As the title says: what books did you read in 2025? Pull out those Goodreads pages, the Kindle history, and more, and let's see if literacy is still alive and well.

 

Wind and Truth - DNF
The Priory of the Orange Tree - DNF
The Ministry of Time - DNF
The Bear and the Nightingale - DNF
Fourth Wing
Iron Flame (WIP)

 

Not nearly as many as I would have liked.

The Solar war - John French
Night Lords - Aaron dembski-bowden

And that's about it I think.

 

If we allow web fiction, New Life as a Max Level Archmage - followed religiously, read every chapter 5 times.

 

Wind and Truth
Chapter Six
The Least of My Scars
Incidents Around the House
Penpal
A Short Stay in Hell
The Heroes
The Dead Zone
Half a King
Half a World
Half a War
The Eye of the World
The Great Hunt
The Dragon Reborn
The Shadow Rising
The Fires of Heaven
Lord of Chaos
A Crown of Swords
The Path of Daggers
Winter's Heart
Crossroads of Twilights
Knife of Dreams
The Gathering Storm
Towers of Midnight
A Memory of Light
The Troop
The Deep
The Queen
Little Heaven
Salem's Lot
Thinner
The Long Walk
From a Buick 8
Hearts in Atlantis
The Lies of Locke Lamora
Red Seas Under Red Skies
The Republic of Thieves
Under the Dome
The Stand
We Used to Live Here
Christine
The Running Man
Guards! Guards!
Men At Arms
Feet of Clay
Jingo
The Fifth Elephant
Night Watch
Thud
The Devils
Ghost Story---Peter Straub
Never Flinch
Handling the Undead
Let the Right One In
Let the Old Dreams Die
I'm thinking of ending things
Annihilation
Authority
Acceptance
Witches Abroad
Lords and Ladies
Maskerade
Carpe Jugulum
Soul Music
Reaper Man
Hogfather
Thief of Time
Isles of the Emberdark
The End of the World as we Know It--Anthology
Best Served Cold
Red Country
Foe
Nothing Can Hurt You
You Should Have Left
Last Days--Adam Neville
Interesting Times
The Ritual
The Blade Itself
Before They are Hanged
Last Argument of Kings
One Rainy Night
Nod
Here There are Monsters
A Head Full of Ghosts
The Turn of the Key
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
Devolution
Tiger Chair
The Last Days of Jack Sparks
The Truth
Survivor Song
The Ruins---Scott Smith
We Are All Completely Fine
Rest Stop
Horrorstor
Knock Knock, Open Wide
Never Whistle at Night--Anthology
Scanlines
Origin
The Ghost that Ate Us
The Staircase in the Woods
Fever House
Fantasticland
Suffer the Children
Hollow
Once Yellow House
How to sell a haunted house
Taaqtumi--Anthology
Night Film
Wylding Hall
Widow's Point
Episode Thirteen
Hunting Snipe
Rules of the Road
King Sorrow
Lost Films---Anthology
Come Knocking
Down the Well
FOUND---Anthology
Horror Movie
Fiend--Peter Stenson
My ex, the antichrist
Letters to the Purple Satin Killer
Dead Letters--Anthology, DNF
Mysterious Case of Alperton Angels
One of Us
Spectral Evidence
The Last Haunt
My Best Friend's Exorcism
Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
The Children of Red Peak
The Final Girl Support Group
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
Sleep Over
Storm Front
Fool Money
Grave Peril
Summer Knight
Death Masks
Blood Rites
Dead Beat
Proven Guilty
White Night
Small Favor
Turn Coat

 

I got quite a lot of reading done this year, as it turns out that when you work from home and throw all the time spent reading millions of words of poorly translated xianxia or thoroughly mid (at best) RR/SB/SV stories at normal books you can really churn through em. Also read a lot of comics and manga. I'm pleased to say that almost all of what I read this year spanned from "pretty solid" to "genuinely excellent"

My read list below is definitely missing a handful of books I read toward the beginning of 2025 because most of my physical books are still boxed up from me moving recently so I can't skim my shelves to jog my memory, but this has most of it.

