What I read in 2025 (and my favourites)

Favourite reads of the year

Although I completely ran out of reading energy towards the end of the year and switched to serial podcast consumption, I still managed to get through over 200 books in 2026. Here (excluding rereads, of which there were a fair few) are my favourites, followed by the whole list. 

Fiction

An Echo of Children by Ramsey Campbell -- a hugely readable thriller with all of its author's elegant prose and subtle, suggestive, slowburn menace.

Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan -- although it reads at times like someone desperately trying to be Martin Amis circa The Information, this novel depicts the contemporary scene with knowing omniscience and never ceases to be entertaining. 

The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict -- an absolutely fascinating roman a clef account of the life and dual career of Hollywood icon Hedy Lamarr. She might be responsible for your mobile phone, you know ... 

Americanah by Chimimanda Ngozi Adiche -- a typically powerful novel by Adiche, simultaneously comprehensive and insightful on the issue of race relations and the travails of people of colour migrating to the West. 

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donaghan -- a genuinely funny novel, included here because you can count such tomes on the fingers of a few hands. 

Biography

P G Wodehouse by Robert McCrum -- a fascinating account of a man who never really grew up and whose fiction therefore provides the ultimate escape value for intellectuals who, by relishing pantomimes penned by Shakespeare, wish to avoid a charge of frivolity. The story of how the author was hoodwinked by the Nazis is especially moving. 

Oscar: A Life by Mathew Sturgis -- another terrific portrait of a man on a slightly different cerebral bandwidth than everyone else. To the manner born and yet often lacking the financial heft to fulfil his ambitions, Wilde's story is doom strung out over forty years. 

What Have I Done? by Ben Elton -- an absolutely captivating personal history of one of our finest TV writers. He's met everyone and worked with most. Frothy entertainment at its best. 

Non-Fiction

Underdogs by Joel Budd -- a brilliantly detailed investigation of working class communities in all their variousness. On the money in these uncertain times of shifting party politics. 

Uncivilised by Subhadra Das -- a passionate deconstruction of the ideas that purportedly constitute the bedrock of Western values. 

Where We Meet the World by Ashley Ward -- a beautifully readable science book about how the human senses function. Absolutely fascinating throughout.

Why We Eat (Too Much) by Dr Andrew Jenkinson -- a real game-changing and eye-opening account of how your body responds to diets and offering the information you require to train your biology into shedding weight. The book made clear sense of what I'd (unprofessionally) observed in myself for years. 

Books read in 2025

Sisters and Husbands, Amanda Brookfield 

The Godmother, Amanda Brookfield 

Pineapple Street, Jenny Jackson 

Shred Sisters, Betsy Lerner 

Happiest People in the World, Brock Clarke 

First Love Last Rites, Ian McEwan 

History of Britain 1, Simon Schama 

Second Self, Chloe Ashby 

Kissing the Gunner’s Daughter, Ruth Rendell 

Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

Beautiful Ugly, Alice Feeney 

Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salmon Rushdie 

Simosola, Ruth Rendell 

Before She Met Me, Julian Barnes 

Lions’ Den, Iris Mwanza 

Pure in Heart, Susan Hill 

Risk of Darkness, Susan Hill 

Vows of Silence, Susan Hill 

Means of Evil, Ruth Rendell 

House of Meetings, Martin Amis

Diamond Solitaire, Peter Lovesey 

One Fat Englishman, Kingsley Amis 

The Summons, Peter Lovesey 

The Bloodhounds, Peter Lovesey 

The Hollow Man, John Dickson Carr 

Upon a Dark Night, Peter Lovesey 

Service All the Dead, Colin Dexter 

Case of the Gilded Fly, Edmund Crispin 

The Vault, Peter Lovesey 

Still Life, Louise Penny

One of the Girls, Lucy Clarke 

Caledonian Road, Andrew O’Hagan 

Diamond Dust, Peter Lovesey 

Country Girls, Edna O’Brien 

Dead of Jericho, Colin Dexter 

Last Seen, Lucy Clarke 

You Let Me In, Lucy Clarke  

The Split, Amanda Brookfield 

No One Saw a Thing, Andrea Mara 

Guilty by Definition, Susie Dent 

Before I Knew You, Amanda Brookfield 

The Dark, Sharon Bolton 

Persuasion, Jane Austen 

Master of the Moor, Ruth Rendell 

Life Begins, Amanda Brookfield 

Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen 

Creep, Emma van Straaten 

Eight Cousins, Louisa May Alcott 

Whisky from Small Glasses, Denzil Meyrick 

Love Child, Amanda Brookfield (50) 

