In a year where the world was, well <insert synonym for heinous here>, reading was once again a refuge, a ballast to keep me upright on the rocky seas. While I sometimes miss a year recapping my favorite reads, I simply cannot miss the opportunity to tell you about the absolutely amazing books I read this year.
Doug and EJ asked if I was going to share my 25 favorite books from 2025, and I scoffed at the gimmicky nature of such a list. It’s nevertheless fair to ask how I decide how many books to share in these lists, and the answer is: I don’t, not really. As I read throughout the year, I tag books with a “best of” tag when I finish them if it’s one I want to highlight at year’s end. However many I’ve tagged is how many I’ll write about. For 2025, I’ve got 17 to share, roughly equally divided between fiction and nonfiction.
Stats (from my Storygraph 2025 wrap-up):
- 160 books read (a 7% increase over 2024)
- Genre:
- 71% fiction
- 29% nonfiction
- Format:
- 45% audiobook
- 31% print
- 24% digital (Kindle)
- Genre:
- 49,027 pages read (a 10% increase over 2024)
- Longest book: How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, by Daniel Immerwahr (listened on audiobook, 17 ½ hours long)
- Shortest book: I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual by Luvvie Ajayi (listened on audiobook, just under 7 hours long)
- DNF: 9 books
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Outstanding Achievement in Fictional Storytelling
Let’s start with the fiction, shall we? I’ll go alphabetically by author—and, in fairness, there are multiple books with the same author, so that feels tidy, too.
Elena Armas novels are an automatic pre-order for me, but when I know an author is working on a series, I will often hold off on reading the first book until the series is at least (more) complete. So that’s why I only just this year got around to The Long Game and The Fiancé Dilemma, two books in her Green Oak series, set in a small town in North Carolina. In The Long Game, we meet Adalyn, a female soccer executive (the daughter of pro soccer team owner, who’s consequently constantly trying to prove that she’s there based on talent and not nepotism) who engaged in an understandable but rather public dressing down of the pro team’s mascot. As punishment, and to get the media spotlight off her and the team, her dad sends her to this tiny town to help the local soccer team turn around its season. Enter grumpy former pro soccer player, Cameron, and you’ve got a formula for an excellent grumpy-sunshine romance with heart and depth. In The Fiancé Dilemma, we stay in the town but shift our focus to Josie, who runs a bakery and whose roots in the small NC town run deep. Her sister’s best friend, Matthew, needs to escape the big city, where he’s just been fired from his gossipy writing job, so his bestie (ahem, Adalyn) persuades him to join her… until a truly hilarious series of events has him fake-engaged to Josie. The fake-dating trope is my absolute favorite, and this one does it better than most I’ve ever read.
Spice level: medium
Notable: another pair of books from Armas, in a different series, were also on my Favorite Reads of 2023 list
Lauren Blakely writes spicy adult romance novels, which are my favorite kinds, but the twist here is that I almost exclusively listen to Lauren Blakely novels in audiobook format. That’s because Lauren typically writes M/F duet novels, which means that I can listen to a guy and a girl read the audiobook in (usually) alternating chapters. These are the only novels I listen to as audiobook format, incidentally, because it’s just THE BEST. All of her audiobooks have been deeply enjoyable, but what makes Plays Well With Others my absolute favorite, and worth a mention here, is that the male main character, Carter, is openly neurodivergent (ADHD) and talks about it in entirely neutral ways. Having Teddy Hamilton voice Carter is even better, as Teddy captures the vibe of ADHD so well across characters. Erin Mallon’s voice kind of bothers me, just a little, but not so much that I avoid her work. So what I’m saying is, #RepresentationMatters and this book was more than your average fake-dating dual-narration audiobook, and I loved it.
Spice level: High
Confession: I’ bought several BK Borison novels a while back, and I tried to listen to an audiobook of one earlier this year. I got so bored, I DNF’d it and swore I’d never read the others. But then I kept hearing great things about First Time Caller, which I’d gotten in my Book of the Month box a while ago, so I decided to give it a try. AND OHMYGOODNESS Y’ALL. This book was just breathtakingly charming. Spicy? Definitely. It’s a twist on Sleepless in Seattle and has all the attendant nostalgia, but the characters are just so terribly relatable. And the writing was amazing. I was reading this one in print, and I didn’t realize until I was several chapters in that the eBook I was reading simultaneously, Good Spirits, IS ALSO A BK BORISON BOOK. I’m not a huge fan of romantasy—alternative world-building does absolutely nothing for me, hello #ActuallyAutistic brain, I see you—but I read a sample of this eBook before buying it and I couldn’t stop reading, so I went ahead and bought it. It’s got some time traveling and a bit of Christmas Carol-type haunting from a ghost of Christmas past, but I did NOT see where this story was going or how it could possibly end. No spoilers! It’s just delightful. I cried, I laughed, I swooned. Suffice it to say, I’ll be giving that DNF’d audiobook another go, because BK convinced me she’s got serious storytelling chops.
