much as if Chesterton not only ran out of creativity, he simply ran out of energy. The rest of the book is not terrible. It has quite a few interesting things to it, but it's nowhere near the brilliance of that beginning. 

I think the six westerns I read this year equals the total of westerns that I had read in my entire life before. It was a wholly intentional choice to read more westerns, because I realized that of the five or six I had ever read, every one of them was positively brilliant. Of course, I didn’t expect all westerns to be brilliant, but felt that, based on my experience, the odds were in my favor. Before this year I had read “Shane”, “Lonesome Dove”, “True Grit”, and a couple of others whose titles elude me. 

Five of the six westerns I read this year (all written by the late Robert B. Parker) were very quick, entertaining reads, but they were not literary genius in the way that “Lonesome Dove” and “True Grit” were. The other western, by noted cowboy author Louis L'Amour, was hugely disappointing and I don't think I'll be reading any more of his books. 

So my goal now is to get back to the 100 mark in books read. Unfortunately, January has proven very slow for various reasons, and if I want to read 100 books this year, I'm going to have to shift into High because at the moment, I'm way behind schedule.