I read a lot of books last year. I kept a stack of the books I had purchased or been gifted that I read, and here is the pile. The first book I read is at the bottom of the pile all the way to the right. The last one is the top of the pile to the left.
Some of the books I read in 2025
When I sorted the books by type, I was not surprised to see that I read a lot of mystery novels.
Books on the left pile in the photo below were self-help or other non-fiction. Second pile from the left is non-fiction and nature. Third pile from the left is novels that are not mysteries. The last pile all the way on the right are mysteries.
Parts of this year have felt fairly difficult and those points are when I reached for the mysteries. I read quite a few more from the library and on Kindle from the library. If you’re a fan of mysteries, I probably should get recommendations from you instead of the other way around. We’ve been watching Shetland and Vera shows and so Ann Cleeves seemed like a great place to start my murder mystery habit. I’ve also been reading some of Steve Burrows bird mysteries and some of the National Park mysteries by Scott Graham. The only book I didn’t finish in that mystery stack was the one by Stacey Abrams (did you know she is writing books now?!). It just wasn’t for me.
The novel stack had some really good reads (stack second from right) and I especially enjoyed the TJ Klune book, The Bones Beneath my Skin.
Here is an image of my favorite books from the big pile.
Some of my favorite books from 2025
Bottom to top, here are a few thoughts:
The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. This is a beautiful book which you might call a memoir. Amy Tan (she wrote The Joy Luck Club among other books) became a backyard birder and compiled this beautiful book of her drawings and observations of the birds she saw out of her window.
Kingbird Highway by Kenn Kaufman. This is another birding book. Kaufman tells the story of his big year where he hitchhiked around North America birding. He did this as a teenager though he wrote the book decades later (with the benefits of good writing!).
Life After Dead Pool by Zak Podmore. This book is a mix of stories about Podmore’s exploration of Glen Canyon as Lake Powell recedes and a lot of research and information about the Glen Canyon Dam and the benefits of decommissioning it. He talks about the people the lake has impacted and the benefits of letting Glen Canyon come back to life (perhaps by keeping Lake Mead full).
Wintering by Katherine May. The subtitle of this book is The power of rest and retreat in difficult times. I love May’s writing and this book about resting when we need to is comforting and important.
The Place of Tides by James Rebanks. I believe I read this book in 2024 and in 2025. It is marvelous and one of my very favorites. It is a memoir, a story about Rebanks’ time living on a remote island helping collect eider down. I recommend all his books.
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. I just finished this novel. It is a wonderfully written first novel about relationships between humans and between humans and animals. There is an octopus, a young man, and an old woman and their relationships play out in an aquarium.
Heartwood by Amity Gaige. This is a novel but the idea was taken from a real situation on the Appalachian Trail. It is a book about a hiker who gets lost and the people who mobilize to find her.
The Afterlife Project by Tim Weed. This book is not for the faint of heart, but I heartily recommend it. The novel is about scientists who are trying to save the world after reproduction is destroyed by a virus. It is full of despair but also hope and beauty.
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy. This novel is also not for the faint of heart though it is one of my favorites. Like The Afterlife Project, it is an imagined look of what happens when species continue to go extinct and the lengths someone will go to try to save a species, in this case, Arctic Terns. It is full of both heartbreak and hope.
Honorable mentions include two fiber-related books:
The Salt Stones by Helen Whybrow. This book is a memoir from an Icelandic sheep shepherdess in Vermont. There are many stories about the realities of farming and also many thoughts about preserving the world and how we take up space in it.
The Fall of the Loom by M. E. Auman. This is the only book on this list that is about tapestry! It is a novel and the premise is that travel is now accomplished by walking into tapestries instead of other means of transportation. That part has a very Narnia feel. I enjoyed the book and it does have some fairly realistic details about weaving tapestry (though their timeline is probably a bit short!). Well worth reading.
Where to get these books
Look for these books at your local independent bookstore. If you don’t have one of those, I recommend bookshop.org which supports independent bookstores. You can find purchase links from bookshop.org HERE under my 2025 book recommendations. That is an affiliate link and I get a small amount if you use it.
So many of the books in those piles were excellent reads. I tend to buy books at the two marvelous independent bookstores near me and they are so well curated that they’re always fantastic reads. (Those bookstores are Maria’s Bookshop in Durango, CO and Hand-in-Hand in Mancos, CO.)
I also read many books I checked out from the public library both in paper form and on Kindle. My current read is another mystery from the library, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto. It is a murder mystery in which an older Chinese woman in San Francisco attempts to solve the death of a man she finds in her tea shop one morning. It is lots of fun. I’ve already got Sutanto’s second book in the series on hold at the library.
I’m looking forward to a lot more reading in 2026. I have some tapestry books I’ve purchased and never read carefully and a whole big pile of novels and books about nature to dig into.
What have your favorite reads been lately?