My 2025 Book List

I love reading. Reading nourishes, comforts, teaches, and connects me to people and places I wouldn't otherwise ever know or see. By sharing with you my year in books, my hope is this list guides you to choose some places and people you want to explore in the coming year. Here are 59 books to choose from.

Take your time, you have all year.

Fiction to engage and delight you:

The Grey Wolf, Louise Penny, 2024. What a riveting mystery! This was a recommendation from "Book Page" magazine--pick that up when you go to your local library--you'll find many excellent recommendations. This is part of a series featuring Chief Inspector Gamache of The Surete du Quebec cracking the case of an ecoterrorism threat to Montreal's water.

Orbital, Samantha Harvey, 2023. Entire book describes one day in the life of six astronauts orbiting the earth repeatedly for months doing research. This is a love letter to planet earth--her prose is some of the most breathtakingly beautiful I've ever read.

The Pumpkin Spice Cafe, Laurie Gilmore, 2023. Fun, lighthearted romance. Sometimes a gal just needs to have fun. Part of a trilogy.

The Mighty Red, Louse Erdrich, 2024. Pick from Greenfield Library's Book Club. Set in The Red River Valley in North Dakota, the river itself is another character in this gripping story. A high school senior is pressured into marrying the son of the town's largest farming family who is poisoning the river and the land with industrial agricultural waste. Cataclysmic events unfold from choices ordinary people make in the town.

The Things We Do for Love, Kristin Hannah, 2005. I thought I read everything by her, until I found this one day wandering the stacks of Greenfield Library (one of my favorite things to do). What happens when a couple who lost a baby takes in a pregnant teenager? This early book shows the seeds of what her writing becomes decades later. Another story of redemption--forgiveness and healing. Do you sense a theme in my book choices? Yes, I love stories that show us how to be better humans.

Wrecked, Carol Higgins Clark, 2010. This author is the daughter of prolific writer Mary Higgins Clark. Mystery abounds as a couple celebrating their first anniversary in a rental on Cape Cod spend their weekend solving the case of their neighbor being washed out to sea during the weekend's terrible storm. Lucky for them they are both investigators. Entertaining read. Sometimes one just wants to read something easy!

This is a Love Story, Jessica Soffer, 2025. One of the most tender books I've read, this recounting by a husband of his 50 year love affair with his wife as he accompanies her through the long journey of her dying. The backdrop is also a character in the story--Central Park in New York city. where so much of their love, conflict, and delight took place. Every love story is both unique and universal.

All Stories Are Love Stories, Elizabeth Percer, 2016. As I started reading this tender story of three survivors of a horrific earthquake in San Francisco on Valentine's Day--two of them long lost lovers--I realized that I had read this a decade ago. I liked it even more the second time around. Each time we re-read a book, we are a different person and we interact with the story from that new place.

Atmosphere, A Love Story, Taylor Jenkins Reid, 2025. Recommended by my daughter, also a prodigious reader. An ambitious woman's journey to become one of the first female astronauts in the 1980's NASA space program. She unexpectedly learns more than how to fly in space, she learns how to love another.

Three Days in June, Anne Tyler, 2025. This sweet little book is a perfect weekend read about second chances. A divorced couple spend a weekend together attending their only child's wedding festivities and interesting things happen as they look back and assess what went wrong with their marriage.

The Wedding People, Alison Espach, 2024. Wow, what a wild ride at a luxurious resort over six days during the "wedding week" (is that really a thing?) for a wealthy young couple and their guests. What happens when a professor arrives at this resort with the intent to kill herself but instead keeps delaying doing so when she gets swept up into the wedding drama. Funny, serious, surprising!

The Wedding, Nicholas Sparks. 2003. One more take on a wedding theme. Found this is a Little Free Library in California. Read this when you want to read a story where people try to be good, love wins, and you feel sad when you turn the last page and its done.

A Bend in the Road, Nicholas Sparks, 2001. This one showed up in my Little Free Library. Couldn't resist, and you won't be able to either. A widowed sheriff falls for his son's lovely second grade teacher, only to learn that a shocking secret connects her to his wife's death by a hit and run driver.