Books -
Voices of the Fallen Heroes: And Other Stories - Yukio Mishima
Cécé - Emmelie Prophete
Amor Imperatoris - Seyit Rudern
Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States - James C Scott
In Praise of Floods - James C Scott
Grendel - John Gardner
The Dark Coil: Damnation - Peter Fehervari
Lords of Silence - Chris Wraight
The Infinite and the Divine - Robert Rath
Warlock - Oakley Hall
The Son Also Rises - Gregory Clark
China Mountain Zhang - Maureen McHugh
A Time of Gifts - Patrick Leigh Fermor
All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque (new Kurt Beals translation)
The Wendigo and Other Stories - Algernon Blackwood
The Fort Bragg Cartel - Seth Harp
Berlin Stories - Robert Walser
M: Son of the Century - Antonio Scurati
The N'Gustro Affair - Jean-Patrick Manchette
The Lowland - Jhumpa Lahiri
Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammett
The Saint of Bright Doors - Vajra Chandrasekera
Viriconium - M John Harrison
A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962 - Alistair Horne
Prometheus Bound - Aeschylus
A Way of Life, Like Any Other - Darcy O'Brien
Red Rising - Pierce Brown
Golden Sun - Pierce Brown
Morning Star - Pierce Brown
Iron Gold - Pierce Brown
Napoleon of Notting Hill - GK Chesterton
The Long Ships - Frans Bengtsson
Empire of the Vampire - Jay Kristoff
Empire of the Damned - Jay Kristoff
The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
Reveille in Washington: 1860-1865 - Margaret Leech
A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories - Lucia Berlin
On the Marble Cliffs - Ernst Junger
Storm of Steel - Ernst Junger
The Stammering Century - Gilbert Seldes
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
Gormenghast trilogy - Mervyn Peake
The Birth of Korean Cool - Euny Hong
Virtuous Sons - Striker (AKA: Menace)
King's Curse - Striker
Tyrant Riot - Striker
Dark Wire - Joseph Cox
Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World - Maya Jasanoff
Sea of Fertility tetralogy - Yukio Mishima
Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa
The Worm Ouroboros - ER Eddison
Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man - Garry Wills
The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller - Carlo Ginzburg
Granta's China issue and Sports issue from 2025
all 4 2025 quarterly issues of American Affairs

Manga -
Lone Wolf and Cub - Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima
Shigarui: Death Frenzy - Takayuki Yamaguchi
Innocent - Shinichi Sakamoto
Delicious in Dungeon - Ryoko Kui
Mushishi - Yuki Urushibara (first 3 volumes)
Legend of Kamui - Sanpei Shirato (first 6 volumes)
Ultra Heaven - Keiichi Koike
Blue Lock - Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura (complete to current chap)


Comics/Graphic Novels -
Absolute Batman - Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta
Absolute Superman - Jason Aaron and Rafa Sandoval
Absolute Flash - Jeff Lemire and Nick Robles
Absolute Green Lantern - Al Ewing and Jahnoy Lindsay
Absolute Martian Manhunter - Deniz Camp and Javier Rodríguez
Absolute Wonder Woman - Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman
Tongues - Anders Nilsen
Drome - Jesse Lonergan
Batman: The Court of Owls Saga - Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo
Dennis O'Neil's 80s run of The Question
Mike Grell's 80s run of Green Arrow
Assorted Crisis Events - Deniz Camp and Eric Zawadzki (complete to current)
Superman For All Seasons - Joseph Loeb and Tim Sale
Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment - Gerry Conway and Gene Colan
All Star Superman - Grant Morrison and Frank Quitel
Superman: Birthright - Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu
Superman Red & Blue - anthology collection by various authors/artists
Batman/Elmer Fudd Special
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow - Tom King and Bilquis Evely
Trail Of The Catwoman - Darwyn Cooke and Ed Brubaker
Secret Six - Gail Simone and Nicola Scott
Books of Doom - Ed Brubaker and Pablo Raimond
The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo - Joe Sacco
Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia - Joe Sacco
Habibi - Craig Thompson
Daytripper - Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá
The Many Deaths of Laila Starr - Ram V and Filipe Andrade
Scud: The Disposable Assassin - Rob Schrab
Strange Skies Over East Berlin - Jeff Loveness and Lisandro Estherren
Immortal Hulk - Al Ewing and Joe Bennett
DC: The New Frontier - Darwyn Cooke
Batman: Ego and Other Tails - Darwyn Cooke
Murder Falcon - Daniel Warren Johnson
Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? - Alan Moore and Curt Swan
The Human Target - Tom King and Greg Smallwood
Superman: Secret Identity - Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen
Captain America: White - Joseph Loeb and Tim Sale
Daredevil: Yellow - Joseph Loeb and Tim Sale
The Killer - Matz and Luc Jacamon
God Country - Donny Cates and John J. Hill
Hawkeye - Matt Fraction and David Aja
8 Billion Genies - Charles Soule and Ryan Browne

