Reading the 20th Century discussion
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What was the best book you read in 2025? Best book for me is Swann’s Way. Read it as a buddy read in this group and it has made its way into my perfection list.😍
What was the worst book you read in 2025?
Unfortunately The Besieged City. My introduction to Clarice Lispector and I just couldn’t get into this book. I don’t know how to explain it, maybe because the writing focused too much on the environment than the characters and for me I dont like that. I prefer characterisation and dialogue if that makes sense. I do have Água Viva on my to read list so I’m hoping I’ll enjoy that one as I like poetry and would like to read her other work as there is obviously creativity from what I read.
Which author(s) did you fall in love with, or rediscover, in 2025?
An author introduced to me through this group and that is Yukio Mishima. I am enjoying his work so far, very dark ideas for many but I find beauty in the lines. I dont have favourite authors but I think he is becoming one.
What else do you want to say about what you read in 2025?
Thanks to this group, I’ve explored books that I normally wouldn’t read, I mostly enjoy 19th books so to explore a different century and to find gems in this era was delightful. Cannot wait to read new ideas in 2026👍
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Not sure there was a 'best' book. Here are some of my favourite fiction and non-fiction books I have enjoyed this year:
Best Fiction Reads:
• Ripeness: Sarah Moss
• Dangerous Thoughts: Celia Fremlin
• Marble Hall Murders (Susan Ryeland #3): Anthony Horowitz
• Let the Bad Times Roll: Alice Slater
• A Deadly Inheritance (DI Caius Beauchamp #3): Charlotte Vassell
• One of Us: Elizabeth Day
• Clown Town (Slough House #9): Mick Herron
• Boleyn Traitor: Philippa Gregory
• The Impossible Fortune (The Thursday Murder Club #5): Richard Osman
• Daphne: Justine Picardie
• Bunny: Mona Awad
Best Non-Fiction Reads:
• The Haunted Wood: Sam Leith
• Earth to Moon: Moon Unit Zappa
• Story of a Murder: Hallie Rubenhold
• John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs: Ian Leslie
• Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a Novel: Mark Hussey
• Living with Jane Austen: Janet Todd
• Heatwave: The Summer of 1976 - Britain at Boiling Point: John L Williams
• Entitled - The Rise and Fall of the House of York: Andrew Lownie
• The Zorg: A Tale of Greed, Murder and the Abolition of Slavery: Siddharth Kara
• Saltwater Mansions: David Whitehouse
• Dark Renaissance -The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival, Christopher Marlowe : Stephen Greenblatt
• Eleanor: A 200-Mile Walk in Search of England's Lost Queen: Alice Loxton
What was the worst book you read in 2025?
I didn't have a worst book either. However, I read some books for Harrogate which definitely underwhelmed me.
Which author(s) did you fall in love with, or rediscover, in 2025?
• Rob Parker
• Trisha Sakhlecha
• Mona Awad
• Olivie Blake
New authors to me and the first two I also read for Harrogate, so swings and roundabouts...
What are your reading plans for 2025?
To read more personal reads and more non-fiction. I have done that this year, and I am really pleased that I've done so. Also, to read, On a Sea of Glass: The Life and Loss of the RMS Titanic which is very, very long, but THE book about Titanic.
Which author(s) or book(s) are you most looking forward to reading in 2026?
I would have said the new Anthony Horowitz, but that dropped into my inbox, along with the new Rob Parker, so I am very lucky indeed. Some other pre-orders I am looking forward to:
Solace House
A Twist in the River
A Fatal Legacy by Charlotte Vassell (not yet listed on Goodreads)
Little Vanities
London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth
Rasputin: The Downfall of the Romanovs
What else do you want to say about what you read in 2025?
Good reading year. Lots of great books and loads of author talks, including Anthony Horowitz, Stig Abell, Mick Herron, Richard Osman, Edward St Aubyn, Philippa Gregory, Ian Leslie and many others. Great to have people on Goodreads to share thoughts and recommendations with and fantastic that my daughter shares my passion for books and has made my reading year even more special.
Roll on 2026!
Best of:Not So Quiet...
The Keepers of the House
He Knew He Was Right
Plus I discovered the joys of Persephone Publishing and found Dorothy Whipple.
Read way more than I expected this year and there were honourable mentions but the above were the standouts for this reader.