The Berry Pickers, Amanda Peters, 2023. A shocking kidnaping of a little Indian girl from the berry fields in Maine has stunning consequences that reverberate throughout the community. Riveting.

How Does That Make You Feel Magda Eklund?, Anna Montague, 2024. I admit it, I picked up this book at the library simply based on the title. I'm a therapist, ok? Couldn't resist such a great title. Magda is a thriving therapist grieving the death of her life long best friend Sara. Trying to honor Sara's wish they take a road trip together (which was thwarted by her untimely death) Magda takes off anyway with the urn of Sara's ashes buckled into the front seat of her car. A beautiful story of love unfolds as Magda discovers a surprising twist in her feelings along the road trip.

Time of the Child, Niall Williams, 2024. Irish writer new to me. Set in 1962 Ireland in the small country parish of Faha, a unyielding old country doctor and his fading spinster daughter who is his office manager are swept into the miracle of finding an abandoned newborn. Love for this child softens and frees them.

Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, 2024. Another Irish writer describes the very different ways two brothers 10 years apart in age cope with their father's death. Older brother is a hard edged successful lawyer but tortured with self doubt and suicidal thoughts. Contrasts with the younger gentle brother who is a chess prodigy with a touch of autism.

Brooklyn, Colin Toibin, 2009. Yet another Irish writer. Not sure why I was drawn to Irish authors this year, but they sure can write haunting stories. A very young woman leaves behind her family in Ireland, emigrates to New York City, and in the process we witness her blossoming in 1950's Brooklyn. I was impressed by how a male author captured the nuances so well of a young woman making her way in a new land. Twist at the end I didn't see coming.

Another View, Rosamunde Pilcher, 1968. I know, I know, such an old book. Sweet little story showed up in my Little Free Library. I watched a YouTube video about this prolific romance writer and her book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBqOFW5xWJA Young Emma has been long estranged from her famous artist father and at age 22 she decides to try to re-connect with him in England. Unexpectedly, she re-connects with her stepbrother, and other surprises!

The Names, Florence Knapp, 2025. "Read With Jenna" Pick. One of the most unusual plots for a story I have ever read. What happens when Cora, a wife in the UK, goes against her violently abusive husband's request to name their newborn son after him? The author shows us three alternate realities that she describes over the course of 35 years based on the three different name choices Cora could make. First book by this author, very well done.

The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, 2020. Love this idea! What if you could go to your own library and choose from an infinite number of books that describe an infinite number of different versions of your life---and, you get to experience them?! Choose your best life? And have no regrets? This is what the author explores in the character of Nora Seed.

Say You'll Remember Me, Abby Jimenez, 2025. She knocks it out of the park again with a love story between a shy veterinarian and a tempestuous social media marketer who unfortunately live 2000 miles apart. Can love conquer all? In Jimenez's world, yes, yes, yes. And you will laugh and laugh to boot. I appreciate that all of her books have a mental health theme she explores and this one details how the gal copes with her mom who has dementia.

The Book Club for Troublesome Women, Marie Bostwick, 2025. Four very different women form a book club in 1963 to read the "shocking" new book The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan which describes the unhappiness of middle class housewives in America. We see how all four women's lives change as they incorporate into their thoughts and decisions what they learn from reading the book together. I recall reading this book in the early 80's during my college Women's Studies concentration and felt grateful not to have grown up under the constraints my mom experienced in the 50's and 60's.

The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong, 2025. A 19 year old Vietnamese boy and an 82 yr old Lithuanian woman form an unlikely friendship after she orders him not to jump off the bridge in front of her house in the rundown town of Gladness. His suicide interrupted, we see him struggle to fashion a life constrained by addiction, loss, and lack of opportunity. Can such a life be worth living? This is a semi-autobiography of Vuong's own life. Watch this short clip on Vuong talking about his book to learn his thoughts about this question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka-O-sgnxHw

How to Read a Book, Monica Wood, 2024. Another story about a surprising relationship between people who also meet under dire circumstances. A retired English teacher volunteers at a women's prison and runs a book club for the prisoners and teaches them how to appreciate literature. This book club changes the life of a 22 year old inmate who killed a woman while driving drunk. When this young inmate is released after two years, she encounters the "book club lady" and the husband of the woman she had killed. The relationships that ensue are nothing short of miraculous.

