What I read in 2025

I got through a couple more books in 2025, as compared to 2024 (not that anyone is counting). Last year I finished about 25, but this year I managed a whopping 27.The exact number depends on how you count the book I finished at the start of each year and the book I was in the middle of at the end of each year. My reading tastes haven’t changed much since last year, and indeed I’ve been happy to return to some of the same authors I enjoyed in 2024. As with last year, there were some books that stood out for better or worse:

The standouts

This year, there were a couple of books that stood out above the others I read. Conveniently enough, there was one fiction standout and one non-fiction standout:

• A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine - I didn’t think I could find a story that is full of people in rooms just talking to each other so compelling. The plot itself ended up feeling not so important in the end, but the exploration of how societies think about themselves and how societal self-conception drives intrigue, politics, and conflict was very well done. It was fascinating to follow both the richly illustrated literary culture of Teixcalaan as well as the crashing of that culture against the rocky shores of bare-knuckled politics. And then on top of that it is solid science fiction, playing with the implications of interesting futuristic technology. The second book in the series, A Desolation Called Peace, was a good read with many of the same qualities that pulled me into A Memory Called Empire, but I don’t think it quite hit the (very high) bar of the first book.

• We the People by Jill Leporenotes here - The greatest trick the Federalist Society ever pulled was convincing the country that the Constitution has never meant and could never mean anything but what they believe it should mean. Jill Lepore’s new history of the Constitution seeks to break this illusion. She vividly illustrates how America has gone through multiple waves of constitutional change, from the founding of the country through to just a couple decades ago, driven by generations of Americans who saw changing the Constitution (whether through the amendment process or otherwise) as a real possibility. She sets this story against the current prevailing sense of the Constitution as an ossified document, which is heartening at a time when the most powerful lawyers and judges in the country are using their conception of the Constitution to backstop their reactionary agenda.

The other good ones

There were a couple other books I read which, while not quite as good as the standouts, were still particularly good:

• The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett - A good old-fashioned mystery set in a fantasy setting. It was hard to put down, with great worldbuilding, a fast-paced plot, and a crime-solving duo that holds their own against the greats of the genre. There’s also a good bit of politics mixed in, which adds to the intrigue and helps to drive the plot. This one also has a second book in the series, A Drop of Corruption, which was quite good, but I think I’d prefer the first book.

• Let Only Red Flowers Bloom by Emily Fengnotes here - It is difficult for someone like me without any firsthand experience to understand what it is like for people who have had to deal with the increasingly centralized and controlling regime in China over the past 10 to 20 years. Emily Feng illustrates these changes with richly reported stories of individuals who have been impacted by political and social constriction in China, whether as dissidents, ethnic minorities, expatriates, or others who have somehow found themselves in the crosshairs of the sprawling regime. While some of these stories tie into well-covered stories about China (e.g. Uyghur oppression or vanishing political freedom in Hong Kong), others, such as the story of a slacker who got famous on the internet or one of a trafficked woman, don’t fit with the regular China headlines in western media. A book like this of course doesn’t provide everything you need to understand what living under the Chinese government is like, but it gives a sense of the many ways in which the regime reaches into the lives of people across the country.

• A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers - I wasn’t sure I’d like this one when I started it. It seemed a little bit in the clouds and wrapped up in its own world. But this rather short story turned into an engrossing reflection on restlessness and purpose. Particularly at the end of a fairly tumultuous year, this book was not only good read but also reassuring and even soothing.

The Disappointments

There were of course also a few books that didn’t live up to expectations:

• The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester - I thought a book that was adapted into a reasonably well-reviewed movie on Apple TV+ (which admittedly I have not seen) had to be a fairly engaging, fun read. Even more so because it is a WWII submarine vs destroyer story written by C.S. Forester. However, it turns out that The Good Shepherd is a slow, ponderous slog. It seems pretty clear that the book is trying to get across that war is a serious and weighty affair, but it very quickly becomes repetitive and boring. The action is hard to keep track of and a lot of the writing is spent in the destroyer captain’s brooding head without a lot that is insightful or particularly interesting. The book isn’t super long, but it definitely felt like a lot to get through, and not in a good way.

• The Golden Road by William Dalrymplenotes here - This one wasn’t necessarily a bad book, but it wasn’t as good as I was expecting, given that I’ve enjoyed several of William Dalrymple’s books about the East India Company and colonial India. His latest book, The Golden Road, was a little bit different, exploring how India’s influence shaped Europe and Asia from Roman to Medieval times. But I think a lot of what drew me into Dalrymple’s previous books was the clear narratives he illustrated with detailed sources (often things like letters, reports, and records). In this book, Dalrymple tries to tell a much broader historical narrative with much fuzzier sources such as artifacts or archaeological analysis. This unfortunately makes the book less coherent and engaging than his prior works.

• Katabasis by R.F. Kuang - R.F. Kuang’s last book, Babel, was perhaps the best book I read last year, so I was excited to pick up her new book published this year. Unfortunately, it was just not as good as Babel. The story tried to map an exploration of academia’s dark sides onto a journey through hell, but it ended up rather muddled. The main character’s flashbacks showing how academia chews people up and spits them out were interesting—moving even—but the plot itself was a slog. The journey through Hell was…tedious? The “world” of Hell didn’t really feel very coherent or even necessary to the basic story. The magic(k) system built in the book also felt pretty shallow. There were lots of complicated math or philosophy references that felt like attempts to paper over a half-baked set of rules. The characters were interesting but by the end of the book I was quite ready to be done with the world and the story itself.