The only things that really stick out to my memory that I truly disliked were The Fort Bragg Cartel by Seth Harp (too journalist-y + the author is clearly a gullible retard, which make what he has to say about alleged black ops in Central Asia or drug-running in Fort Bragg tough to take too seriously) + The Killer by Matz and Luc Jacamon (soooooo much edgy dimestore philosophizing), but there were a couple of decent but otherwise kind of forgettable reads in there like Jean Patrick Manchette's N'Gustro Affair

Honestly more proud that there was only 1 thing I DNF'd last year than I am about reading so many books. Usually I'm super bad about that. And that was mostly cuz I didn't really have the mental wherewithal for it (Paul Reitter's new English translation of Capital) at the time rather than actively disliking it. If anything the translation made for much smoother reading than every other version of Marx I've ever found in English

 

• Blood and Powder, sequel series to the Powder Mage trilogy by Brian Mclellan. Didn't quite grip me somehow, maybe because I'd just finished working my way through the first series. Kind of disappointing personally in that sense, but there's nothing wrong with them.
• Bright Sword, Lev Grossman. What TVTropes might call "a deconstruction" and a "reconstruction" of Arturian myth after Arthur himself has bit the dust. I've read Grossman before but I liked this a lot more than I did the Hogwarts/Narnia parodies; this has a lot more heart to it, a lot less ennui.
• Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret: Ernest Cunningham #3, Benjamin Stevenson. Murder mystery. Wasn't quite impressed by this one, and while I found the first book somewhat smarmy and the second funny in its insistence that absolutely no one likes the protagonist, this one's just kind of there, making no particular impression.
• The Faithful and the Fallen, John Gwynne. First book was fine if a little slow to get going, I didn't finish the second. Every story beat was obviously cliché and the seeming protagonist doesn't really get to do anything as far as I recall, plus POVs out the wazoo.
• Ink & Sigil, Kevin Hearne. Setting it in Scotland is fine, attempting to write out the Scottish accent is a lot more frought. Wasn't a big fan and didn't finish it a couple chapters in.
• Bone Ships (Tide Child #1), RJ Barker. Protagonist gets boatcucked and, while he deserves it, it's just really annoying to have to deal with his relentless whining.
• Murder at Spindle Manor (Lamplight Murder Mysteries #1), Morgan Stang. I was recommended this by a DLPer, but the ending was kind of lame and the assistant character was extremely annoying. I was hoping she'd turn out to be the murderer just to be rid of her.
• Songs of Chaos, Michael R. Miller. Eragon with some extra progression fantasy shoved in. Good? Eeeeeh. Readable, though.
• Aegis of Merlin, James E. Wisher. Bad. Really just lame in every possible way. Men can't be wizards except "Conryu" (jesus christ) can, so now he's got a mysterious coven conspiracy gunning for his ass.
• Covenant of Steel, Anthony Ryan. Darkish fantasy which I read the first book of and was fine with, only to realize that the protagonist never makes a decision of his own. Instead every decision he makes in the parts of the first and second books is made by the latest woman he's decided to follow.
• Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman. God I hate that cat. There's a lot I could say about this series that I really should like but I just hate that fucking cat so much. I hate that cat like a Serb hates Albanians.
• Those Who Hunt the Night, Barbary Hambly. Published in 1988 so one of the earliest exemplars of urban fantasy. Not a fan, unfortunately. Didn't finish.
• Penric & Desdemona, Lois McMaster Bujold. Protagonist stumbles into being, essentially, a wizard by inheriting a nun's demon. I read a few of these - Penric's Demon, Penric & the Shaman, Penric's Mission - and I found them disappointing. Low stakes, almost absurdly so. Occasionally there are intimations of danger but the focus of the books is on the protagonist bumbling about in social situations, pulling wizard shit out of his ass, and (in the third book) being romantically involved with a fat chick. These were my first LMB books and I was far from impressed.
• Among Serpents, Above the Black #2, Marc J. Gregson. Red Rising but skyships instead of space and they fight bigass kaiju and other skyships. There's not a lot to it beyond that and that actually suited me just fine.
• The Blazing World, Jonathan Healey. History of Revolutionary England (stretching across most of the 17th century). Very readable, although there are definitely spots where historians might quibble somewhat. Explores the religious conflicts, the civil wars, the throne shuffle, etc.
• Unruly, David Mitchell. History of England's monarchs. Comedy, mainly, but with some historically interesting tidbits. He's not a historian (obviously) so take it all with more than a few grains of salt, but a fun read if you're into this sort of thing.