The One-in-a-Million Boy, Monica Wood, 2016. After reading one book by Monica Wood (why didn't I know about her before??) I started chipping away at her whole collection starting with this beautiful book. Another strange friendship (see a theme here?) develops between Quinn, the divorced father of a precocious 11 year old boy who suddenly dies, and the 104 year old woman whom his son was helping out to earn his boy Scout service badge. Quinn, an average musician, takes over his son's duties and everything changes in his life due to this friendship.

The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, 2025. This book has gotten a lot of buzz in the literary world due to being an amazing debut novel for Evans, and its unusual style. It's an epistolary novel, told entirely through letters and emails written and received by Sybil, an elderly divorced lawyer. We witness how she confronts her past actions, her relationships, and her grief through her letters. This was the best book I read this year.

We All Live Here, Jojo Moyes, 2025. I like all of her books, and this new one is also very good. Ride the wave of Lila, her two pre-teen daughters, her estranged hippie dad, and her stepfather who all awkwardly live under her roof after her husband leaves her for his pregnant girlfriend. What a plot, right? Full of humor, courage, and forgiveness.

The Kindred Spirits Supper Club, Amy E. Reichert, 2021. If you like The Dells and supper clubs, you'll like this book! Set in the Wisconsin Dells area where a young man is trying to resurrect his family's ailing supper club (think Ishnala in The Dells) meets a smart young woman with intense social anxiety who he recruits to help him.

Blue Diary, Alice Hoffman, 2001. Ok, another choice from a Little Free Library on my travels to Minnesota. Gorgeous, evocative prose (sometimes a book hooks you less for the plot and more for the beautiful writing) about a wife whose world is turned upside down when she discovers her husband of twelve years has a false identity since he committed a heinous crime before she met him. Can anything be forgiven? Not always.

I'll Be Right Here, Amy Bloom, 2025. An epic decades long tale of five adults forming an unconventional family post WWII. Their family bonds are tested as they grow, fail, and try again. Love threads its way through their efforts.

Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walters, 2012. This also appeared in my Little Free Library. Lucky me! One of NY times 100 Best Books of 2012. Since it is set in the Cinque Terre region of Italy where we traveled and hiked, I had to read it. Moves back and forth between 1960's Italy and Hollywood, Idaho, and yes, Wisconsin fifty years later, telling the story of a fallen movie star and how their downfall can still be full of grace and beauty.

Culpability, Bruce Holsinger, 2025. Oprah Book Club pick. Family of five driving to their vacation destination slam into a car with an elderly couple, killing them. This sets off an exploration of who is culpable? Their self driving van? Their 17 year old son driving the family at the time of the accident? The parents who were working while their son drove? AI plays a role in this drama and raises questions about if our lives are any better with AI.

Camino Ghosts, John Grisham, 2024. He is a mega star author for sure, but I have always avoided reading his work, until this book. My husband recommended it to me and I'm glad I listened to him. Yes, it's a mystery/thriller, but with a heart. An abandoned island off the coast of Florida is eyed by a developer for a casino, but legend has it that the island is cursed by the descendants of the African slaves who escaped there in the 1700's from their white slave owners. Kept me on the edge of my seat!

Lost December, Richard Paul Evans, 2011. What would Christmas be without a Richard Paul Evans book? Modeled after the prodigal son story from the Bible, a young profligate son burns through his trust fund and breaks his fathers heart. He learns through loss and loneliness that money isn't the source of happiness.