Spice level: medium-high
Abby Jiminez’s writing could make a take-out menu sing and an IKEA instruction manual swoon-worthy. Her sharp writing and heart so enchant me that I find myself saving her books to read when I need a serious pick-me-up. This year, that led me to reading Just for the Summer, a book that continues the “Part of Your World” series in unexpected ways. I wanted to go back and read Part of Your World and Yours, Truly immediately after finishing this book, but I have such a huge TBR that I wasn’t prepared to ignore the tower for that long. But I will do this in a couple of years when I’ve forgotten those books more fully. Anyway, Summer begins with such a charming premise: Justin and Emma are both cursed in love, in that after they break up with someone, their ex immediately finds their soulmate. A Reddit thread goes viral about Justin’s bad luck, and Emma reaches out to commiserate. That’s when they hatch the brilliant idea to date each other, so they cure each other’s curses. Just for the summer! After finishing this book, I posted on StoryGraph: “GAH!!!! Abby Jiminez does it again. Now I want to reread Part of Your World. And Yours Truly. And all of her writing. ALL THE STARS!!!!!! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐”
Spice level: medium-high
Notable: the first two books in this series were on my Favorite Reads of 2023 list
Lynn Painter, a writer who dabbles in both YA and adult rom com novels, has yet to write a novel I didn’t find enjoyable. But she really nailed it with Happily Never After, a fast-paced un-put-downable novel about Max, a wedding objector who (for a small fee) will interrupt a wedding ceremony with an objection to prevent a marriage from proceeding. After watching Max in action at a wedding to which she objects, Sophie realizes the wedding objector business has a lot to offer. (Oh, I forgot to mention: she hires Max to object at HER OWN WEDDING because her fiancé’s dad is her dad’s boss, eeps.) So she starts working with Max on his weekend wedding objections, and … well. You can guess where this is going, but the trip to get there is just utterly delightful.
Spice level: low
Notable: A Lynn Painter YA book was also on my Favorite Reads of 2023 list
I hadn’t heard of Allison Speka before (this was my first time reading one of her novels), but I’m super excited she’s got a back catalog because The Reality of It All takes the premise of a reality TV dating show and flips it into a deceptive project. Namely, every person on the show was tricked into going onto the show by friends or family who want the contestants to find love… and, importantly, with the contestants all resisting this because they aren’t ready to move on from something difficult in their pasts. I’m not one for real-life deceptions of this nature, but as a plotting device for a rom com novel, it was clever. Calla, whose heart was broken when her fiancé tragically dies, meets Eli, a Hollywood heartthrob with a reputation as a player. Will romance win out?
Spice level: low
Nonfiction
These are organized by topic. The librarian in me cannot do it any other way.
Category: Outstanding achievement in teaching & learning
My friend Cate Denial’s outstanding book, A Pedagogy of Kindness, got my early-year reading off on the right foot. If you know anything about Cate, you know that kindness is a hallmark of her entire ethos. I finished this book within the first two weeks of 2025, and it’s stayed with me all year. After turning the last page, I wrote: “Cate Denial has gifted us a book of hope and grace in a time when so many of us need it! I highly recommend this book!!!” Here’s just one nugget of wisdom from Cate’s book that I think we all need to remind ourselves of frequently: nice and kind are not the same thing. When we’re nice, we say things someone else wants to hear… even if they’re not true. When we’re kind, we are honest with others. That may mean we say things others don’t want to hear (like, for example, the decision to fire university employees over things they post on their private social media accounts is antithetical to free speech), but it doesn’t mean we have to do so in an intentionally cruel or mean way. Honesty is kind.
I read Higher Expectations: How to Survive Academia, Make It Better for Others, and Transform the University, by two Canadian authors, Roberta Hawkins and Leslie Kern, with the Maple League Summer Book Club, organized by the indefatiguable Juan Carlos López. As I was reading, I was (mentally) screaming in the margins and highlighting every second sentence. This book complements my own book, published last year, so well, in that it talks about the need to nurture the wellbeing of educators as a precondition of creating environments that support and sustain learning for students. After we finished reading, I emailed my friend Bonni Stachowiak over at the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast to encourage her to drop everything and pick up the book. I was so glad she had the authors on her podcast later in the year.
Each semester, I typically organize two reading groups for anyone who wants to join virtually. One will be of higher ed general interest and a second more narrowly tailored to disability in higher ed. In that second cluster, I read Margaret Price’s Crip Spacetime: Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life with colleagues, and my goodness was it ever good. I still haven’t gone back to read Price’s first book, Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life, but that’s on my list for 2026. I deeply appreciate Price’s thoughtful writing and especially the transparency of the methods used in the book. For those who want to understand more about the lived experiences of disabled students, faculty, and staff, I highly recommend this work.