• Assyria, Eckart Frahm. Another history book, this one about the Assyrian Empire, by a German historian, which is obvious in the ways he keeps quoting German poets, but a good overview of the various periods of Assyrian history that shows it both from the top (e.g. royals) while also attempting to give some impressions of what the life of everyone else was like. Some quotable bits that I liked.
• Middle Kingdoms, Martyn Rady. A history of Central Europe, written in a very readable style, but kind of suffers under the facts that parts of the history are partial blanks, the regions are kind of at the edges of civilization (some would say 'were', others 'still are'). Also obviously Central Europe is large and this tries to cover more or less all of it, up to almost the present day. Taught me some new things but not more than a good start, I think.
• A Rome of One's Own, Emma Southon. Readable history of the Roman Empire's women, both those forgotten and those not. The authorial voice is a little too much "trying to be funny"/"soon-to-be wine aunt" kind of way, to be quite honest, but I'd still recommend it. Learned some interesting stuff and heard about some of the lesser known women, but it also tackles the more famous women in Roman history.
• Last Dance, Mark Billingham. "Maverick sleuth" (annoying asshat) Declan Miller investigates a murder a short while after his own wife got murked. Has a focus, as the title might make apparent, on the fact that Declan used to ballroom dance. I finished it but honestly cannot tell you why I bothered. Didn't even have any interesting observations on ballroom dancing.
• Adam Green 1-3: The Trial, The Suspect, The Protest. Rob Rinder. Protagonist is a Jewish London-based lawyer-in-training who gets involved in trying to solve a murder mystery in each book, which usually conflicts with the trial he's also occupied with. Despite being written by someone Taure has called the Judge Judy of British TV, I wound up liking these books quite a lot, actually.
• Lord Edgington Investigates, Benedict Brown. A series of fourteen books of cozy murder mysteries. Timewasters. Protagonist does grow more competent over time, though, so that's nice. Author has a fixation on there being at least one song per book that everyone sings, which is not nice.
• Cracked Mirror, Chris Brookmyre. Noir detective and Mrs. Marple pastiche come into contact while attempting to solve separate-ish murders. There's a deliberate tonal clash sometimes, which winds up being more or less explained later. I didn't find the explanation all that satisfying, but no clue how else it should've been written.
• Mob Sorcery, KD Robertson, books 1 through 5. These books are romance-for-men, basically power fantasies with an extra helping of smut. I started reading these because I read Princess of the Void over on Royalroad and had a hankering for more. I should not have read these books and I should not have read five of them. What a colossal waste of time. The supposed mob does nothing illegal, these repeated scenes where you think something is finally gonna happen to the overall plotline but it doesn't and then it sinks back into endless talking and occasional scenes of the protagonist being fed drugs so his pelvis can sustain getting ridden by basically every woman he finds. I'm not even joking about that drugs thing. Just don't bother.
• Theft of Fire, Devon Eriksen. Written by a Musk acolyte who's deeply invested in glazing his hero, the story revolves around a miner whose spaceship gets hijacked by the heiress of some corporation who's basically Anime Made Real. At first they fight, later they fuck. Libertarian slop.
• Warlock, Daniel Kensington. Haremslop. Protagonist turns a lesbian straight (but only for him!) through the power of magical penis and BDSM.
• Renegade Ravager, M.E. Thorne. Space Marine knockoff escapes banishment by means of the penal spaceship crashing into an alien horror. What follows is a bunch of exploration and collecting a harem of basically every kind of woman he can, up to and including a blatant ripoff of that one chick from Starcraft. Total dreck, occasionally readable.
• Villain For Hire, Jay Aury. Haremslop but with a superhero bent.
• Killing in November, Simon Mason. A volatile detective tag team of trailer trash & a black intellectual have to solve a murder in Oxford. They're both named R. Wilkins, and somehow this isn't the most annoying thing. The first guy isn't just a loose cannon but genuinely deranged, so I can only support any and all efforts to get him kicked both off the force and straight in the nuts.
• Vinyl Detective series, Andrew Cartmel. 8 books of a guy whose name is never mentioned outright somehow, getting called upon to resolve some mystery involving music. Has built up a sizeable cast of characters, some more tolerable than others, and start becoming more and more "cozy" (derogatory).
• Ben Weaver series, David Liss. Ex-boxing Jew in eighteenth-century London is a troubleshooter. He gets involved in murder mysteries. They're decent books but sometimes his London feels pretty small somehow.
