Closing in on the Top 5 we have a couple of international novels that take place abroad. One is a literary novel with elements of time travel, the other is a mother son story set in war-torn Beirut with a wittily biting voice.
#7 – The True True Story of Raja the Gullible by Rabih Alameddine (2025)
Acclaimed author Rabih Alameddine has written a caustically funny novel about a Lebanese man living in Beirut across six challenging decades, both personally and nationally, all while dealing with his beloved and hated mother. Nearing the age where many people retire, Raja, the solitary, orderly, “neighborhood homosexual” is still teaching his “brats” when an opportunity presents itself to take a three-month sabbatical in America — a journey that sends him on a journey throughout his life, recounting the personal and political upheaval he has endured.
Alameddine has a sarcastic humor that gets Raja through difficult times. His relationship with his mother is complex and fascinating, and it’s always illuminating to read LGBTQ+ stories from outside mainstream American culture.
#8 – A Line You Have Traced by Roisin Dunnett (2025)
Beautifully written speculative fiction about three women from different times whose connected lives come together in a unique way to change the course of the future as the world approaches an environmental collapse. Bea lives in Post World War I London living a quiet life in Jewish East London, confused by the sporadic, mysterious visits by an ‘angel.’ Kay hangs out with her friends in contemporary East London’s underground queer scene finding herself visited by time travelers. While years in the future, Ess, part of a group that is preparing for the end of human life on earth, becomes caught up in a plan to make a journey into the past to help save the present.
Roisin Dunnett’s debut novel is an intricately plotted portrait of three unique women and the unbelievable encounters they must make sense of. With deep roots in the exploration of personal history, it’s a unique and vibrant work.
Interestingly enough, as we enter the Top 10, we’ve got two books about plants! In fact, the #9 book, a science fiction novel, was mentioned on the #8 book, a non-fiction book about intelligence in plants! In fact, I only read the first book because of it’s mention in the second. Still, it has reopened a fascination with plants that I used to have when I was young, so both were very welcome. Another interesting twist occurred when I found out that the author of my #8 book is the daughter of a woman who is working for the Provincetown Film Society, an organization upon which I serve on the Board.
#9 – Semiosis by Sue Burke (2018)
Intriguing science fiction tales that explores a colony of humans who fled earth and find themselves on a planet they dub Pax. Over the first several generations, they explore an utterly alien world while the author explores the possibilities of sentience, and even intelligence in all manner of lifeforms, particularly plants. Author Sue Burke clearly did her research on recent studies of plant intelligence, and it makes for a pretty fun ride. Starts off a little amateurish, but builds well and ends strongly.
Semiosis is the first of a Semiosis trilogy with Interference coming in 2019, and Usurpation coming out in 2024. With the first book hitting the Top 10, it seems like I should be eager to read the rest of the trilogy, but I’m hoping they will be stronger entires in the series.
#10 – The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger (2024)
Zoë Schlanger’s examination of the controversial but growing study of plant intelligence is an accessible and revelatory look at how botanists historically and more importantly in recent years, have begun looking at the concept of consciousness, awareness, intelligence, agency… in plants. Whether it’s learning that plants seem to possess identity, and also memory, but also influence other organisms around them through chemical secretions, The Light Eaters has certainly adjusted the way I view the vegetable world.
The very notion of human supremacy among the earth’s inhabitants is laughable when you consider the fact that if all plant life was wiped out, humanity would die off pretty quickly, but if all humans were wiped out, plants would undoubtedly thrive.
Dipping my toe into my Top 10 books of the year, we have a couple of novels actually published in 2025 as well (okay, #11 was published in December 2024 — close enough). Both are by authors new to me, and both we impulse reads, which turned out to be good choices. I was particularly taken by my #10’s title. and MA setting. Both had moments that took me out of their stories, which kept them from getting higher on my list, but still, I enjoyed them both very much.
#11 — Rental House by Weike Wang (2024)
Compact story about an interracial couple from very different backgrounds, navigating adulthood, marriage, their strong-willed parents, and their very different outlooks on life. Weike Wang’s third novel was sometimes difficult to read, as the main characters were so wrapped up in their own heads they had difficult reaching out to each other, but this is a thoughtful examination of complex relationships and a strong read.