Plans for 2026,
Have decided to step back a bit and not feel as if I have to keep up with a lot of group reads. It becomes more pressure than enjoyment at times.
I retired in Oct and want to take time "to smell the roses" and regain some equilibrium even though I loved my profession but it did take a toll over the years.
Mod
Hard to pick just one: Woolf's The Waves is extraordinary; as is Ice by Anna Kavan. I also loved The Lesser Bohemians and its sequel The City Changes Its Face.
What was the worst book you read in 2025?
Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall - absurd melodrama masquerading as something more literary. You know that when a father cuts down a tree and it falls on and crushes his child and you cry with laughter that something is seriously amiss with the book! www.goodreads.com/review/show/7426911560
Which author(s) did you fall in love with, or rediscover, in 2025?
I discovered Anna Kavan and Eimear McBride, and continued my love affair with PG Wodehouse.
What are your reading plans for 2026?
Catching up with American classics that have so far passed me by - I'm not sure how many of them I will actually finish, notorious abandoner that I am!
Which author(s) or book(s) are you most looking forward to reading in 2026?
I'm looking forward to the final volume in Leïla Slimani's current Le pays des autres trilogy coming out in translation. I also want to read Lies and Sorcery and the latest Annie Ernaux, The Other Girl as well as more from Jack Kerouac and the second half of Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage.
What else do you want to say about what you read in 2025?As always, you lovely people in this group have been a source of laughter, entertainment, fantastic company, great recommendations and endless book chat - my book life wouldn't be half as much fun without you!
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What was the best book you read in 2025?My favorites of the year were probably Tyll by German author Daniel Kehlmann and Augustus by John Williams, closely followed by The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Polish author Olga Tokarczuk.
What was the worst book you read in 2025?
Probably Songs from the Slums by Toyohiko Kagawa. I admire him from the little I know about him, but this poetry was just not great. It was possibly hampered by a bad translation, who knows.
Second worst was The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. It just seemed to go on and on.
Which author(s) did you fall in love with, or rediscover, in 2025?
New discoveries Daniel Kehlmann, Annie Ernaux, and Elizabeth Bowen.
And re-discoveries Olga Tokarczuk and Susanna Clarke
Roman Clodia wrote: "What was the best book you read in 2025?Hard to pick just one: Woolf's The Waves is extraordinary; as is Ice by Anna Kavan. I also loved ..."
I loved The Waves when I read it!
I happened to read Ice this year too. Ice was a strange book, hallucinogenic. Some imagery and themes really intrigued me, though the action of the book was often conflicted and hazy by design. I don't know if by the end I was sure how to take a lot of it, but I was glad to have read it.
I wish I had read it with others who had the time and patience to dig into some sections deeply and go through and discuss them line by line in detail. There was a lot in that book that I'm sure got past me, even though I tried to dig in as deeply as I could. So much was in there, but much felt conflicted at heart, moving in multiple directions at once. I don't know if I could have ever come to one unified understanding?
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My favorites of the year were probably Tyll by German author Daniel Kehlmann and Augustus by [author:John Will..."
Hurrah for Elizabeth Bowen!
I have Daniel Kehlmann on my TBR list. Must move that up.
Susan wrote: "Hurrah for Elizabeth Bowen!"The Last September was my first by her, and it will definitely not be the last!
There are a lot of Bowen fans in this group!I'll be putting up my thoughts in the next few days along with my usual statistical review.
I really enjoyed Akenfield by Ronald Blythe which was a group read January. Also Clear by Carys Davies, I’ve rated her books highly in the past. I’m impressed by what I’ve read of Katherine Mansfield’s short stories so far this month so maybe I’ll be able to say she’s my discovery this year.
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What was the best book you read in 2025?
James by Percival Everett (Fiction)
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Fiction)
Bunnyman by Will Sergeant (Non fiction)
Echoes by Will Sergeant (Non fiction)
What was the worst book you read in 2025?
When I Died For The First Time by Tim Booth
Which author(s) did you fall in love with, or rediscover, in 2025?
Adrian McKinity’s Sean Duffy series
Graeme Burnet Macrae
What are your reading plans for 2025?
Finish Adrian McKinity’s Sean Duffy series
Reread American Tabloid by James Ellroy and possibly the other two in the trilogy
Which author(s) or book(s) are you most looking forward to reading in 2026?
