Books I've Read in 2025

To start out strong, I'm immediately sharing my book list for the year, including books I'm partway through (noted accordingly.)

Nowadays, I use The Storygraph as my preferred reading tracker, but I still love having the full list on the blog too for reference. Check the review archive and books category page to explore each read more in-depth; I'm still in the process of building out more reviews and transferring hundreds over from my old site. And, of course, book club with me about my 2024 reads.

You can find each of my 2025 mid-year favorites here for purchase in a Bookshop storefront.

reviewed & linked

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Some Themes I Notice

• endurance, fatigue, physical limitation, and exhaustion
• the process of translation & the impossibility of verbal precision
• various writers tackling craft
• reverence for nature, the outdoors, and what we lose when we don't seek out real-life experience
• the tension between self-reliance and connection (or individual vs. collective identity)
• of course, the tension between control and surrender
• taking a break from any books I perceive as similar to mine in genre/voice (for a beat) because I don't want to overthink
• + my own book a dozen times, always!
• this summer, I apparently can’t get enough of hockey & cowboy romances—

Finished

1. Mountain Sounds by Grace Smith (this year, I'm counting it)
2. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
3. Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver
4. On Writing by Stephen King
5. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
6. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
7. How to Be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins by Helena De Bres
8. Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
9. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
10. The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr
11. The Incurable Romantic and Other Tales of Madness and Desire by Frank Tallis
12. The Nature Fix by Florence Williams
13. Nature; Self-Reliance; The American Scholar; An Address Delivered Before the Senior Class in Divinity College... (essays) by Ralph Waldo Emerson
14. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
15. All Things Are Too Small by Becca Rothfeld
16. All-American Girl by Meg Cabot
17. Novelist as Vocation by Haruki Murakami
18. Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
19. Nature, Man, and Woman by Alan Watts
20. The Will to Change by bell hooks
21. Awe by Dacher Keltner
22. Becoming Wise by Krista Tippett
23. Mountain Sounds by Grace Smith (round two)
24. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
25. Consider the Lobster: & Other Essays by David Foster Wallace
26. Benito Cereno by Herman Melville (novella)
27. This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz
28. The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
29. The Attachment Effect by Peter Loveheim
30. The Love Prescription by John Gottman, Julia Schwartz Gottman
31. Mountain Sounds by Grace Smith (III)
32. Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
33. The Science of Kissing by Sheril Kirshenbaum
34. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
35. The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays by Albert Camus
36. Mountain Sounds by Grace Smith (IV)
37. The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin
38. The Finishing School by Dick Couch
39. The Fran Lebowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz (she's so funny—love her)
40. The Warrior Elite by Dick Couch
41. The Portable Emerson (edited by Carl Bode with Malcolm Cowley)
42. Mountain Sounds by Grace Smith (V)
43. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
44. The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
45. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
46. When Men Behave Badly by David M. Buss, PhD
47. After the North Pole by Erling Kagge
48. Spiral by Bal Khabra
49. The Plague by Albert Camus
50. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
51. The Iliad by Homer (translated by Emily Wilson)
52. Walden and Other Writings by Henry David Thoreau
53. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (audio)
54. The Brothers K by David James Duncan
55. Mountain Sounds by Grace Smith (VI)
56. Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
57. Collide by Bal Khabra
58. On Muscle by Bonnie Tsui
59. Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought by Barbara Tversky
60. The Poetry of Rilke by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Edward Snow)
61. Rockets' Red Glare by William Webster and Dick Lochte
62. Done and Dusted by Lyla Sage
63. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
64. The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
65. The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
66. Instructions for Traveling West: Poems by Joy Sullivan
67. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (audio)
68. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (audio)
69. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (audio)
70. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
71. Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart by Nicholas Carr
72. The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World by Christine Rosen
73. Beartown by Fredrik Backman (audio)
74. Lost & Lassoed by Lyla Sage
75. Us Against You by Fredrik Backman
76. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (audio)
77. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
78. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
79. Swift and Saddled by Lyla Sage
80. Bourbon & Lies by Victoria Walker
81. Unsteady by Peyton Corrine
82. Unloved by Peyton Corrine
83. Take It from Me: An Agent's Guide to Building a Nonfiction Career from Scratch by Alia Hanna Habib
84. Wild and Wrangled by Lyla Sage
85. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
86. The Lodge by Kayla Olson
87. Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric (Bartlett)
