books I read in 2025

Written By Casey Brown

I read a lot this year. Less books. More newspapers. Lots of The New Yorker. Lots of Hop on Pop, Go Dog Go, and Freight Train (going, going, GONE). My two year old LOVES books. This whole little family of ours loves books, really. I don’t set a goal for reading, but like to always be working on a book – even if it takes all month. 

Because the baby commutes with me, I lose a lot of dedicated reading time, but grab paragraphs and pages here and there. In previous years, I tried to grab every pocket of open time for reading and some kind of productivity. This year, I tried to leave some of those spots open. I tried to do nothing. To just sit. To enjoy whatever is happening. To not multitask while the baby played. To not fill up every single tiny second. In doing so (not doing so?) I lost some time I would’ve previously read, but I have no regrets and hope to open up more do nothing time this year. Even if at the expense of books on my yearly list.

On kindle reading: I picked up the kindle again for a while in 2025 though I seem to be back to reading physical books. It’s definitely easier and faster to read on a kindle, as long as you always have it with you or in the app on your phone, but being more cognizant of being on screens around the kids these days, I don’t love reading on a screen — actually, I really like reading on a screen, I just would rather have the kids see me reading a book. Same with audiobooks — love them, but don’t want to be Headphone Guy, so I only listen when I’m by myself (HAHA, NEVER).

The other issue with audiobooks and kindle books is that I can’t share them! What’s the point of reading if you can’t pass it on! Related: get yourself a friend who will read anything, someone who reads super fast — you can share library books before they’re due! I’ll never be this friend, but I love being able to share a book.

I mailed The Friday Afternoon Club to my best friend in Nashville. My copies of On The Calculation of Volume: One and Heart the Lover are making their way through my office, one coworker at a time. I handed my kindle off to a neighbor after loading it up with Awake, All The Way To The River, and Wreck, but that’s not the same.

Here’s my list of what I read this year (not including lots of folded copies of The New Yorker and SO MANY board books): some ebooks, some library books, some found-on-the-side-of-the-road, some pre-orders, some audiobooks through Spotify.

2025 books I read 

  1. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman (January)

  2. Share Your Stuff, I’ll Go First, Laura Tremaine (January)

  3. the office of historical corrections, Danielle Evans (January) 

  4. Men have called her crazy, Anna Marie Tendler (January)

  5. 1000 words, Jami Attenborough (February)

  6. Catcher in the Rye, Salinger (March) 

  7. The Uptown Local, Cory Leadbetter (March) 

  8. Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg (March)

  9. The Friday Afternoon Club, Griffin Dunne (April)
    Is Joan Didion my Roman Empire? Yes.

  10. Dear Writer, Maggie Smith (April) 

  11. Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler (May)

  12. We’ll Prescribe You a Cat, Syou Ishida (May) 

  13. Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping on a Dead Man, Jesse Q. Sutanto (August)
    Always say yes to a Vera Wong book.

  14. The Book of Alchemy, Suleika Jaouad (August)
    This one made me decide to write 100 days straight which is actually SO MANY DAYS and I barely made it.

  15. My Sister the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite (August)

  16. Kiss Her Goodbye, Lisa Gardner (August)

  17. You Have A New Memory, Aiden Arata (September) 

  18. Build The Life You Want, Arthur C Brooks and OPRAH (September)

  19. All the way to the river, Elizabeth Gilbert (October)
    I don’t even know what any of this is AND I think writers need to write and should write. I’m glad I read this even if it was bananas. It’s okay to be bananas! It’s okay to burn out and keep writing anyway! Or whatever this was! It’s really none of my business!

  20. Awake, Jen Hatmaker (October) 
    This book was excellent and I never wanted it to end. Jen Hatmaker is a delight.

  21. How to keep house while drowning, KC Davis (October) 
    Second year in a row reading this one. It’s a good one to go back to.

  22. Heart the Lover, Lily King (October) 
    NO NOTES.

  23. The Mailman, Stephen Starring Grant (October) 

  24. Pitch Dark, Renata Adler (November)

  25. Wreck, Catherine Newman (November)

  26. What My Bones Know, Stephanie Foo (November)
    This book was A LOT, and I learned SO MUCH. Also? Podcast producers who write books make excellent audiobooks. Not sure how you can make a book about complex trauma so nice to listen to, but here we are. Life is wild.

  27. On The Calculation of Volume: One, Soljev Balle (November)
    Read this New York Times piece first, then read all these books. Definitely my favorite book of the year.

  28. The Modern Spirituality Series, Henri Nouwen (December) 

  29. How About Now, Kate Baer (December)
    It’s always a good idea to close out the year with poetry. It’s an even better idea when it’s Kate Baer.

Happy reading!

Reading in 2024
Reading in 2023
Reading in 2022
Reading in 2021

Casey Brown
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