Best Books I Read in 2025

 Woof. This was--I guess kind of an average reading year? Mostly good or decent reads, a few mediocre ones or ones that weren't for me. The books I'm including below are the ones I've thought about most this year--particularly The Feather Thief and Better Living Through Birding--it's hard to imagine I only read them in 2025! I guess I'm officially a nonfiction fan now. Happy Top Ten Tuesday!

Best Books I Read in 2025

1. Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott--I loved Baba Yaga as a kid and I love this modern, Jewish take on the story
2. The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk W. Johnson--I'd recommend this to anyone. Just a fascinating story--I never knew how much I wanted to know about fly-tying and the mystery of dead nineteenth century birds
3. Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins--Another gut-wrenching Hunger Games triumph--and maybe unfortunately one more for our times 
4. Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders--This is like all my favorite things in one book. Delicious Brit lit nerdery, witches, queer people, Boston and Cambridge, liminal spaces, and, yes, magic. Written by the incomparable Charlie Jane Anders (literally--one of the comps compared her to herself 🤣)!
5. The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop--She had such a fascinating life and she and the ghostwriter write it so well in her voice, which is very Emily Gilmore but a bit nicer!
6. The Future by Naomi Alderman--A really interesting twist on a near-future apocalyptic future--leaves a lot to think about
7. A Fellowship of Bakers & Magic/Adenashire series by J. Penner--This whole series was just a magical cozy fantasy delight. The first book really is a fantasy British Bakeoff, and I love how the other ones explore new characters and magical races and the setting but still stay cozy.
8. How About Now: Poems by Kate Baer--Millenial woman poetry for the win
9. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa--A quiet little slip of a book that makes you think about how people can really touch each others' lives in unexpected ways
10. Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper--Another one I keep thinking about for many reasons--the birding, of course, but also Cooper's career in comics and just his life in general is so interesting. Highly recommend!