• Susan Ryeland series, Anthony Horowitz. An editor gets involved in murder mysteries that manage to intermingle fiction and in-universe fact. Works well enough, although the shift between fictional detective and even-more-fictional detective tends to be long and somewhat jarring in execution. A companion series of sorts to Horowitz's Hawthorne & Horowitz in which he himself is the hapless assistant, although there's no actual crossover.
• Fort Bragg Cartel, Seth Harp. Book/expose on the misdeeds of the special forces of the US of A, up to and including murder, drug deals (god so much drug deals) and more. Mostly shown in a series of incidents, interspersed with a broader history of Seal Team Six, Delta Force and whatever else those dickheads call themselves. Gets too bogged down into individual cases.
• Last Dynasty, Toby Wilkinson. A history of Ptolemaic Egypt. Starts off pretty in-depth, but as the centuries go on and Rome starts looming much larger in the distance, the book kind of struggles to finish, IMO.
• Lost Christianities, Bart Ehrman. A book about how the current Bible canon came to be, historically speaking. Also includes several sections on extracanonical scriptures, notable deviations from what now forms mainstream Catholic belief, and so on. I was expecting this to be dry and boring but it proved to be a lot more readable than I'd thought.
• Seven Ages of Paris, Alistair Horne. Paris through the ages and its various kings, from it being a mud shitpit to being what it is today. The end of the book starts glazing de Gaulle extremely hard, though, and frankly that made me leery. Maybe to be avoided, or at least to be examined critically.
• Fat Leonard, Craig Whitlock. One fat Malaysian man managed to bilk the US Navy out of millions. What, when, how? The middle kind of dragged - it was anecdote after anecdote of "Leonard received captain X with a truck full of hookers at his beck and call, Y noticed this was probably legally murky but said nothing" - but a great read all in all.
• the Rivers of London series, Ben Aaronovitch. I read all nine of the mainline books. The cast of characters keeps increasing, making for significant bloat by the later books. Protagonist still feels like he's kind of underpowered somehow, even after what's supposed to have been years of instruction. Also he's got kids now so that's a huge part of the last books as well.
• Umbral Storm, Alec Hutson. Discount Sanderson but with a little bit more edge.
• Boundless: the Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn; Nick Kostov, Sean McClain. Ghosn was the guy who managed the Renault-Nissan not-quite-merger and decided simply to become CEO of both companies. Mainly financial fraud but the man himself's escaped by being smuggled in a box so that was a nice addition.
• Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom. A book about anthropodermic bibliopegy or, simpler words, human skin book bindings. Turns out there's quite a lot of forgeries and the ones that aren't forgeries have been bound by doctors. Interesting topic undercut by a somewhat more boring reality than you'd expect, but a good read nonetheless.
• The Devils, Joe Abercrombie. Medieval-esque Suicide Squad. Not bad necessarily but there's a large detour arc to give everyone a bit of time to progress their individual plots and that dragged. Also didn't really like the final battle or the ending. I've seen this described as clearly auditioning for a TV adaption and that more or less seems to fit.
• Out Cold, Philip Jaekl. A book describing the history of using cold as a medicinal history. Some interesting and macabre bits in here, but the author's more prosaic attempts to describe the feelings of someone actually suffering through hypothermia at the end of each chapter weren't really necessary. The history of cryogenic freezing is an absolute hoot, though.
• The Siege, Ben Macintyre. In 1980, gunmen stormed the Iranian embassy in London. This books describes the events leading up, the people involved, and what happened afterwards from a variety of POVs. Names and aliases are sometimes hard to follow, but it's a pageturner. Very frustrating to read of the complete incompetence of the police, though, even if the author sometimes takes them at their own word way too much for their own liking.
• Five Found Dead, Sulari Gentill. I've read a bunch of murder mystery books this year and by god this is the absolute shittiest. Just a roundly stupid plot on every level with idiotic reveals and decisions, both on the part of the character as the author. Hints that build up to nothing, setup that is roundly wasted. Complete dogshit.
• Speaker of Tongues, Chris Tullbane. LitRPG with a focus on partying up, though I do enjoy that the author is definitely not afraid to kill off party members when he wants to. Protagonist is an everyman whose Special Trait is he can speak, ride, and write every language. There are some plot contrivances to make this work in his favour.
• Martin Scarsden series, Chris Hammer. Australian noir murder mystery-thrillers. Four books about a journo getting himself accidentally involved in a murder plot. Good pageturners, although I do kind of question the noirness of it all. These stories also tend to keep blowing up in scope and I'm not quite sure how it's sustainable for a fifth book unless he solves the murder of Harold Holt or some shit.

