My Favourite Books of 2025

 

I have read 54 books this year, a book a week thereabouts which considering I only read at lunchtime and when I’ve got into bed isn’t too bad. There were a couple I didn’t finish, one was so dry I needed a glass of water with it and I just didn’t like the other. A handful were absolute tripe and I’m not sure why I persevered with them, life is too short to read rubbish really. Anyway I’m here to celebrate my absolute favourites of the year of which I have picked out ten listed in no particular order. All cover pics I've lifted from Amazon.

 

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi. Originally published in 1990 this is about Karim growing up in 1970s South London with an Indian father and an English mother and dealing with racism, family and trying to become an actor. The cast of characters is bonkers, in a good way, and the book is a riot from start to finish. I didn’t want it to end.

 

The Devil and Mrs. Davenport by Paulette Kennedy is about a housewife in 1950s America who, after a period of illness, starts to receive messages from beyond the grave relating to a murdered local girl. Her husband pooh-poohs this and she goes behind his back to see a parapsychologist for help. Her powers grow and her husband resorts to extreme measures to “cure” her. This book made me angry in places because you just know that this is how women were treated back then, even without spooky powers. It’s a really good read with an uplifting ending.

 

 William Boyd’s The Romantic is the epic story of Cashel Greville Ross as he goes from Ireland to London to the Battle of Waterloo, Ravenna, Zanzibar, all over the place. He’s a soldier, a writer, a brewer, an explorer, a felon, a diplomat. He lives more lives than the average cat, this is an absolute epic and really well written.

 

 Piglet by Lottie Hazell is the story of Piglet (a childhood nickname) and her plans to marry. Piglet and Kit appear to be the perfect couple living the perfect life but 13 days before the wedding Kit shares an awful secret and Piglet finds herself torn between following the plans that have been so carefully made and chucking it in. Amazing book, one scene in particular was so tense I actually ended up dreaming about it.

 

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown is absolutely heartbreaking in places and hilarious in others. It’s about three girls, best friends, from Doncaster growing up in the early Noughties. It is written entirely in a Donny accent and perfectly captures what it’s like growing up in a Northern town. 

 

 Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez has a wondrous cast of characters as is typical of his books. Parts seem to go off at tangents but it’s all relevant to the story which starts out with a rabid dog biting a bunch of people and a 12 year old girl being the only one to survive. People wonder how and obviously end up at demonic possession, as you would.

 

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, what a book this is. What a truly amazing story. Set in 1960s Nigeria, we follow three lives as they intersect through the civil war and formation and collapse of Biafra. This is one of those books that everybody should read I think.

 

Bit of non-fiction now, A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre is a very thorough biography of Kim Philby and his relationships wit his friends and other people. It is astounding just how many deaths could be laid at this man’s feet and how he got away with being a Russian asset at the heart of MI5.

 

The North Road by Rob Cowen is a kind of biography too but about the Great North Road, aka the A1, aka the A1(M) which runs from London to Edinburgh and pretty much has done since Roman times. Cowen travels the full length of the road and tells of its geography, the stories of people, famous and otherwise, who lived along it and also stories from his own family and their links to the road. As someone from the North-East of England I’ve travelled the road myself a lot and still get excited when I see the signs for The North A1(M).

 

 

Back to fiction and this last book is a sequel to a book I mentioned on my list last year. A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett follows on from The Tainted Cup and is another “impossible” murder mystery for Ana Dolabra and Dinios Kol to solve. Happily it is the second book in a trilogy which means I’ve another one to look forward to.

Those were some of my favourites but honourable mentions also go to Heatwave: The Summer of 1976 by John L. Williams, Mining Men: Britain’s Last Kings of the Coalface by Emily P. Webber and anything I’ve ever read by Silvia Moreno Garcia.

I’ve read quite a bit more non-fiction this year and I’ve really enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to next year’s 50-odd books already.

Finally, I wish that 2026 treats you well and that all of your endeavours come to fruition.