In the spirit of the end of the year and how Spotify does that “wrapped” thing that shows you your most listened to music this year, I thought I’d do a “wrapped” kind of post about the books I read in 2025. Side note–I don’t use Spotify, I’m an Apple Music gal. They do something called “Replay”. There’s really no surprise who dominated my music recap this year:
But also…my job was making me crazy in July, hence Eminem was my top played artist that month because I really enjoyed screaming along to certain lines in his song “Without Me”. I have no idea what Green Day in March was all about though. April through June is the Hamilton soundtrack by the way.
O.k., so back to books…I didn’t set a goal this year like some people do. There wasn’t a magic number of books I was trying to read. I just read books and wrote them down as I finished them.
Here’s what I read:
I started the year by finishing Atomic Habits by James Clear and The Stand by Stephen King.
Books I started and finished this year are:
- Glow in the F’ing Dark by Tara Schuster
- Wicked by Gregory Maguire (SO much darker and not at all kid-friendly like the musical. Trust me. There are some serious pearl-clutching parts all through this book).
- There Comes a Light: A Memoir of Mental Illness by Elaina Martin (I met her at a local bar during their weekly craft night. She self-published her memoir and was selling them that night).
- The Mindful Writer by Dinty Moore
- Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg (I didn’t actually finish this one).
- Finding Your Voice (How to Put Personality in Your Writing) by Les Edgerton (This one was really good).
- Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (Really good!)
- The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman (Haven’t finished this, but I own it so I’ll go back to it eventually).
- The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas
- Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk (The author of Fight Club. This was really twisted, but really good. Like Fight Club was).
- Trouble by Gary Schmidt (He’s my favorite YA author. Like, I have sent him two fan girl emails. This was one of his that I hadn’t read and I LOVED it. I love every single one of his books. In fact, I wrote a whole post about him).
- Memoirs & Misinformation by Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon (Really tells a lot about things that Jim Carrey is insecure about and is afraid of. It’s supposed to be true, but it’s also fiction).
- Taylor Swift (The Stories Behind the Songs) by Annie Zaleski
- Quid Pro Quo by Nenia Campbell (A spicy, dark romance book. Apparently women my age are into books like that now. But, really, weren’t they always?)
- Sine Qua Non by Nenia Campbell (Obviously I had to read the sequel. It was cool because I found out about these books because I interacted with the author on Threads and discovered them that way).
- Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks (A collection of short stories that he wrote).
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (I never read it and she did a really good job of showing how society got to the dystopian place it ended up in the realm she created. I immediately bought the sequel and will start reading it soon).
I have a lot more books on my shelves that need reading. What’s great about that is I have a lot of variety of books to choose from. I love finishing one because then I can peruse my shelves and contemplate what to read next. Totally based on what I feel like reading.
Maybe I’ll get more read next year. Honestly though, I’m good with how much I read this year. I read what I wanted, not what I had to. And there were no deadines. Except for the Taylor Swift book which was really more of an accompaniment as I listened to all her albums for the first time before her new album came out in October.
So, cheers to all the books I read in 2025. And hello to all the books I’ll read in 2026.
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