2025: My Reading List

It's been a couple of years since I shared my book recommendations, last having done it in 2022. So I wanted to try again for 2025 as, more than anything else, this process gives me a chance to look back and think about what I've enjoyed, found interesting, or otherwise sticks out in my memory.

Some statistics from this year:

This data is non-exhaustive and usually underestimates the total books by 20-30%. This is due to the way I collect it (downloading Amazon, Apple Books, Kindle, Bookshop.org and Audible purchases) missing some sources of books (e.g. gifts, books bought directly in local bookshops).

Highlights

Every year I highlight five books which caught my attention because they were interesting, thought-provoking, or I particularly enjoyed. These aren't necessarily the best books I've read, however.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

" Filled with passion, regret and longing, this story of a fated love triangle has become a landmark of gay writing. Baldwin caused outrage as a black author writing about white homosexuals, yet for him the issues of race, sexuality and personal freedom were intertwined. "

2025 was a year of re-reading books. I first read Giovanni’s Room when I was nineteen and it absolutely blew me away. It had exactly the same impact this year. One of the most extraordinary, beautiful books I’ve ever read. Baldwin’s voice is so unique, it jumps out as you read—precise, restrained, and emotionally exacting in a way that feels almost confrontational.

What struck me most on this reread was how unsentimental the novel is, despite its intensity. Baldwin never softens the consequences of desire, fear, or self-deception. The book feels timeless not because its themes are abstract, but because they are painfully specific: shame, denial, longing, and the quiet violence of choosing safety over honesty. Reading it again with more years behind me, the tragedy felt sharper, less romantic, and more human.

House of Lillies: The Dynasty that Made Medieval France by Justine Firnhaber-Baker

" One of the great epics of Europe's history, the story of the rise and rise of the Capetian dynasty dominates the Middle Ages.This is their story, the story of the most powerful kingdom in Christendom. It is a tale of religious upheaval, heroism, adulterous affairs, holy wars, pogroms and persecution. From Hugh Capet to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Capetians were men and women of vision and ambition, who considered themselves chosen by God to fulfil a great destiny. If they were mistaken in their assumptions and merciless in their methods, in one respect they were right. They did not simply rule France: they created it. "

I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. Medieval history can easily become a dense tangle of names, titles, and places, with relationships and events that resist being shaped into a coherent narrative. Firnhaber-Baker handles this with real skill, imposing clarity without oversimplification and turning what could have been a dry dynastic account into something genuinely engaging. One of the great strengths of the book is how confidently it guides the reader through complexity, never losing momentum or a sense of direction.

What makes House of Lilies especially effective is its emphasis on change rather than inevitability. The Capetian story is presented not as a slow, predetermined rise, but as a sequence of decisions, accidents, and fragile successes that could easily have gone another way. That approach gives the history an energy that is often missing from works on the period. I found it consistently absorbing, to the point that I tore through it in a couple of sittings.

The Stopping Places: A Journey Through Gypsy Britain by Damian Le Bas

" Damian Le Bas grew up surrounded by Gypsy history. His great-grandmother would tell him stories of her childhood in the ancient Romani language; the places they worked, the ways they lived, the superstitions and lores of their people. In a bid to better understand his heritage, Damian sets out on a journey to discover the stopping places - the old encampment sites known only to Travellers. Through winter frosts and summer dawns, from horse fairs to Gypsy churches, Damian lives on the road, somewhere between the romanticised Gypsies of old, and their much-maligned descendants of today. "

A wonderful book. It revealed a side of Britain I had never really seen, and offered a beguiling insight into a community and way of life I knew far too little about. Le Bas writes from within the world he describes, but with an openness that comes from this own complex relationship with it. The result is a perspective that feels both intimate and expansive, grounded in lived experience yet attentive to the broader landscape of gypsy Britain.

What stayed with me most is the quality of the writing. The Stopping Places is lyrical and beautiful without drifting into nostalgia or sentimentality. The journeys traced across the country feel deeply layered, carrying personal history, cultural inheritance, and quiet loss alongside moments of resilience and joy. It’s a book that slows you down, asks you to look more carefully at familiar places, and leaves you with a deeper sense of what has been erased, overlooked, or deliberately ignored.

Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah

" It is the 1990s. Growing up in Zanzibar, three very different young people – Karim, Fauzia and Badar – are coming of age, and dreaming of great possibilities in their young nation. But for Badar, an uneducated servant boy who has never known his parents, it seems as if all doors are closed. Brought into a lowly position in a great house in Dar es Salaam, Badar finds the first true home of his life – and the friendship of Karim, the young man of the house. Even when a shattering false accusation sees Badar sent away, Karim and Fauzia refuse to turn away from their friend. But as the three of them take their first steps in love, infatuation, work and parenthood, their bond is tested – and Karim is tempted into a betrayal that will change all of their lives forever. "

A masterful coming-of-age story, set against the backdrop of post-colonial Africa. It's one of the best new novels I’ve read in years. Gurnah’s voice and style are extraordinary: measured, attentive, and deeply humane. He writes with a restraint that allows the emotional weight of the story to accumulate naturally.

What makes Theft so compelling is the way personal development and historical context are held in balance. The novel is acutely aware of power, dependency, and displacement, but it never turns these into abstractions. Instead, they are lived through relationships, small moral compromises, and moments of longing or misunderstanding.

Absolute Batman by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta

" Bruce Wayne comes from nothing. He’s not the scion of a wealthy empire in Gotham City, he’s the son of a public school teacher who experienced the unimaginable horror of random gun violence as a child, changing the trajectory of his life. With no limitless resources, no billions to fund him, no mansion, and no butler to care for him, Bruce has shaped himself into an entirely different breed of Batman, one that is equal parts brain and brawn, who exists exclusively in the grittiest and most underserved parts of Gotham with no high society mask to fall back on. "

I read a lot of comic books, and I’d heard a great deal about this series when it launched. I’d drifted away from new Batman titles in recent years, largely because they had begun to feel repetitive, familiar beats with diminishing returns. When I finally picked up Absolute Batman, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

What makes the series stand out is how deliberately it interrogates Batman’s core tropes and then inverts them. These aren’t cosmetic changes; they reshape relationships, motivations, and the moral balance of the world the character inhabits. The result is a version of Batman that feels genuinely fresh without losing what makes the character compelling in the first place.