My 5 Favorite Books I Read in 2025 | Patron-Only Early Access / Ad-Free

Excellent picks Cliff, another fantastic year of reviews. 1. “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, Milan Kundera 2. “Still Life with Woodpecker”, Tom Robbins 3. “The Tiger”, John Valiant 4. “Every Man for Himself and God Against All”, Werner Herzog 5. “Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage”, Alfred Lansing

The Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso I Ching The Oracle. A Practical Guide to The Book of Changes by Benebell Wen Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace The House on The Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

Happy New Year 📖 🎆 My favourite reads of 2025: 'Wolf Solent’ by John Cowper Powys ‘Death on the Installment Plan’ by Louis Ferdinand-Céline ‘Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead’ by Barbara Comyns ‘Speedboat’ by Renata Adler ‘Gore Capitalism’ by Sayak Valencia ‘Corregidora’ by Gayl Jones ‘Amongst Women’ by John McGahern ‘Fishboy’ by Mark Richard ‘Severina’ by Rodrigo Rey Rosa 'Acts of Service' by Lillian Fishman 'Giovanni's Room' by James Baldwin Favourite BTF recommended reads this year (thank you!!!!): ‘Black Sun: The Brief Transit and Violent Eclipse of Harry Crosby’ by Geoffrey Wolff ‘Hard Rain Falling’ by Don Carpenter 'A Sport and a Pastime' by James Salter ‘Miss Lonelyhearts’ by Nathanael West ‘Crash’ by J.G. Ballard ‘Hunger’ by Knut Hamsun

Watching this video might be my favorite part of each new year. Thanks again for all you do promoting books that are better than food. Miss seeing you too and hope to remedy that soon. Last few months have been a blur! I have been in something of a reading funk lately, but I did get through a few notable works in 2025. My top 5: 1. The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe (I finished the book feeling it was good but that I was missing something critical about what was going on behind the surface story. Once I did some research and discovered what that missing something was, which included reading a 300+ page write-up on it by Wolfe scholar, Marc Aramini, it blew my mind in a way no other book has. I have not been able to stop thinking about this book since and now want to read it again soon.) 2. The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy (I read the entire border trilogy but this was by far my favorite of the three. It is epic even for a McCarthy work. I place it up with Blood Meridian and Suttree as his greatest works from the ones I've read so far, which is everything up through Cities of the Plain.) 3. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (This is sort of cheating since it took me about 5 years of sporadic reading to finish this massive tome, but what a journey it was. I've truly never found anything else like this classic. It's incredible how entertaining it is for a book 180 years old.) 4. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (Perhaps a little overlong but it's the most immersive Hemingway novel I've read of his major works.) 5. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (I'm an unapologetic Murakami fan and while this does not include the heavy "magical realism/"slipstream" stuff he's perhaps best known for, the sense of nostalgia and melancholy it elicits has stayed with me.) Some honorable mentions: Radio Free Albemuth by PKD The Time it Never Rained by Elmer Kelton Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Great list, Cliff! You've really sold me on Dr. Moreau. Should knock that off the TBR sooner rather than later. My favorites of the year would be: 1. The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy - read this while visiting NM & El Paso this past May. Would it be hyperbolic to say it may have been a life changing experience? Gorgeous novel. Ugly cried at two or three passages. 2. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner - a reread. Read this back in high school. Loved it back then and love it even more now. Obviously get so much more out of it now that I'm older too. Both funnier (in a very pitch black way) and sadder than I remember. 3. The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy - another reread but man do I just adore this one. Was in the midst of reading this when you posted your review, ironically enough. I'm absolutely in love with the atmosphere this thing conjures up. It's so rich and palpable. Not the best novel I read last year, but it may have been the most entertained I was reading anything last year. 4. The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton - a nearly 500 page autobiography by a Trappist Monk really has no business being as good as this is. So handsomely written and engaging throughout. Got so much out of this one. May not be for everyone, but was very much for me. 5. Running the Light by Sam Tallent - Surprise of the year for me. I wasn't expected much from a novel by a standup comedian but this was a serious piece of work. Unflinching depiction of life on the road and the grim nature of the standup world. Shades of Bukowski. Utterly bleak, utterly honest, and utterly hilarious. Really highly recommend.

Great list Cliff. My five favourite books of 2024 were: 1. East of Eden - John Steinbeck 2. The Quiet American - Graham Greene 3. The Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolano 4. The Last Night of the Earth Poems - Charles Bukowski 5. The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen I believe you've already read some of these, but highly recommend any you haven't.

"No matter how terrible life gets, you can always read and write." Words to live by.

Thanks Cliff. I'm surprised 1984 wasn't in your top five. Anyhow, in no particular order, my favourite five books of 2025 were; Libra by Don Dellilo, Mayflies by Andrew O'Hagan, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, The Anarchy by William Dalrymple and Flesh by David Szalay. My honourable mentions go to; The Woman in black by Susan Hill, Crashed by Adam Tooze, Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams, Seascraper by Benjamin Wood and Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata.

If you'd like a terrible chill to descend upon you, read The Red Laugh by Leonid Andreyev