#10 — The Frequency of Living Things by Nick Fuller Googins (2025)
The four women who make up the Tayloe family endure exhilarating joy, consuming rage, and devastating grief through the course of Nick Fuller Googins’ novel, The Frequency of Living Things. Youngest daughter, Josie, brilliant scientist fascinated by the order and loyalty of colonies of ants, keeps the family moving forward. When her sisters ask her for help, the serotonin in her system skyrockets and she takes control. The twins, Emma and Ama, creative musicians, struck it huge with the band JoJo & the Twins, when they were young. One massive hit and a Grammy nomination , and that was it. Emma, kept them going, getting the band gigs in smaller and smaller venues, while Ama spirals into an opioid addiction that lands her in jail where she must detox not only from her drugs, but her family. Then there is their absent mother, Bertie, political activist, always focused on her cause, less so on her daughters. When her daughters need her the most, she is on a ship headed for Gaza to help the Palestinians.
Googins creates a compelling and powerfully dramatic colony of women in the Tayloe family, carefully giving them each full inner lives with insight, and emotion. It’s a rough ride for JoJo and the twins, and there are times when it seems like the colony just won’t make it. Googins takes the reader on a wild and dark path that ultimately leads to the future.
I try to read several plays a year. I’ve been directing shows in community theater for the last 8 years or so, and I find reading plays is a skill you have to learn. The more I read, the better at it I get. Along with the play in this batch from my Top 20 comes a gorgeously written debut novel from a Vietnamese-American author, and a new book from a Finnish author whose work I enjoy.
#17 – On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (2019)
Little Dog was brought to the States from Vietnam by his mother and grandmother when he was a child. Now, as a young adult, he writes a letter about his growing up to his mother, who never really learned English. Vuong uses language beautifully to tell his story and to paint a picture of life as a young gay immigrant who’s different from those around him in suburban Connecticut, but as the novel progresses into his teen years it gets more and more impressionistic which lessened its impact for me.
As the only member of his family to speak English, Little Dog often chooses what to translate to his mother. The multi-generational relationship is complicated and sometimes fraught, but makes for powerful storytelling. I wish that had continued on into Little Dog’s teen years.
#16 – Perfect Arrangement by Topher Payne (2015)
I found it interesting that in 2025 I decided the next play I would direct, After the Revolution by Amy Herzog, without any advance knowledge, two of the plays i read this year took place in the time period in which Herzog’s play explores. Topher Payne’s Perfect Arrangement, like Matt Charman’s Regrets, takes place during the 1950’s and explores the era of communist witch hunts that center Herzog’s play. However, Payne’s play takes a slightly different angle.
Perfect Arrangement is a nicely written play that takes place during the McCarthy era of the 1950’s . Two gay couples (two men; two women) pretend to be heteronormative living in adjoining apartments. Trouble is two of them work for the State Department which is expanding its witch hunt from communists to all sorts of perverts. Funny, until it isn’t, powerful — and all too recognizable in today’s world.
#15 – The Moonday Letters by Emmi Itäranta (2022)
Finnish novelist, Emmi Itäranta, released her third novel, The Moonday Letters in 2022. This complex, intriguing tale is told mostly in correspondence to weave a tale of the ecological downfall of Earth that leads to the colonization of the Moon and Mars, as well as cylinder cities, wrapped up in a deep love story. Like her two previous novels (Memory of Water; The Weaver Itäranta explores dystopian societies blending science fiction and the metaphysical. In this case, Lumi is a healer, whose spirit guide traverses unseen spaces to help her reunite afflicted patients with lost parts of their soul. When her lover, Sol, seemingly disappears under mysterious circumstances, Lumi must find them, and unravel a deeply concerning secret from the clues that are left for her.
Itäranta is an author of deep imagination and lush language. The framing of this novel in correspondence and journal entries worked surprisingly well, extending the longing for the two characters to reunite to the breaking point. All of the author’s works are intriguing and satisfying.
A year ago as I pulled together my list of my favorite books read in 2024, I decided I had to up my game. After dipping to a low of reading fewer than 20 books in a year, I’d been slowly bringing that number back up, but slipped in 2024 to reading just 17 books. I decided to give myself ambitious goal to read 50 books in 2025. It was definitely a stretch, but I wanted to commit to reading more. While I didn’t make my goal, I did complete 45 books in 2025, and felt very good about that. This year, I will maintain that same goal and see how i do. With my impending retirement approaching, I hope I spend some of that tie reading more.
Before I start to write about my favorite books of the year, I would like to mention some disappointments, also rans, and other titles that fell outside of this list. I am going to start with the best book I read this year — that also happened to be a re-read.