And then there's a whole shitload of other books that I got a single chapter into and didn't pick up again, of which there's too many to mention. A mixed year, I think: some really good books, some stinkers.

 

Mainstream:

Wind and Truth - as seen from my post in the Stormlight Thread, a breaking point for me

The Strength of the Few - Started really good and lost its way. Worrying shift towards grimdark, previous series by author also went grim dark. Not liking that shift.

RR:

Mother of Learning (reread) - deserves it

Zenith of Sorcery - meandering with info dumps. I like the world building and the author has placed plenty of cards on the table. Now just start playing some of those already!

Super Supportive - Stopped following

The Game at Carousel - Story hit a pivotal moment. The writing after that moment also feels better.

String - Superhero stuff in an arms race world. I've been told it sounds like Worm. Doesn't feel grim dark, perhaps that comes this year?

Arthurian Cultivation - put it on hold

Redemption Arc - Sort of VRMMO/Isekai but in a way that remains true to the depiction (a video game), while still keeping the depth and complexity of the real world?

The Hundred Reigns - A semi serious book about looping hundred times to get it right.

I tried out a lot more stories, but these are/were the ones I was reading.

Web novels:

Kingdom's Bloodline - DNF. Badly written, no compensating elements.

I don't think I read much FF.

 

Most of my 2025 reads were for the two book clubs I'm in.

