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What I read in 2025

58 books!

What I read in 2025
Image: Andrew Liptak

2026 is here, and with the year ticking over, here's a last look back at the pile of books I read in 2025. I've been keeping track of what I read on social media (mainly on Bluesky and Facebook), and as I've done in prior years, I set myself a goal of 52 books.

At 58 books, I did better than I have in the last couple of years (2024 saw 42 books, while in 2023, I only read 38.) I say only like that's a bad thing: most places I've seen say that Americans read around 11-12 books a year, so I'm doing my part to skew that average a bit.

Here's what I read in the last year:

  1. Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s by Adam Rowe (Interview)
  2. The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien (Commentary)
  3. The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien (Commentary)
  4. The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu, adapted by Christophe Bec and illustrated by Stefano Raffaele
  5. A Conventional Boy by Charles Stross (Review)
  6. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien and edited by Christopher Tolkien
  7. Vermont: An Outsider’s Inside View by Edward L. Rubin
  8. Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Review)
  9. Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli
  10. Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor (Review)
  11. Life Became Very Blurry: An Oral History of Covid-19 in Vermont by Garrett M. Graff (Interview)
  12. Hellboy: The Crooked Man and Others by Mike Mignola
  13. The Asteroid Hunter: A Scientist’s Journey to the Dawn of the Solar System by Dante S. Lauretta (Review)
  14. The Quiet Before: On The Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas by Gal Beckerman
  15. When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi (Review)
  16. All Systems Red by Martha Wells
  17. Star Wars: Reign of the Empire: The Mask of Fear by Alexander Freed
  18. Where The Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler
  19. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
  20. Swedish Machines: Sunset at Zero Point by Simon Stålenhag (Review)
  21. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
  22. The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal
  23. Damascus Station by David McCloskey
  24. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Review)
  25. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (Commentary)
  26. How To Kill An Asteroid: The Real Science of Planetary Defense by Robin George Andrews
  27. Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz (Review)
  28. The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb by Garrett M. Graff (Review)
  29. The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear
  30. The Last Vigilant by Mark A. Latham
  31. The Bewitching by Silva Moreno-Garcia (Review)
  32. How To Love A Forest: The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World by Ethan Tapper (Review)
  33. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and illustrated by Bilquis Evely
  34. Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West by Aidan Moher (Review)
  35. The Desert Talon by Karin Lowachee
  36. Winters' Time: A Secret Pledge, a Severed Head, and the Murder That Brought America's Most Famous Lawyer to Vermont by Jeffrey L. Amestoy (Interview)
  37. Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (Review)
  38. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
  39. FotTrot by Bill Amend
  40. The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America by David Baron (review)
  41. Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler by Susana M. Morris (Review)
  42. Physics for Cats by Tom Gauld
  43. King Sorrow by Joe Hill (Review)
  44. All That We See Or Seem by Ken Liu
  45. The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi (Review)
  46. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  47. There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
  48. Hole In the Sky by Daniel H. Wilson (Review)
  49. The Epic of Gilgamesh
  50. The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (Review)
  51. King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby
  52. Orbital by Samantha Harvey
  53. Vermont Female Farmers by JuanCarlos Gonzalez
  54. Runes of Engagement by Dave Klecha and Tobias Buckell
  55. The Greatest Sentence Ever Written by Walter Isaacson
  56. Pass the Loot by Bill Amend
  57. Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right by Jordan S. Carroll
  58. Ensorcelled by Eliot Peper

With 2026 started, I've reset the clock. My goal is always the same: 52 books in as many weeks. You can follow along with my progress on social media, where I'll be once again tracking what I've been reading.

What did you read last year, and what stood out for you?