Favorite Book Read in 2025 – The Forgotten Beasts of Eldby Patricia A. McKillip
First edition cover
Patricia A. McKillip, absolutely my favorite fantasy author, and certainly one of my favorite authors period, got her start writing young adult novels in the 70’s. The first book of hers that I read was The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, published in 1974, and winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1975. It was her third published novel.
When I finished my re-read (probably my fifth or sixth over the years), this is how I reviewed it: “Re-read this classic fantasy novel by Patricia A. McKillip for the fourth or fifth time, and honestly it gets better and better every time. Quite possibly my all-time favorite fantasy novel. The way McKillip intertwines such disparate themes as love, power, revenge, self-reflection, manipulation, and family with her consummate skill at crafting poetic language is astounding. And it packs such a powerful emotional punch.”
The fact that this complex novel, with its adult relationships and hard-to-like female protagonist was marketed to young adults astounds me to this day, but it clearly worked, launching a major career for McKillip. The main character, Sybel, is one of the all-time great flawed heroes, and her journey to adulthood is a masterpiece. I remember I was enchanted by the “beasts” of the tale, mysterious, magical creatures that were enough to enthrall any young, fantasy-lovers mind, but i remember as a young boy how taken i was by Sybel’s tragic story. I look forward to reading this book over and over again.
Biggest Disappointment of 2025 – Songbird: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie by Lesley Ann Jones
Not every book can be great… many aren’t even that good. If you’ve looked at my lists of favorites books of the past couple of years, you know that I have been on a journey reading memoirs of female rock & rollers for sometime. After the tragic loss one my all-time favorites, the incredibly talented Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac, i was thrilled that, if not a memoir, at least a biography was being published about her. Sadly, it turns out to be my biggest disappointment of the year. I will let my review speak for itself.
“This was a tough one: a mediocre biography about a fascinating, beloved icon. Lesley-Ann Jones “intimate biography” of Christine McVie is about a lot of things, but as an intimate look of the legendary performer’s life is not really one of those things.
“Fleetwood Mac front-woman and keyboard player was a very private person, and when her family refused to participate in the writing of her biography, there aren’t a lot of avenues to explore someone who has died. Instead Jones spends the first third of the book telling us about the history of the British village of Wickhambreaux and the region where Christine was born and raised. Slightly interesting, but adds way more than it needs to to provide some color to our subject.
“Granted, Jones was a casual friend/acquaintance of McVie’s, in the way many of the very extended Fleetwood Mac family were. In addition, most of the information she provides in the book seems to come from interview with other who either provide expert opinions (therapists) or were three, four, or five levels away from the woman in question, part of that massive entourage. Sure there were some quotes from her fellow band-members, but most of them came from previously published interviews.
“In the end, Songbird: an Intimate Biography of Christine McVie provides a whole lot of conjecture — some of which conflicts with other conclusions the author made. Surely any person, especially an internationally famous celebrity, can be painted with different brushstrokes in a 300-page book, sadly, Jones’ over-written book doesn’t give us much more than an article in the Rolling Stone magazine.”
Finally, before launching into my actual Top 20 books of the year, I include my list of also-rans” books that I enjoyed and are notable enough to mention here. Three books earned a spot on this list, a look at the roles of women in rock during the 90’s, a excerpt about chickens from a Sy Montgomery book, and a play that hit really hard
Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar – Powerful, visceral examination of a successful lawyer confronted with this deeply ingrained Muslim upbringing and his own an his contemporaries beliefs and assumptions.
What the Chicken Knows: a New Appreciation of the World’s Most Familiar Bird by Sy Montgomery – Originally written as a chapter in the book Birdology Sy Montgomery, author of The Sould of an Octopus remarkably does for the most prevalent barnyard fowl what she did for the massively intelligent cephalopod. Perhaps that’s a bit of hyperbole, after all, if you can pack everything there is to know about a chicken into a single chapter, perhaps they are not quite on the same level as an octopus? Still, Sy loves her flocks of chickens, and she conveys their intelligence, playfulness, and emotional lives convincingly. Of course, as you could no soubt surmise from the title of this blog, I already loved chickens, so it wasn’t too hard a sell.
Pretend We’re Dead: the Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Women in Rock in the ’90s by Tanya Pearson – Tanya Pearson spotlights women who fronted or filled out alternative rock bands throughout the 90’s and goes on to explore how politics and society removed these counterculture women from pop culture after 9/11. Some unnecessary repetition keeps the book from taking this important topic to a more energizing read, but still well researched with some great interview by such 90’s icons as Shirley Manson, Tanya Donnelly, Liz Phair, and Kristin Hersh.