Three Holidays and a Wedding, Uzma Jalaladdin and Marissa Stapley, 2023. OK, another Christmas story to warm your heart. I was intrigued by how two people write a book together? The authors discuss this in their afterword, which I read standing in the library stacks. (I often read the afterword first and then decide if I want to read the book). Two strangers who sit next to each other on a plane to Toronto get stranded in a small town due to a blizzard? Against the backdrop on Hanukkah, Ramadan, and Christmas that in real life coincides every so often in the calendar, they help each other through saving a wedding.

The River is Waiting, Wally Lamb, 2025. Oprah Book Club pick. This was the last book I read in 2025. Lamb hasn't written anything since his I'll Take You There, 2016. Gripping story of a husband who causes an unspeakable tragedy to his wife and twins due to his addiction. As he spends three years in prison for his action, he wrestles with whether his wife can forgive him and can he even forgive himself? I stayed up too late many nights reading this beautiful book.

Historical Fiction that will amaze you:

By Any Other Name, Jodi Picoult, 2024. I love anything she writes, but this is my favorite. She weaves back and forth between the real historical figure of Emilia Bassano Lanier (who was England's first published female poet, by the way) and the fictional character, Melinda Green, a modern day playwright, who is her descendant. This book is meticulously researched, exploring the real-life possibility that Emilia Bassano may have ghostwritten works for Shakespeare, a well-known theory in literary circles. Picoult describes the harsh societal constraints in Elizabethan England that limited women's artistic voice and the compromises Bassano made to publish her writing.

James, Percival Everett, 2024. Stunning re-telling of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1885, but from the point of view of Jim, the enslaved Black man whose escape is intertwined with Huck's running away. It's both sobering and funny.

Isola, Allegra Goodman, 2025. Reese's Book Club pick. Based on the true story of a young French noblewoman in the 1600's, Marguerite de la Rocque, who is abandoned on a barren island in New France (modern day Canada) with her lover as punishment by her cruel male guardian. She fights for survival in shockingly extreme circumstances.

Heartwood, Amity Gaige, 2025. A Read with Jenna Pick. Technically not historical fiction, but inspired by a true story. An older woman attempts to thru-hike the 2200 mile Appalachian Trail but goes missing. The reason why is the mystery that unravels throughout this gripping story. I appreciated the subtext of the different mother/daughter relationships that both anchor and challenge the characters that are involved in the search for the missing hiker. I got to wondering if I got lost hiking how would I leave clues so I could be found??

The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich, 2020. Won the Pulitzer prize for fiction in 2021. This Minnesota author of Native American descent tells her grandfather's true story about the attempt of the US government to "emancipate" Indians in 1953 and the North Dakota Chippewa tribe's efforts to push back against that coercion. Two sisters, two young men trying to succeed as professional fighters, and other characters all work together in this battle for cultural survival.

Biography

A Marriage At Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, Sophie Elmhurst, 2025. Could. not. put. this. down. Elmhurst is a journalist who tells the story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey who in the 1970's after marrying, decide to sail around the world. So they teach themselves how to sail. After several successful months of sailing, a whale destroys their boat and they spend four months drifting in a life raft waiting to be rescued. Their relationship is tested beyond anything imaginable. My friend and I went down a rabbit hole wondering how they "did it" in the life raft? I mean, they were newlyweds, right?

Books that will help you (Non-Fiction):

A Course In Miracles, Helen Schucman PhD, 1975. I read this amazing and daunting book with my Women's Group; it took us all year but is so worth the effort. This spiritual classic has inspired millions for years. It is comprised of 3 parts: the text, the 365 short lessons for each day, and the manual for "teachers" ---we are all considered teachers of the truth that miracles occur all around us when we shift our perspective from fear to love, from judgement to forgiveness, from separation from God to our true nature as beautiful children of God. This book is life changing if you put into practice the precepts of this book. Here is a helpful link to videos of the daily lessons by the ACIM expert Carol Howe that my group and I used: https://www.carolhowe.com/

There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem, Wayne Dyer, 2001. This book was given to me nine years ago by my dear friend Mary, but I wasn't ready to read it until this year. We read the books we are meant to read when the time is right. Based on the famous prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, Dyer shows how spiritual solutions to our problems are within all of us to access.

