Favourite Books of the Year 2025 > Likes and Comments

As we reach the end of 2023 which books have you enjoyed this year?
Let us know your 5 star ratings and recommendations below.

I've looked back over my year and have awarded 7 books 5 stars:
Ready Player One
Love in Row 27: Red Magazine's Best Beach Reads
The Mammoth Book of the West: The Making of the American West
The Empire
The Truth
The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon
1588: A Calendar of Crime: One Year, Five Mysteries

This year, only one contemporary book earned 5 stars from me: We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza.

Noting that I award stars based on how well the author achieves what the author is trying to achieve (I don’t believe in some platonic idea of “greatness”), a read through all of Mary Stewart’s books in publication order garnered a number of 5-star ratings: The Moon-Spinners, Airs Above the Ground, The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Little Broomstick.

Another genre book that got five stars was The Long Divorce by Edmund Crispin.

Then there were a couple of novels from the twentieth century: Fifth Business by Robertson Davies and Angel by Elizabeth Taylor.

Finally, a revelation from the nineteenth century, an infinitely discussable, debatable book: Frankenstein: The 1818 Text by Mary Shelley.

Oh and I reread my favorite (?) Jane Austen novel—at least the one I find most interesting to read: The Annotated Mansfield Park.

I always love seeing what everyone has been enjoying. My favourites this year were:
The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw,
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

We are fast approaching the end of 2024 so looking back over your reading year which books did you award 5 stars to? Lets see your recommendations!

I gave 6 books 5 stars:
Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
October Sky by Homer Hickam
The Woman In The Lake by Nicola Cornick
Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Vanishing Witch by Karen Maitland
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Good list, Kate. I loved Watership Down and The Great Gatsby. Also a fan of Karen Maitland and Terry Pratchett.

My favourites of 2024 were, in no particular order:

The Terror by Dan Simmons
The Beast Within by Emile Zola
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
The Underground Railroad by Coleson Whitehead
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty

My 5 star reads in 2024 were:
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Women by Kristin Hannah
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri
The Familiars by Stacey Halls
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The absolute stand-out one, out of all the books I gave 5 stars to, was The Book Thief. Definitely one of those books you wish you could read for the first time again.

Leanne wrote: "My 5 star reads in 2024 were:
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Women by Kristin Hannah
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri
The Familiars..."</i>

The Book Thief made me cry - excellent book!

Leanne wrote: "My 5 star reads in 2024 were:
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Women by Kristin Hannah
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri
[book:The Familiars..."

I loved The Familiars too. I still have to read The Book Thief so with your recommendation I'll shift it nearer the top of my TBR pile!

You won't regret it Kate! ;-)

Top 10 first time reads:

1. The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
2. Affinity by Sarah Waters
3. Monica by Daniel Clowes
4. Mr Fortune's Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner
5. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
6. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
7. Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch
8. Nothing On Earth by Conor O'Callaghan
9. The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
10. The Men by Sandra Newman

Great list, Gary. I really enjoyed The Mermaid of Black Conch, Affinity and The Secret Scripture.

Under the Net and Lolly Willows are on my to-read list. I will have to check the others out...

ooh I loved the familiars. My best book of the year was The Girl with the louding voice.

With just over a week until we say goodbye to 2025. What have been your favourite books this year?

Mine have been (in no particular order):
James by Percival Everett
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
Burmese Days by George Orwell
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller

Absolutely loved:

- The Heart's Invisible Furies [Boyne, John]
- The Book Thief [Zusak, Markus]
- Silas Marner [Eliot, George]

And in terms of factual reading, regarding his cancer diagnosis:

- All That Matters [Hoy, Chris]

The Book Thief is great, Paul!

My favourite books of the year were:
You are Here by David Nicholls;
The Elements by John Boyne;
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T J Klune;
Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett (my first Terry Pratchett book);
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans;
My Friends by Fredrik Backman.

Some books I loved this year:
A Little Folly by Jude Morgan
The Searcher Tana French
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson
The Austens: A Novel by Sarah Emsley
The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow

Liz wrote: "With just over a week until we say goodbye to 2025. What have been your favourite books this year?

Mine have been (in no particular order):
James by Percival Everett

Liz, if you liked JAMES, have you read Everett’s book Erasure? I think it’s the better book of the two.

Thanks, Abigail, for the recommendation. I definitely want to read more of Percival Everett. :)

These were my 5-star reads or-
1. Bring the Jubilee byWard Moore
2. Red X by David Demchuk
3. The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
4. The Downloaded by Robert J. Sawyer
5. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
6. Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch

Here are my top 5 favourite reads of 2025! :)

1. And Quiet flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov
2. Phenomenon 404 by Dmitry Ignatov
3. Hipsters will die first by Dmitry Ignatov
4. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
5. The Shape of Snakes by Minette Walters

My faves of 2025

Raising Hare: A Memoir
A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
All the Sally Page novels
The Keeper of Stories
The Book of Beginnings
The Secrets of Flowers
Friends of Dorothy
The Elements

My favourite books that I have read or listened to in 2025 have been:-

Saltblood by Francesca de Tores

The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

Halowe’en by Agatha Christie

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Sprinting through no man’s land by Adin Dobkin

I would happily read or listen to them again.😊

In 2025 I have given 8 books 5 stars, there's quite an assortment:

The Cat in the Hat
Queenie
Max the Miracle Dog: The Heart-warming Tale of a Life-saving Friendship
A Natural History of Dragons
See Delphi and Die
Quantum of Solace: The Complete James Bond Short Stories
Sharpe's Siege
The Lady in the Van