1. The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
2. Faebound, by Saara El-Arifi - romantasy which I quite enjoyed in the first half, but went down hill in the second; some interesting worldbuilding and a reasonably engaging plot undercut by a romance which never really convinces.
3. A Novel Love Story, by Ashley Posten - a woefully single woman stops in a town during a rainstorm, and slowly realises she's somehow wound up in the fictional town that is the setting of her favourite cosy romance series; does it have anything to do with the one man in town she's never heard of before? I actually rather enjoyed this; it's not high art by any stretch, but it was charming enough, the romance actually worked, and it was even a little bit moving. Those in book club who read such books more regularly thought it was a bit underwhelming, so possibly rarity value was boosting it a bit for me.
4. A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik - what if Hogwarts, but the perils that nearly get Harry et al so often are a standard part of the day to day life there? Pretty fun, tbh, I might check out the sequels at some stage.
5. The Imagination Chamber, Philip Pullman - audio book, technically. An odd one - essentially deleted scenes and ideas from His Dark Materials?
6. Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler - a dystopia set in 2024 and continuing through to 2027, depicting a world, primarily the USA, ravaged by climate change, unchecked capitalism and the breakdown of social order. It was written in the early 90s. Pretty good - quite dry, and it took me a while to finish, but bleakly compelling. Might check out the sequel.
7. What Doesn't Break, by Cassandra Khaw - a prequel novel for one of the characters in Critical Role's third campaign. Really liked this, although I can imagine it's not a particular success outside the existing fanbase. The writing does veer into purple prose every once in a while, but on the whole it's good.
8. The Disaster Artist, by Greg Sistero and Tom Bissell - the tell all book by one of the actors involved in The Room; weirdly fascinating, and from what I've been told, the film adaptation was a lot kinder to Tommy Wiseau than the book.
9. Pale Lights, by Erratic Errata (reread of books 1 and 2, and 3 is ongoing) - dark fantasy set in a post-apocalyptic world (our own? It's very different in almost every respect, but then Lucifer and his court are key parts of the backstory, so...), following various new recruits to the Watch, the paramilitary organisation that keeps the lights on and the monsters away. Really good, a big technical improvement on Practical Guide to Evil, and a much more serious world and story (although it is still very funny, when the mood calls for it). It is a web serial, so it could probably be cut down by, say, 100,000 words, but you know.
10. Practical Guide to Evil, book 1 - the web serial is now being converted into its final form: traditional-ish published novels. Book 1 covers the first half of the original book 1, with a new plot strand added in (for those who've read the serial, it finishes just after Cat's first meeting with Akua). Loved it, but then, I love the serial.
11. Cemertery Boys, by Aidan Thomas - Mexican teenager wants to join the traditional male family trade of exorcising restless spirits, but isn't allowed because he's trans; things get much more complex when his cousin goes missing presumed dead, and one of his classmates shows up as a spirit. Pretty good, although the plot was a bit predicitable.
12. Blood, Ink, Sister, Scribe, by Emma Torsz - not sure whether you'd qualify this as urban fantasy or magical realism; either way, a fantasy novel where there are some rare people who can read magic out of books, others who can write magic into books, and others who, naturally, want to control the whole thing. For two thirds of this, I was fully expecting this to be one of my books of the year, but the last third or so is rather rushed; still a decent read, but not as good as it looked like it was going to be.
13. The Mars House, by Natasha Pulley - a male ballet dancer from future London causes a diplomatic incident when he's rude to a technically gender neutral but vaguely male-coded martian (humans who've adapted to life on terraformed Mars), and naturally the only logical solution to resolve this is a sham marriage for the cameras. Equally naturally, the plot thickens. Really liked this, although I freely admit I wouldn't have looked twice at it if I weren't already a fan of Pulley; the story is more serious and engaging than the summary makes it sound.
14. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Read - in which (in)famous actress Evelyn Hugo tells her life story. Loved it, although one twist at the end didn't quite land.
15. Stone and Sky, by Ben Aaronovitch - the latest in the Rivers of London books; not the best, but an improvement over the last installment. Feels like the story is in a holding pattern while he figures out what the next arc plot will be.
16. Question 7, by Richard Flanagan - part autobiography, part history book, part biography of his dad. Really interesting.
17. In Ascension, by Martin MacInnes - SF novel about trying for first contact, which is weirdly dry for a book where the main character spends most of her life studying the ocean. Pretty unanimous agreement at book club that either we were too thick to get it, or it was hopelessly ambiguous.
18. Horrorstor, by Grady Hendrix - a haunted house story, but the house in question is actually a legally distinct Ikea. Really good fun, but a bit throwaway.
19. When I Arrived at the Castle, by E M Carroll - a graphic novel in which a cat like woman approaches a castle inhabited by defintely not a vampire, honest. Gorgeous art, but the story didn't grab me.
20. The Safekeep, by Yael van der Wouden - 60s Netherlands, and a grouchy recluse is forced to host her younger brother's new girlfriend for a few weeks. Don't want to say too much more, but this is comfortably my book of the year.
21. Murder Under the Mistletoe - collection of Christmas themed short stories from writers great and not so great, which oddly don't all involve murder, but do involve some sort of mystery. Some were good, some were OK.
22. The Lefthanded Booksellers of London, by Garth Nix - urban-ish fantasy about a young woman trying to find out who her dad is, who runs into the very eccentric Booksellers of the title (left-handed ones do the fighting, right-handed ones do the research and magic). Quite lightweight, but it is a young adult book, in fairness.