The new Hawthorne and Horowitz
What else do you want to say about what you read in 2025?
This group continues to educate, inform and delight. Always a joy discussing books with you lovely people
Anything else?
The only thing I love more than books is music. I’m lucky enough to have seen loads of live music this year and to have danced a lot throughout the year. I’m off dancing this very night.
I've also read a lot of good music related books but feel that's understandably of very limited interest here so won't bang on about them
Have a lovely seasonal period
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Ice was my first Kavan and having now read a little more by her and about her, it seems that unified understanding is what her writing seems to resist. Which is part of what made me love Ice: the simultaneous interpretations that it enables.
I'll go.What was the best book you read in 2025?
Two family epics rise to the top: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, and the book I'm currently reading, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
What was the worst book you read in 2025?
I didn't have any real stinkers this year, but was disappointed in my first Zola, The Masterpiece.
Which author(s) did you fall in love with, or rediscover, in 2025?
I think the fact I read more than one by these authors is telling.
New to me authors:
Philip Roth - American Pastoral and Nemesis
John le Carré - Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality
John Galsworthy - The Forsyte Saga
Old favorites:
Barbara Pym - Crampton Hodnet and Less Than Angels
Isak Dinesen - Babette’s Feast and The Sailor Boy's Tale
Toni Morrison - Recitatif and Paradise
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice and Emma
What are your reading plans for 2025?
I want to read slower and tackle fewer books in 2026. This is going to mean forgoing some group reads--will be a big challenge we’ll see if I’m up to. My focus for the year is to catch up on Margaret Atwood. (My dream is this will be in celebration of her future Nobel prize.)
Which author(s) or book(s) are you most looking forward to reading in 2026?
Within a Budding Grove, an upcoming long-term group read of Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry, continuing with Le Carre and Pym, all the Atwood, and hopefully finally getting to Flights by Olga Tokarczuk
What else do you want to say about what you read in 2025?
I always enjoy the conversation in this group, and my favorite of the many group/buddy reads in this group was The Flight of the Maidens.
What was the best book you read in 2025?I am terrible at picking one favorite. My top 10 list always becomes 12 or 15. If I absolutely have to pick just one, I guess I will go with My Good Bright Wolf: A Memoir for nonfiction and Some Strange Music Draws Me In for fiction. I read both of those in January 2025 and they have stayed on my top 10 list all year.
What was the worst book you read in 2025?
Well, I'm a promiscuous book abandoner, so I picked up and tossed aside many terrible books this year. Of the books I actually completed in 2025, I would say Dengue Boy was the worst.
Which author(s) did you fall in love with, or rediscover, in 2025?
I would have to say Ali Smith. I had read two or three of her books previously, but I'm now obsessed and want to read her entire backlist.
It was also really fun re-reading The Grand Sophy with you all - I hadn't picked up a Heyer in years!
What are your reading plans for 2025?
Oh gosh, so many reading projects! I'm loving this group and want to read most of the group and buddy reads here, but I'm also active in the Newest Literary Fiction and Mookse & Gripes groups, so trying to keep up with group reads and prize shortlists is one goal.
I also have a couple of ongoing projects I'm going to try to focus on, tackling at least one book each month from each category - author backlists (starting with Ali Smith), dystopia/collapse, unread Bookers, and unread books off my own shelves
Which author(s) or book(s) are you most looking forward to reading in 2026?
Besides Ali Smith, I'm excited about the Charco Press subscription I was just gifted, the new Jeanette Winterson, Cristina Rivera Garza, Valeria Luiselli, and Clair Oshetsky novels coming out, and Tad Stoermer's upcoming A Resistance History of the United States.
Also looking forward to the author projects here - Le Carre, Pym, and whatever else we embark on. I really enjoy reading all or most of an author's works, or a complete series, chronologically. It's fun to see how their ideas and style develops.
What else do you want to say about what you read in 2025?
For the past couple of years, I've mostly been focusing on new and translated fiction. Part of the reason I was drawn to this group was the desire to balance that out with some gems from the past. It's been a hit so far!
Roman Clodia wrote: "Ice was my first Kavan and having now read a little more by her and about her, it seems that unified understanding is what her writing seems to resist. Which is part of what made me love Ice: the simultaneous interpretations that it enables."That makes sense RomanClodia. It was my first by her too.
