My favourite books of 2025

(Disclaimer: if you’re looking for marketing book recommendations, prepare to be disappointed.)

Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death by Otto Dov Kulka. Deeply beautiful and nightmarish in equal measure, a total fever-dream reflection of a childhood spent in Auschwitz, prose intermingled seamlessly with poetry. I found this at random in a secondhand bookstore, and it ended up being the most memorable book of the year.

Hiroshima by John Hersey. Originally a long-form New Yorker article about the survivors of the Hiroshima bombing, a milestone in war reporting and vitally important for putting a human face on an event so ingrained in history. Hugely worthwhile.

Nuclear War – A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen. Fantastic minute-by-minute account of what would happen in the event of a nuclear war. Written beautifully, a real page-turner, and extremely humbling to realise just how final a nuclear exchange would be, and how little say we have over the matter.

Stella Maris, The Passenger, Suttree by Cormac McCarthy: McCarthy is my favourite author (The Road is my most re-read book), and I made a concerted effort to finish reading all of his published novels this year. The Passenger and Stella Maris form a diptych that I still think about almost daily; haunting and anchored deeply in McCarthy’s own end-of-life reflections on philosophy and love and meaning. Suttree is McCarthy’s most light-hearted story, almost Tom Sawyer-esque (and even a little reminiscent of Kerouac, another of my favourite authors, in set and setting), but with all McCarthy’s mastery of prose on show. Incredible.

“Austerity lifts the heart and focuses the vision. Travel light. A few ideas are enough.”

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Monumentally important for our understanding of the dangers of pesticides and insecticides, and written with gorgeous, lyrical prose. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Highly recommended.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. I have a penchant for slow-burning Westerns (see also: True Grit, Ridgeline, The Border Trilogy) and this book frequently tops Reddit “favourite book” lists. A gorgeous read, slow and languorous, worth wallowing in for weeks. Reminded me a lot of Stephen King’s epic The Stand, another long story I savoured for as long as possible.

Bonus: the worst book of 2025, and possaibly my most-hated book ever:

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan. Drawn to this because it’s set in the Chilterns along one of my favourite hiking haunts. I persevered because I hoped the pay-off would be “self-important middle-aged science man creates problems of his own making, but becomes humble and wiser”, but instead it was a self-congratulatory circlejerk of “science man uses immense brain to outsmart everyone, especially his partner, everyone applauds.” Awful; such grotesque self-insertion, it felt almost like satire. All the worse for the fact that a very satisfying ending could have been found: the main character slowly realises that he is paranoid and delusional, suffering from the insidious effects of his exposure to great trauma, and begins to rebuild a life grateful for the support of those around him. Instead, McEwan choseto resolve things in the worst way imaginable. Still salty about this.

Related notes: How I read books, Buy books liberally

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