Thoughts: Best Books of 2025 & Reading in 2026

In yesterday’s post, I confirmed that “I’ll be back” in 2026 and promised a look at what I plan to read this year. Before that, though, I want to share some standout books from 2025. These aren’t definitive “best of” lists—just the ones that really stuck with me.

What stood out in 2025?

I’m going to caveat this selection by giving some stats:

• I read 34 books in total (you can see the full list here).
• 5 of those were Rivers of London related.
• 7 were published in 2025
• 4 were books in translation

I really like using The StoryGraph app (I’m @gavreads)to capture my reading. They also provide nice graphics:

This is my way of saying that 34 is a respectable number, but it’s not the biggest pool of work to make proclamations like this is the best book published in 2025, etc.

I also DNF’d 9 books. I want to retry three of them (Under the Eye of the Big Bird, Extremophile, & The Ministry of Time) to see if I can figure out what others liked in them that I missed.

If you’re looking for the best released in 2025, this not the blog post you are looking for.

Anyway, here are some idiosyncratic ‘best ofs’:

Best of Found Families:

• August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White
• The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth

Best Slow-Burn Reveal:

• The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

Best Ensemble of ‘Monsters’:

• The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

Best Parent Fighting for Their Child:

• The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso
• The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis

Best use of humour to present a horrific things:

• The Trees by Percival Everett

Best use of a family holiday:

• Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne

Best Tales of Taxi Riders

Goodnight Tokyo by Atsuhiro Yoshida

Best Questioning of ‘If AI is alive’?

• The Murderbot Diaries Vol. 1 by Martha Wells
• Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
• The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton
• Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon
• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Best Long Running Series that I’ve read in 2025:

• Rivers of London (#6 to #9.5)

Best Time Spent in a Freezer

• When the Museum Is Closed by Emi Yagi [tr.. Yuki Tejima]

Best Stories in an Anthology are contained in:

• Nova Scotia Vol 2 edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J Wilson [2024]
• I Want That Twink OBLITERATED! edited by Robert Berg, Trip Galey, & C.L. McCartney [2024]
• Fight Like A Girl 2 edited by Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall [2024]

Best Example of How We’ve Not Really Moved On as a Society:

• The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle [1957]

Best Example of How We Have Gone Backwards:

• Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto [tr. Megan Backus] [1988/1993]

Do you want to give out any more awards?

I’m sure I could think of more, but let’s stop here.

What are you planning on reading in 2026?

All the books I bought in 2025? Maybe not, as that’s physically impossible at this point. Perhaps the topic of why I keep buying books should be explored in a future post. For now, though, I want to get some ‘quick reading wins’ under my belt and read some of the shorter, standalone fiction.

The thene of 2026 is:

• The year of the backlog (recent and extended).

This might not be the most up-to-date content for future blog posts, but I’m planning to make it the best reading experience I can. With that in mind, here are two lists of 10 books I want to read in 2026 (and if I remember, I’ll report back)

Selected from 2025 Releases:

1. The Book of Jonah by Luke Kennard
2. The Imagined Life by Andrew Porter
3. Dot Slash Magic by Liz Shipton
4. Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil by Oliver Darkshire
5. Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove
6. Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
7. The Haunting of William Thorn by Ben Alderson
8. Once Was Willem by M.R. Carey
9. The Entanglement of Rival Wizards by Sara Raasch
10. A Song of Legends Lost by M.H. Ayinde

There are so many more… The Isle in the Silver Sea, The Everlasting,The Last Soul Among Wolves, It’s Not a Cult, Spread Me, Dead & Breakfast, Angel Down… I’d better stop.

Selected from The Backlog:

1. Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland
2. Remember You Will Die by Eden Robins
3. House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
4. Nude Against a Rock by Robert Hamberger
5. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
6. Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
7. Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
8. Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood
9. There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job. by Kikuko Tsumura [Tr. Polly Barton]
10. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

This is just the tip of an iceberg, but hopefully shows a selection of my backlog and the delights that I have to look forward to.

That’s my plan. What are yours? Any highlights from 2025, and what’s on your list for 2026?