 

1. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz (a famous VC firm), talks about the hard job of being a CEO when things are tough. Interesting book
   
2. Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara. A book about taking a restaurant from number 50 of the best restaurants in the world to number 1. I really loved this book; it was partly an inspiration for the Bear as well.
   
3. Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling by Matthew Dicks. Matthew goes on stage and tells stories, winning storytelling competitions. In this book, he shows how to craft a good story. Was very impressed by this book
4. What the Buddha Taught - Famous book about Buddhism, picked it up in Thailand. Learned some new stuff.
   
5. Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal -- a famous book about creating engagement in products and creating habits in people. It was on my reading list for a while, and I liked it.
   
6. Transformed: Moving to the Product Operating Model by Marty Cagan -- his other book Insired is pretty famous, and it has some basic know-how about Product Engineering, but if you have worked in the biz for a while, all his notions in this book are very, very old. There are a couple of case studies, like Trainline, that I enjoyed.
   
7. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein. Hehe -- this book is basically Roger Federer vs Tiger Woods and all sorts of historical experiments and research about what is better, to specialize as young as possible or branch out and try different things to become a master of something.
   
8. Zero to One by Peter Thiel -- garbage
   
9. A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout -- a very technical book about how to approach complex systems and problems in software. I don't know if I liked it.
   
10. The Will of the Many by James Islington -- not a fan of his, but I enjoyed this book. Pretty much Red Rising with Rome themes.
    
11. The Strength of the few -- above sequel -- pretty bad
12. Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal -- writer of Hook, pretty boring book about not getting hooked hehe, kinda stupid
    
13. Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon -- a book about Amazon, pretty well written with some cool stories about some famous products being made, like Kindle. I was expecting propaganda, but it was actually very good.
    
14. No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention -- written by Erin Meyer, who wrote the Culture Map, is pretty much a short propaganda book about Netflix.
15. The Devils by Abercrombie. Mentioned before. I enjoyed it
16. The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett -- best book I've read in a while. absolutely masterpiece. A Levathian world with people who have altered themselves to be better, but action happens at the corners of the empire by a Sherlock Holmes-type woman and her Watson helper. If you need to read one book this year, this is it.
    
17. A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett -- You have to read the above to read this one. A sequel that is even better, if possible, with the same duo, action taking place in other parts of the empire. ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT.
18. Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson, coach of the Lakers and Bulls, talking about his Zen leadership style and cool stories from the Bulls and Lakers championship runs.
    
19. The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson -- recommended on Reddit a lot. its a so-so book, entertaining but with heavy YA tones
    
20. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green -- good book about TB, pretty uncomfortable to read but I guess that was the point, learned some cool history facts about TB which i didnt know
21. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman -- cool book about how to leave a happy life and live in the moment.
    
22. Tales from Nowhere by Don George -- a collection of short stories. I found it in a coffee shop in Patagonia, El Chalten, cute but not worth looking up
23. Society of the Snow: The Definitive Account of the World’s Greatest Survival Story by Pablo Vierci -- about the Andes crash in the 1970' it also has a movie on Netflix based on the book. I visited the memorial in Uruguay and was deeply impressed by this story and human will in general. If you loved the movie, you are going to love this book (Again, super uncomfortable read, but loved it)