Best Books of 2025

Not “The Ten Best Books” but simply those that I read in 2025 that really struck me as exceptional, books I would hold onto to read and reread forever. As usual this list is highly subjective and is not based on critical acclaim or merit. It is simply the books I read last year that I most treasured and would most want to hang onto, were strict limits imposed.

Three of my favorite books were cookbooks, perhaps a new record. All of them were excellent reads, all have recipes that work and appeal, and each of them has affected the evolution of my relationship to food and cooking

Made in Taiwan won an IACP award in 2024 but I purchased it, and read it in January. I actually read it, cover to cover, before I began cooking from it. I’ve always loved reading cookbooks, but I had fallen out of the habit. Now, cookbooks almost rival novels for pure reading pleasure. I loved the author’s voice and her exploration of Taiwanese culture, but even more than that, this was the first cookbook I had read in a long, long time where I wanted to cook every single recipe, even the ones I cannot cook due to food allergies. A year later, I still feel the same way about this book. Everything I tried has been excellent. I am nowhere near having cooked everything but I am still cooking. This is a book I can escape into, but also a book I can bring to life in my own kitchen.

The Art of Gluten Free Bread was released in October of last year. I have long followed Aran Goyoaga, both through her blog and her cookbooks. Despite the fact that most GF baking books I have tried have proved to be ultimately disappointing (her previous book is an exception), and I find most gluten-free bread functional but not crave-worthy, I was eager to dive into this book. Yes, I read it first. Yes, I am still baking. So far everything has been a success although some things, like sourdough are more of a process (see my previous posts here and here). I once baked bread regularly. Then bread broke my heart, and I slammed the door. Now that door is open. As I am writing this post, I am eating a homemade roll, a pleasure I had once thought lost forever.

I had owned and cooked from Korean American for a couple of years. I liked it but didn’t really think about it much. Then it became a featured book in my second cookbook club. This time around I actually read the book, and I loved it. Kim is an excellent writer, and he really captures the spirit of family and heritage and the way food binds us together, which I think would resonate even with those who are not of Korean American extraction. His stories reminded me of fishing and cooking with my Mississippi grandfather, and of the many ways each generation interacts with food. Added to all of this, his recipes are fairly straightforward, and mix American and Korean sensibilities in an approachable way.

And now, onto the other books. Most are fiction. One is clearly not. I’ll go clockwise, from the top left, ending in the center.

I read Jumpha Lahiri’s collection of short stories, The Interpreter of Maladies, previously, when it was first published, at the close of the 20th century. I loved it then, but didn’t hold onto it. I reread it this year and was amazed at how well it had survived the test of time, how much more deeply the stories resonated with me now, having gained a few years of experience and wisdom (or at least experience). I read it earlier in the year and have dipped into it on multiple occasions since. I was not a lover of short stories as a young woman but that seems to have changed.

Orbital was another reread. I first read it when the the 2024 Booker long list was announced. I read it again after it won. Then I read it last year, for a third time, when it was selected by my book club. With each rereading it revealed more depths. It is a very simple novel, in terms of plot and timeline, if there is indeed a plot, but that is not its strength. It is a fascinating meditation on life and on the earth, the planet that gives us life. I can admit that it is, in many ways very much a reflection on the zeitgeist of this age and the way we view the world around us, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Each time I read it, I fall deeply into the prose. Each time I read it, I am sad when it ends.

Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the only book on this list that is not a reread. It is the only non-fiction book. And it was the most difficult read of the year. And yet I loved it and am happy I read it. It is dense, intense, thought provoking, and often quite disturbingly challenging. Reading the book forced me to analyze my own beliefs and understandings of faith, religion, hope, and my own role in this journey called life. To read this book was not an easy journey, and there were times when I found wrestling with. Bonhoeffer’s words to be downright painful. There were sections of the book where I would spend hours trying to come to terms with an idea only to look up and discover I had only read one or two pages. And yet I can honestly say, that as profoundly difficult as this book was to read, I absolutely loved reading it. I love books that make me think, that force me to adapt and challenge my own assumptions, that rock me out of my own complacent bubble, even if only for a moment, even when that process is painful. I seriously doubt I will reread this entire book. But I will absolutely treasure it, and refer both to my notes and to certain sections again and again. Bonhoeffer and I still have a great deal to say to each other.

Moby Dick, oh Moby Dick, how do I love thee? I loved the novel when I read it in college; I’ve carted that copy around with me all these decades. But had I read it in the intervening years? No. Am I happy I read it again last year? Most definitely. Rereading the novel, I remembered the beauty of Melville’s sentences, the beauty of the language itself. That is one reason to read the novel, but probably not one that will make it popular with modern readers. Parts of the novel reminded me of Medieval poems and plays with their lists and expositions. In other instances Melville’s observations and expositions felt quite modern, perhaps even disturbingly so to readers at the actual time of publication. Melville taps into the founding myths of America with all of their accompanying grandiosity and poignancy. It rivals any overblown television drama, at least if you, like me prefer to lose yourself in words.

Last, but far from least, is a children’s book written by Gertrude Stein, The World Is Round. It is the story of Rose, who questions everything, and Will, who is always Will. I rediscovered this book this fall. Published in 1938, I seriously wonder if this would be published as a children’s book today, much to our loss. But I am biased and I believe we have oversimplified what children read. I read this as a child and loved it, but then I forgot who wrote it. I just remembered how happy it made me, this little book, and I remembered Rose’s little song:

Why am I a little girl

Where am I a little girl

When am I a little girl

Which little girl am I

Even when I was eleven, that little song resonated and made me smile. Reading the book again as an adult, it still made me happy. It made me smile even though I now see the sadness that is also contained within the story. But you can’t have happiness without sadness. Perhaps that says something about people — those who see this book as sad, and those who see this book as happy. I am a member of the latter cohort. Please do not tell me what that means.