Jane Austen Society, Natalie Jenner 

Cross Her Heart, Sarah Pinborough 

Surf House, Lucy Clarke 

House on Nazareth Hill, Ramsey Campbell 

Broken Country, Clare Leslie Hall 

No Escape, Lucy Clarke 

Love Child, Rachel Hore 

Queens of Crime, Marie Benedict 

Only Woman in the Room, Marie Benedict 

Midnight Feast, Lucy Foley 

End of Summer, Charlotte Philby 

Thief of Always, Clive Barker 

Mitford Affair, Marie Benedict 

For the Love of a Dog, Amanda Brookfield 

Diary of a Nobody, George & Weeden Grossmith 

Weird and the Eerie, Mark Fisher 

Breakfast at Tiffanys, Truman Capote 

Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall, Jasmine Warga 

Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain 

A Single Breath, Lucy Clarke

Swimming at Night, Lucy Clarke 

Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte 

Cleopatra and Frankenstein, Coco Mellors 

Amy and Isabelle, Elizabeth Strout 

Exciting Times, Naoise Dolan 

Rachel Incident, Caroline O’Donoghue 

Marble Hall Murders, Anthony Horowitz 

Writers and Lovers, Lily King 

Not to be Taken, Anthony Berkeley

The Daydreamer, Ian McEwan 

The House Sitter, Peter Lovesey 

Secret Hangman, Peter Lovesey 

Shape of Water, Andrea Camilleri 

Riddle of the Third Mile, Colin Dexter 

Millennium People, J G Ballard 

Cocaine Nights, J G Ballard 

Skeleton Hill, Peter Lovesey 

House of Cards, Michael Dobbs 

Snow Killer, Ross Greenwood 

Lying Game, Ruth Ware 

Woman in Cabin 10, Ruth Ware 

On the Beach, Nevil Shute 

Road Rage, Ruth Rendell 

In a Dark, Dark Wood, Ruth Ware 

Turn of the Key, Ruth Ware 

Anxiety, Jason Freeman  

Enlightenment, Kieron O’Hara 

Shortest History of France, Colin Jones 

Concise History of Italy, Christopher Duggan 

Human Evolution, Ian Tattersall 

Short History of the United States, Robert Remini 

Underdogs, Joel Budd 

Short History of Drunkenness, Mark Forsyth 

Democracy and Death Cults, Douglas Murray 

How Britain Ends, Gavin Esler 

Art of Travel, Alain de Botton 

Religion for Atheists, Alain de Botton 

The News, Alain be Botton 

Architecture of Unhappiness, Alain de Botton

Patriarchy Inc, Cordelia Fine 

Chavs, Owen Jones 

Modern China, Mike Cooper 

Never Flinch, Stephen King 

Abolition of Liberty, Peter Hitchens 

Revolution Betrayed, Peter Hitchens 

Autocracy Inc, Anne Applebaum 

Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum 

Uncivilised, Subhadra Das 

Ancient Rome, Thomas Martin 

Myth of American Idealism, Chomsky and Robinson 

Once and Future World Order, Amitav Acharya 

Where We Meet the World, Ashley Ward 

Crimedotcom, Geoff White 

Gentrification is Inevitable, Leslie Kern 

Inequality, Liam Byrne 

Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt 

We Live Here Now, Sarah Pinborough 

Don’t Let Him In, Lisa Jewell 

Starstruck, Peter Lovesey 

Hits, Flops and Other Illusions, Ed Zwick 

My Life, David Jason 

Carnegie’s Maid, Marie Benedict 

Cop to Corpse, Peter Lovesey 

Only Fools and Stories, David Jason 

Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock, Edward White 

Social Genome, Dalton Conley 

There’s Nothing Like This, Kevin Evers 

In the Mountains of Madness, W Scott Poole 

All Things Shining, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly 

Rise of Communism, Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius 

P G Wodehouse A Life, Robert McCrum 

J R R Tolkien, Tom Shippey 

Politically Incorrect Guide to Literature, Elizabeth Kantor 

Oscar Wilde A Life, Mathew Sturgis 

History of the Musical, Richard Fawkes 

Beethoven, John Clubbe 

William Blake Versus the World, John Higgs 

James Joyce, Colin MacCabe 

Chasing Chopin, Annik La Farge 

The Inimitable Jeeves, PG Wodehouse 

Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K Jerome 

Thank You, Jeeves, PG Wodehouse 

Psmith in the City, PG Wodehouse 

Right Ho, Jeeves, PG Wodehouse 

Code of the Woosters, PG Wodehouse 

Heart of a Goof, PG Wodehouse 

Jeeves in the Morning, PG Wodehouse 

Three Men on the Bummel, Jerome K Jerome 

Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons 

Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis 

An Echo of Children, Ramsey Campbell 

Intelligence Paradox, Satoshi Kanazawa 

Centrism, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey 

Case Against the Sexual Revolution, Louise Perry 

Why Beautiful People Have More Girls, Alan Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa 

Hitler, Germans and Final Solution, Ian Kershaw 

Hitler, Ian Kershaw 

Stalin, Oleg Khlevniuk 

What Have I Done? Ben Elton 

High Society, Ben Elton

Popcorn, Ben Elton 

Boundless Deep, Richard Holmes 

The Names, Florence Knapp 

Why We Eat (Too Much), Andrew Jenkinson 

Slash and Grab: Horror in the 80s, Adam Jortner 

One of Us, Elizabeth Day 

What’s With Baum? Woody Allen 

Son of Rosemary, Ira Levin 

Psychology of Money, Morgan Housel  

Art of Spending Money, Morgan Housel

What We Can Know, Ian McEwan 

Meltdown, Ben Elton 

 Shortest History of Eugenics, Erik Peterson 

Chart Throb, Ben Elton 

Past Mortem, Ben Elton 

A Mind of My Own, Kathy Burke 

We Did OK Kid, Anthony Hopkins 

Sonny Boy, Al Pacino 

Back Story, David Mitchell 

Bonkers, Jennifer Saunders 

Dear Fatty, Dawn French 

High Hopes, Ronnie Corbett 

Camus, Dostoevsky, and Schopenhauer, Sueno Sabio 

Love Letter to the West, Konstantin Kisin 

 Nietzsche, Cioran, and Kierkegaard, Sueno Sabio 

Zizek, Lacan, and Marx, Sueno Sabio 

Augustine, Rousseau, and Sartre, Sueno Sabio 

Heidegger and Foucault, Sleep Nomad 

Modernism and Postmodernism, Sleep Nomad 

Adler, Jung on Religion, and Frankl, Sleep Nomad 

Evil, Socialism, and Stupidity of the Smart, Sleep Nomad 

Voltaire and Ruskin, Sleep Nomad