Mod
Kathleen, I'm also interested in completing all of Margaret Atwood's books some day.Nigeyb, I have shockingly never read James Ellroy! Which is weird because I love noir. Hammett, Chandler, Cain, Woolrich, Hughes, Thompson, that whole era especially. I guess Ellroy comes a little later which is maybe why I've missed reading him.
Mod
Hmm. I hadn't heard of Ellroy either, but am also a noir fan. Sounds like a must!
Rose so am I. I read a few of her books way back when and have forgotten them all--not Atwood's fault. This is an open invitation: Anyone who wants to read Atwood and wants a buddy read, you have one in me.
Anymore nonfiction selections others enjoyed?
Yes! Besides My Good Bright Wolf, here were my highlighted nonfiction reads this year:Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life
Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World
There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America
What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures
The World After Gaza: A Short History
The Echo Machine: How Right-Wing Extremism Created a Post-Truth America
Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future
Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet
Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse
Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity
Giving Up Is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy
What was the best book you read in 2025?Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family Thomas Mann I have others that were equally good but this one came out of this group. While Magic Mountain gets the attention, this seems almost forgotten and that should not be the case.
What was the worst book you read in 2025?
I never like to pick a worst book and feelings about a book can change. I would substitute disappointments which puts some blame on me for having expectations. There were quite a few of these. Audition by Katie Kitamura was one for me.
Which author(s) did you fall in love with, or rediscover, in 2025?
Elizabeth Bishop tops the list but there were others
Ben Shattuck Maria Reva
Jonathan Buckley Curzio Malaparte Helen Garner G.K. Chesterton Barbara Pym Mary McCarthy Jean Toomer Yáng Shuāng-zǐ Saou Ichikawa. I am reading my first Barbara Comyns but she will be on the list.
What are your reading plans for 2026? I will probably read fewer recent releases and more older material.
Which author(s) or book(s) are you most looking forward to reading in 2026? I want to read more books by authors I like but somehow aren't making it into my reading groups. Gerald Murnane Thomas Bernhard Geraldine Brooks Jonathan Buckley Gene Wolfe I want to read more genre series with Robin Hobb, Terry Pratchett, Kate Atkinson likely authors. I want to read lost generation Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein and Anaïs Nin. More poetry with Seamus Heaney, Robinson Jeffers, Marianne Moore W.H. Auden Mahmoud Darwish Nikki Giovanni Paul Celan Charles Baudelaire. More popular fiction sometimes called trash:
Jacqueline Susann Jacqueline Briskin Grace Metalious Sydney Sheldon
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My reading plans went sideways early in the year, as I learned how exhausting living through a fascist takeover is. I wound up abandoning more than the usual number of book, not because they were disappointing, but because I couldn't focus. I also wound up reading way more popular fiction than usual, which was fun, even though it meant leaving behind a lot of reading I'd planned and wanted. I also reread several old favorites as comfort reads. There are a couple of titles I read almost every year but this year I read more from that category.My favorite reads of the year have been
Fiction:
Stump
The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story
Taiwan Travelogue
Dance by the Canal
We Do Not Part
The Book of Collateral Damage
Recitatif
Learwife
The Remembered Soldier. I haven't finished this one, but the first 130 pages are so good that even if the whole rest of the book goes south it'll remain one of the best reads of the year for me.
I read some books at the intersection of theology and American Christianity, because I live in America in the time of white chritian nationalism. A few of these also make my top reads list:
Bonhoeffer's Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance
Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now
A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance
An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
I set out to read at least 5 collections of poetry. I think I read more than that, though my GR reading challenge list seems to be missing a few. I like to listen to audiobooks, and GR more and more doesn't list those editions, which makes it tough to add the titles to my current reading, especially from the app (which is what I'm mostly stuck using). Modern Poetry: Poemswere the standouts.
The worst books I read were Albert and the Whale (If I never read another book by a white man enamored of his own intellect it will be too soon) and an ARC I am struggling to read enough of to write for NetGalley, Currencies of Cruelty: Slavery, Freak Shows, and the Performance Archive. The premise is really interesting, but the book does not succeed for me.
A third "worst" was The Unconsoled which I persisted in finishing only because I wanted to say that I'd finally finished an Ishiguro. I finished, and now I feel relieved of the burden of ever having to pick up his work again. I feel the same way about Ocean Vuong, whose Time Is a Mother I abandoned early and without regret.