88. The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others by Tali Sharot
89. The Sweetest Oblivion by Danielle Lori
90. A Nietszche Reader by Friedrich Nietzsche
91. Girl Abroad by Elle Kennedy
92. Travels in Alaska by John Muir
93. On Friendship by Michel de Montaigne
94. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
95. Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus
96. How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett
97. One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune
98. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
99. The Conditions of Will by Jessa Hastings
100. Behind the Net by Stephanie Archer
101. The Fake Out by Stephanie Archer
102. The Wingman by Stephanie Archer
103. Gloves Off by Stephanie Archer
104. The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
105. The Symposium by Plato
106. When Devils Sing by Xan Kaur
107. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
108. End of the Earth: Voyaging to Antarctica by Peter Matthiessen
109. Face Off by Chelsea Curto
110. Figuring by Maria Popova
111. Mile High by Liz Tomforde
112. Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck by William Souder
113. Offside Play by Lyssa Lemire
114. That Kind of Guy by Stephanie Archer
115. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
116. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (audio)
117. Power Play by Chelsea Curto
118. Slap Shot by Chelsea Curto
119. Hat Trick by Chelsea Curto (I really am on a hockey books kick)
120. The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck
121. Why We Click: The Emerging Science of Interpersonal Synchrony by Kate Murphy
122. The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater (audio)
123. Time of Your Life by Jessa Hastings
124. The Solace of Open Spaces: Essays by Gretel Ehrlich
125. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
126. Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
127. {`Red Doc>`} by Anne Carson
128. The Odyssey by Homer (translated by Emily Wilson)
129. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
130. Perfect Deke by Ruth Stilling
131. Hiking with Nietzsche by John Kaag
132. American Philosophy: A Love Story by John Kaag
133. Revolve by Bal Khabra
134. Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater (audio)
135. The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater (audio)
136. The Last Letter by Rebecca Yarros
137. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
138. I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter
139. Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter
140. Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover by Ally Carter
141. Only the Good Spy Young by Ally Carter
142. Out of Sight, Out of Time by Ally Carter
143. United We Spy by Ally Carter
144. Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink
145. Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune
146. How to Think About Exercise by Damon Young
147. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
148. Circe by Madeline Miller
149. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
150. Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison
151. Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters by John Steinbeck
152. Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
153. Maggie, Or; A Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar by Katie Yee
154. Courtroom Drama by Neely Tubati Alexander
155. On the River Styx: and Other Stories by Peter Matthiessen
156. Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
157. House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
158. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
159. Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag
160. Doctoring the Devil: Notebooks of an Appalachian Conjure Man by Jake Richards
161. What We Talk About When We Talk About Books: The History and Future of Reading by Leah Price
162. Is Peace Possible? by Kathleen Lonsdale
163. Heist Society by Ally Carter
164. F*ckface: And Other Stories by Leah Hampton
165. The Winners by Fredrik Backman (audio)
166. Cowboys Are My Weakness: Stories by Pam Houston
167. Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell
168. A Prayer Journal by Flannery O’Connor
169. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (audio)
170. Writing Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd
171. Southern Cunning: Folkloric Witchcraft in the American South by Aaron Oberon
172. The Favorites by Layne Fargo
173. Breaking Point by Mads Rafferty
174. True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen by Lance Richardson
175. Bedlam: An Intimate Journey into America’s Mental Health Crisis by Kenneth Paul Rosenberg, PhD
176. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
177. Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley
178. The Candy Shop Wars by Brandon Mull
179. The House Saphir by Marissa Meyer
180. The Wild Card by Stephanie Archer
181. Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid
182. Game Changer by Rachel Reid

Currently Reading (Many)

1. This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You by Dr. Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas*
2. The Urge: Our History of Addiction by Carl Erik Fischer*
3. Demon Copperfield by Barbara Kingsolver*
4. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Márquez*
5. Poems 1962-2012 by Louise Glück*
6. The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li*
7. A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman*
8. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
9. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky*
10. Local Heavens by K.M. Fajardo
11. Middlemarch by George Eliot (audio)*
12. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (audio)*
13. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien (audio)*
14. Having It All by Corinne Low*
15. The Unspeakable Mind by Shaili Jane, MD*
16. Alchemised by SenLinYu*
17. Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen*
18. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry*