everything i read in 2025
and my favorite ten novels
Happy New Year, folks. I’m about a week late here, because although this post was more or less ready on December 30, it needed a few tweaks and I spent most of the last five days frolickling and away from my little laptop. Here’s proof:
It was very lovely.
But the tweaks have now been made, and the Best of 2025 trio ends with books, which feels right.1 Logistically speaking, it’s much easier to tell you all the new and new-to-me books I read this year than it was to list all the albums I listened to or all the films I watched. Mainly because I log them somewhat religiously so it’s a matter of copying said list, something I am doing manually because I enjoy the act of mechanically typing with no greater goal than that of a faithful reproduction. There’s a soothing mindlessness to it.
At the end of last year when I published an equivalent newsletter for my 2024 reads, I had this to say:
My goals for 2025 generally involve reading more works in translation and more original works in Spanish. Branching out, etcetc.
And I’m happy to say that I mostly achieved that goal. In 2025, of the 53 books I read, 21 were in translation and 7 were originally in Spanish.2 So I’m pleased. I still kept up my steady diet of British, Irish, and American literature (22 books in total, give or take a few ambiguous nationalities), but they were more of a plurality than a majority.
For reference, which as a rule is nice to have in one place, I’m including here all the book- and literature-related essays published this year.
everything i read july-september 2025
I got carried away with this one—Substack informs me that it is too long for email, so if you want to keep reading past the cutoff point, I recommend the app or (as is my preference) desktop. xx
reading recap (april-june)
Folks, it's time for our quarterly book recap. I like doing these every three months—it allows me to gauge trends in my reading habits, see what kind of books I've been gravitating towards over longer periods of time ... an occasionally disturbing self-study, to be honest.
on clarice lispector
The writers of many (most?) newsletters I follow don’t just write their newsletters—they also work on novels, short stories, poetry, cookbooks, longform journalism. This includes me, as well, I suppose. And maybe some of these writers are multi-hyphenates mainly by virtue of economic necessity instead of a real wish and/or willingness to spread themselves thin across multiple writing fields.
who gets to do the right thing?
In a way, Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These is about how all the feelings you’ve repressed throughout the year will inevitably come back to haunt you in the weeks before Christmas, when work eases and free time, with all its tangents, begins to rear its ugly head. You ask yourself questions like: what am I doing with my life; is my past consistent…
everything i read jan-mar '25
Well, friends, I have once again been reading. This is a lengthy newsletter, probably best to read on the app or desktop, but hopefully you can find a book to add to your list from it. Comments are open, so feel free to share your opinions of the books mentioned, even if they’re different from mine! :)
in defense of the re-read
I’ve been working on and thinking about this for a while now, and it was meant to go up a few days ago, but I caught a bit of a bug and honestly, anything having to do with reading makes more sense on a Sunday to me, anyway.
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In the order read, below are the books that kept me company this year.3
Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector (trans. from the Portuguese by Stefan Tobler)
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (trans. from the French by Ros Schwartz)
Morning and Evening by Jon Fosse (trans. from the Norwegian by Damion Searls)
Greek Lessons by Han Kang (trans. from the Korean by Deborah Smith and e. yaewon)
El acontecimiento by Annie Ernaux (trans. from the French by Berta Corral and Mercedes Corral)
Aprendiendo a vivir. Y otras cronicas by Clarice Lispector (trans. from the Portuguese by Elena Losada)
The Vegetarian by Han Kang (trans. from the Korean by Deborah Smith)
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (trans. from the Russian by Hugh Aplin)4
Carta de una desconocida by Steven Zweig (trans. from the German by Berta Conill Purgimon)5
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (trans. from the Russian by Richard Freeborn)
Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector (trans. from the Portuguese by Alison Entrekin)
On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle (trans. from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland)
On the Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle (trans. from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland)
Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux (trans. from the French by Tanya Leslie)
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico (trans. from the Italian by Sophie Hughes)
The White Book by Han Kang (trans. from the Korean by Deborah Smith)
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (trans. from the Italian by William Weaver)
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (trans. from the Italian by William Weaver)
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (trans. from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones)
Kentukis by Samanta Schweblin (translated to English as Little Eyes)
On the Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle (trans. from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell)7
Orlanda by Jacqueline Harpman (trans. from the French by Ros Schwartz)
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I feel like I was more intentional about the books I picked up in 2025 compared to previous years, so you can of course imagine how coming up with ten favorites was a bit of a struggle for me. But here’s a bit of an attempt, in no particular order:
Agua Viva
Greek Lessons
Small Things Like These
Primavera con una esquina rota
On the Calculation of Volume I
Demon Copperhead
El buen mal
Dept. of Speculation
The Short Reign of Pippin IV
Orlanda
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And there you have it! My reading goals for 2026 are kinda more of the same (literature in translation, original works in Spanish), although I also want to practice my Italian, French, and Portuguese, so I’m going to do my best to read more original works in those languages, particularly from authors I’ve already read in translation (e.g., Italo Calvino, Jacqueline Harpman, Clarice Lispector). And, maybe, reading more from friends’ recommendations—many of my favorite reads this year, for instance, came from finally listening to friends’ increasingly insistent suggestions.
Did I miss any of your favorites? Anything you think I must read asap? Let me know!
Thanks for reading! You can find me on instagram and tiktok. The newsletter is fully supported by readers, so if you often find yourself thinking I enjoyed that and also I happen to have disposable income, please consider sharing the newsletter with a friend and/or becoming a paid subscriber for $6/month or $40/year. If not, honestly, that’s fine, too. I get it.
I’m linking my Best Albums and Best Films of 2025, if you haven’t read them yet and are interested.
Nitpicking myself here, but in the latter figure, I’m not including the 4 books in translation I read in Spanish, as they were French or Portuguese in origin.
Unless otherwise noted, I’m using bookshop.org affiliate links, which means that if you buy any books from my link, I receive some sort of commission. Because I am lazy, I have not actually checked how much that commission is. I do know it does not impact the price you pay.
The version I’m linking is translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, because I couldn’t find the one that I read. I’m sure Pevear and Volokhonsky did a fine job, as they usually do.
Translated into English as Letter from an Unknown Woman.
Not found on Bookshop, so I linked to the publisher’s website. Also, unless my Google search is betraying me (entirely possible), I actually don’t think this was translated to English.
I need the 4-1-1 on why the translation team changed starting with Volume III.
So amazing to see you read so many books in Spanish!
It’s a goal of mine to read at least one translated book (currently Orgullo & Prejudicio por Austen) and one originally written in Spanish book this year. I have cut down my overall book total goal accordingly to accomplish it.
Small Things Like These is such a treasure. I have a group chat with two friends dedicated solely to talking about how perfect that book is. So glad you loved it.