I rediscovered PG Wodehouse. Fell in love with Olga Tokarczuk and Joyce Carol Oates. Revisited Toni Morrison, whose Beloved I reread for an IRL bookclub that had been interrupted by Covid and is getting back together. I reread her Recitatif and finally "got" it. Discovered Daniel Kehlmann and Mick Herron. Discovered Sonallah Ibrahim and Sinan Antoon. And I finally began to "get" Barbara Pym.
One reading goal that I stuck to was to read a lot more work in translation. I've finished about 115 books, of which 30 were translated.
I suppose that 2026 is not likely to be easier politically than 2025, and likely to be worse, so I expect I'll continue reading more popular fiction and old favorites in an effort to survive. I'd like to read even more work in translation and continue reading poetry--maybe I'll try for 10 collections.
This group is a real treasure, and the best parts of my reading are the conversations I get to have here, and the books we read together. Thank you!
What was the best book you read in 2025?Tied for the best were the first two volumes of In Search of Lost Time
My only other 5* read was Ronald Blythe's Akenfield
What was the worst book you read in 2025?
I DNF'd several books this year and normally I don't rate these, but I gave The Peepshow by Kate Summerscale 2* because I read enough of it to decide.
Which author(s) did you fall in love with, or rediscover, in 2025?
I fell in love with Proust and I feel I've been unfaithful. I will try to redeem myself. More about that below.
I continue to enjoy Joyce Carol Oates, W.G Sebald and Barbara Pym.
What are your reading plans for 2026?
At some point in the year I will probably drastically curtail my other reading so that I can read the remainder of In Search of Lost Time. I so enjoyed the first two books, but at my pace, reading them severely limited my other reading, and particularly with the parade of horrors coming out of the T***p administration I needed time for other reading and to focus on understanding the news. But I do want to finish this work, and so some time in the early part of 2026 I will start reading Proust and almost nothing else.
Which author(s) or book(s) are you most looking forward to reading in 2026?
Aside from Proust, I will read more Joyce Carol Oates.
What else do you want to say about what you read in 2025?
The number of books I read in 2025 was considerably lower than previous years. I blame Proust and T***p, but it doesn't bother me. I'm reading what I want to read, and if time and priorities mean the absolute number is lower, then so be it.
I'll post my statistical totals once I know what I will finish this year.
Anything else?
Just to add that it's great to have new contributors to this GR Group, which continues to be an important part of my reading life. I really enjoy the discussions, the reading suggestions and the people I've met here. Thank you all for what you bring to my life!
In 2025 the best books I read written or set in the 20th century include* Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés (reread)
* The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (reread)
* Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt (reread)
*One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (reread)
* The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (reread)
* I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett
* Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President by E. Jean Carroll
I was most disappointed by
* Propaganda Girls: The Secret War of the Women in the OSS by Lisa Rogak. Why? Often I am dissatisfied by women's history books. Too often undertrained historians are employed to write women's history, historians who disrespect the strength, determination, and downright bravery by yes, calling women "girls," women working during wartime in foreign countries during wartime away from personal safety nets--and not always in an office, sometimes near warfronts.
My reading plans for 2026?
To read classic nonfiction which will include 20th century works,including essays,memoirs, rhetorical discussions.
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A very Proustian thing to be!
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👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Reading the 20th Century
Books mentioned in this topic
I Am Not Sidney Poitier (other topics)One Hundred Years of Solitude (other topics)
Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President (other topics)
The House of the Spirits (other topics)
Propaganda Girls: The Secret War of the Women in the OSS (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Percival Everett (other topics)E. Jean Carroll (other topics)
Isabel Allende (other topics)
Lisa Rogak (other topics)
Gabriel García Márquez (other topics)
More...
It's that time of year when many of us take a backwards glance at the year that was, so with that in mind here's a little questionnaire designed to share what we have each enjoyed about 2025 here at RTTC and what you are looking forward to in 2025....
What was the best book you read in 2025?
What was the worst book you read in 2025?
Which author(s) did you fall in love with, or rediscover, in 2025?
What are your reading plans for 2025?
Which author(s) or book(s) are you most looking forward to reading in 2026?
What else do you want to say about what you read in 2025?
Anything else?