What best-of-2025 list can fully avoid the topic of generative AI? As much as I loathe talking about (and/or thinking about) AI’s encroachment into higher education, it’s an inescapable topic in my world, sadly. My favorite work on this is John Warner’s thoughtful, engaging, and eminently human book, More than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI. I was so grateful that David Buck organized a springtime reading group on this book, which I joined each time and even moderated a couple of times. I was also grateful John attended each session and was happy to engage with his readers on the questions raised and inspired by the book. The bottom line is that AI tools may have valuable uses, but when it comes to writing specifically and creativity more broadly, AI tools strip out humanity in ways we cannot ignore. I would argue we have a moral imperative to help students see the value in struggling to express themselves, that the struggle is the learning, not the finished product. Warner says this too, by the way.
Outstanding Achievement in Writing
Why did nobody ever tell me that Anne Lamott’s book on writing, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, was so damned FUNNY?! For years and years, I’ve heard people talk about this book as being a profound look at writing—you know, the shitty first drafts and the postage stamp and all that—but nobody ever actually conveyed to me fully how much I’d laugh out loud at her stories. I listened to this audiobook while traveling to a writing retreat in rural Pennsylvania in September, and I seriously cackled for the duration of my flight. So, yes, writer friends: Read this book for the excellent perspective on writing. Come for the wisdom. Stay for the hilarity. (And get the audiobook; her dry delivery is simply amazing.)
Outstanding Achievement in General Nonfiction
I mentioned my reading groups above, and the charming group that calls itself the insubordinate reading group (or the insubordinates, if you prefer) read Dr. Sunita Sah’s book, Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes, in 2025. I first heard about Sah on Bonni Stachowiak’s podcast, and I knew immediately that I wanted to read her book. The tl;dr on Defy is that, when we get clear on our values, we can clarify when we must engage in principled defiance/resistance to live in accordance with them. I was so grateful that my friend Rebekah Bennetch reminded us, before we even began reading the book, of the central importance of articulating our values and nudged us to do a values clarifying exercise in our first meeting. As someone who finds it incredibly difficult to say no (hello, Enneagram 2 people pleasing! 👋), this book gave me a roadmap for values-driven actions. As a bonus, Dr. Sah is everywhere talking about this, including on podcasts and on LinkedIn, so you should definitely follow her work, even if you don’t manage to read the book in the near term (or ever).
I’m hardly the first to observe that Michael Lewis (think Moneyball and The Big Short, both of which were made into films) is an excellent writer and storyteller. His instincts are spot on. When his book, The Fifth Risk, was published in 2018, it immediately became a favorite book to recommend for those who recognize they probably ought to know more about government. His ability to find normal people doing extraordinary things deep in the federal bureaucracy was invaluable in the first Trump presidential term, and so when he released an edited volume called Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service, I knew I’d read it right away. This is actually a collection of longform essays edited by Michael Lewis, featuring writers like Sarah Vowell and W. Kamau Bell. I listened to the audiobook because each writer reads their own essay, and I love hearing nonfiction authors’ work in their voices. If I could assign the entire country a single book to read in 2026, it would be this one. (Followed shortly thereafter with The Fifth Risk.)
One of my favorite work opportunities in my current role is serving on our Common Read Selection committee. This is a group of faculty, staff, and students who invite and review nominations for a book to be read by the next year’s incoming freshman class. This choice also brings the author to campus the first week of the semester to give the opening convocation address. Two books from the 2025 process made my list, the first of which is Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. In this delightful romp, Mary Roach brings her signature wit and curiosity to the ways that humans interact with the other animals in the world. I read this book mostly before going to sleep during our holiday break, and Doug had to suffer through multiple readings of lines that made me laugh out loud. I genuinely appreciated the opportunity to think about our relationship with other living creatures, and I was happy to support this book as a potential common read option.
Outstanding Achievement in Writing, Living, and Being a Delightful Human Being
Perhaps I should have led with my favorite favorite book of the year, Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-To-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton, but I wanted to build suspense. Knighton, a correspondent on CBS Sunday Morning, wrote this book about the year he went to every national park, starting with Acadia National Park on January 1 to see the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain. Conor decided to pursue this adventure this after his fiancée broke off their engagement (and ended their relationship). He packed up all of his possessions and, after convincing his CBS bosses to give the story a chance, set off for Maine. I LOVED THIS BOOK. Emphatically, without reservation. Imagine my delight, then, when it was chosen as our 2025 Common Read selection, Conor came to campus… and I got to take him to lunch. (!!!!!) The picture below is from our lunch at Bouré with a small number of Common Read selection committee members.
I’ve given away multiple copies of this book and just loved it. Conor is also a terrific guy who indulged my fangirling (which was only slightly embarrassing) with grace. You should definitely follow him on Instagram (and swoon over his lip sync to Boyz II Men in White Sands National Park).
Mea culpa
I never got around to writing up my favorite reads in 2024. (As you can see, these posts are long and take quite a long time to write!) You can view my Storygraph 2024 wrap-up here, and the 15 books I tagged as favorites that year here.