The Alcohol Experiment--A 30 Day Alcohol Free Challenge to Interrupt Your Habits and Help You Take Control, Annie Grace, 2020. This is one of the best books I've read that helps to explore one's relationship with alcohol in a curious non-judgemental way. My clients love it. Each short daily chapter is paired with a simple journaling prompt that you can complete right in the book. Bonus: Annie is funny!

Finding Meaning, The Sixth Stage of Grief, David Kessler, 2019. My husband and I both read this. He found it very helpful. Gals--ask your guy to read this if he is struggling on his grief journey. Full of helpful down-to-earth advice from a world-renowned grief expert who has walked this walk himself after losing his son.

Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation, Sharon Salzburg, 2011. Salzburg is an iconic leader in bringing meditation to the West---particularly loving kindness meditation and mindfulness. She makes learning how to meditate very accessible: "If you can breathe, you can meditate," she asserts. OK, I can do that. Meditation helps us to change our relationship with what's going on in our lives. We don't meditate to get better at meditation, but to get better at life. Who doesn't need help with that?!

Memoir:

The Tell, Amy Griffin, 2025. Oprah's Book Club pick. Story of how Griffin's memories of childhood sexual abuse slowly surfaced after a session of psychedelic-assisted therapy 30 years later. Gripping, I read it in 3 days. There is long standing controversy in the mental health field regarding the reliability of "repressed memories" being uncovered via psychedelic therapy which has swirled around Griffin since she published her book. Don't let that deter you. Read it and see what you think.

Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey, Jane Goodall, 1999. Goodall's story of how her growing up years spiritually prepared her for her life's purpose of protecting not just chimpanzees but the larger natural world. She was truly a remarkable person. Made me proud to be a human knowing that there are amazing people doing astonishing things. Also made into a documentary.

Untamed, Glennon Doyle, 2020. Given to me by a friend for my birthday. This was the first book of 2025 that I read. Soulful, courageous, and funny. Doyle describes her journey to break free from her "cage" of addiction, bulimia, her empty marriage, and her people-pleasing habit to find her true self and even love herself. It's triumphant!

Essays:

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2024. In this little book she explores the wisdom of following the "gift economy" model in our human interactions as exemplified by the serviceberry tree, rather than a "competitive economy" model we currently operate from in our culture. Beautifully written. Made me a bit sad as I can't really see that happening right now....

How Reading Changed My Life, Anna Quindlen, 1998. I liked this a decade ago and liked it even more reading it again. She details a lifetime of reading and the relationships she forms with the books she reads. Reading is like "breathing" for her. I agree. I don't know how I would survive life without books, the authors that write them, and the impact they have on me. I remember reading Gone With the Wind as a girl (maybe half a dozen times?!) and imagining myself swishing my huge hoop skirt as I sashayed around my bedroom. I felt on top of the world.

A History of Reading, Alberto Manguel, 1996. Truly for the hard core bookworm. Suggested by none other than Quindlen herself. After reading this you will never again take for granted the privilege of reading whatever you want when you want. He describes how reading over the centuries has connected, uplifted, and also excluded us as a human family.

The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, 2024. Tan wrote about and sketched every bird she saw in her backyard between 2017 and 2022. Expertly drawn (who knew Tan could write AND draw?!), and funny as she imagines the birds' conversations and squabbles via her keen observations. The perfect book to peruse before bed. I love birds myself and tried to draw one after reading her book, and it did not go well.

High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver, 1995. Stumbled across this early offering of hers wandering the library stacks making my rounds alphabetically to my favorite authors--I often discover titles I had missed this way, and this is one of hers I missed. Excellent collection of essays she wrote during the years she was raising her daughter alone as a divorced woman. Essays are perfect to read when you don't have a lot of time or energy---they are stand alone nuggets of interest and joy.

Happy reading!