Books of 2025

Alright, it's that time of the year again! It actually feels like winter around here, with frost in the night and a little sliver of ice on the ponds. Also, I finished reading a book last night and will not be finishing another, this year, so I am all set to muse on the books I read this year.
This year's total is even higher than last year's; 46 books in total. That cold December weather I just mentioned has been a big help in achieving that number, although I have (yet again) done a lot of rereading in the autumn and winter. But there were many exciting new reads as well!

The full list is:

1 Intentioneel leven

2 Orbital

3 Komt een land bij de dokter

4 The Professional Scrum Product Owner

5 Everything I know about love

6 So late in the day

7 Mania

8 The viscount who loved me

9 Het is oorlog maar niemand die het ziet

10 Intermezzo

11 Under cover aan het werk

12 Franny & Zooey

13 Maar ik wil helemaal geen moderne man zijn

14 Brooklyn

15 The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

16 Refuse to Choose

17 Dinner for Six

18 Whale Fall

19 Sweetness in the Skin

20 Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

21 The Anthropocene Reviewed

22 Dear Dolly

23 Clear

24 The end we start from

25 Ik ga toch iets zeggen

26 You are here

27 An offer from a gentleman

28 Everything is tuberculosis

29 The Bee Sting

30 The Glass Hotel

31 Romancing Mr Bridgerton

32 Op een andere planeet kunnen ze me redden

33 The Help

34 Onder Vrienden

35 Prophet Song

36 The dictionary of lost words

37 The Wedding People

38 Slade House

39 Schokbestendig

40 The Light Years

41 The Thursday Murder Club

42 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

43 The Proof of my Innocence

44 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

45 12 ways to kill your family at Christmas

46 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Like I said, lots of rereads in the autumn; one Emily St John Mandel, one David Mitchell, one Elizabeth Jane Howard and the three by J.K.Rowling. I've tried to get into a rhythmn of reading at least one new book in between rereads, so as not to get stuck in the whole Cazalet series or all the Harry Potter books. And other than that, there were still 40 new books to break down into lists.

Best English novel

1 Clear

2 The Help

3 Intermezzo

This is a difficult category to order this year. I read too many good books. Added to that, I awarded some books with 5 stars on Storygraph, which I in hindsight don't think are the best books I read this year, since they haven't stuck in my mind the way some others have done. So this is, at best, a tentative step towards the best books.

The first one, Clear by Carys Davies, nearly broke my heart. It is about Ivar, the last inhabitant of a small and remote Scottish Island, who is visited by a church minister. Ivar does not know this man has come to throw him off the island to turn it into grazing land for sheep, so he takes him into his home. I felt so dearly for Ivar, who loves his solitary life with the few animals that are left to him, but gradually also comes to understand that being alone all the time is no way to live. It is only 150 pages long, but it feels like three entire lives are contained in those pages.

I've written about both The Help and Intermezzo before, but I think what makes these books so great is that they, like Clear, are about real people that you get to know, can relate to and maybe even start to love a little bit. A real good book, for me, makes the characters come alive and makes me both sad and happy when their story ends. These are books that I will read again some time in the future, not because of the plot, but because of who lives in them.

Honorable mentions go to Whale Fall, Sweetness in the Skin and The Bee Sting for also being great reads.

Best Dutch novel

Once again, no Dutch novels on the list, even though 20% of all books I read were in Dutch. I read one work of fiction in Dutch (Onder Vrienden), but that is a translation of a Danish author. And I would not put that in any 'best' list.

Best classic

Storygraph let's you compare when you've read a book with when it was published, which gives me a nice scatterplot that is sloping slightly upwards as I read newly published books shortly after they've hit the local library or bookshop. In 2025, there is one book distinctly below the 1990 line; Franny & Zooey. I think we can call this a classic, although not everyone is in agreement on whether it is a novel (or a short story and a novella in one). One could argue that the Harry Potter books are classics in their own right, but since those are rereads, we'll leave only J.D.Sallinger on this list.

Best non-fiction

1 The Anthropocene Reviewed

2 Undercover aan het werk

3 Ik ga toch iets zeggen

30% of all books I read this year were non-fiction, however, many of those fall into the autobiographical category (see below). And some fall somewhat in between, so I've made the distiction as best I can.

When I was a student, or thereabouts, one of the new-fangled 'blogs' I used to read was De Recensiekoning, which translates to The Reviewking. This was written by semi-famous youngsters, who'd gotten the idea that if they wrote reviews about stuff (in a funny but thoughtful way), companies would send them free things or let them have free experiences, just so they could write reviews about them. This did not work out for them, although they did publish a book about it, which was a standard part of my student housing toilet's reading materials. (Years later, of course, influencers thought up the same thing with videos and social media and actually did get rich. And those Recensiekoning people ended up creating some of the most famous Dutch late night tv programmes, so everything turned out alright for them). All this is a longwinded way of saying: I like reading reviews about random things that are not generally reviewed. And that is exactly what John Green (of YA fame) does in his covid-time non-fiction work The Anthropocene Reviewed: he reviews the state of humankind, its history and the impact it's had on the rest of the planet. It is a wonderful, diverse, funny and sometimes depressing read.

The same goes for Undercover aan het werk by Jeroen van Bergeijk. He is a Dutch journalist famous for taking on low-paying jobs to show the working conditions of (mostly) immigrants who are extorted by (usually) big companies, but also the effects we as consumers/buyers have on those conditions. He goes undercover to write his stories, and this book is a compilation of recent years.

The final book on the list is by another journalist, Aaf Brandt Corstius, who followed the debates in Dutch parliament for a year and half, incidentally a period in which the cabinet fell, new elections were held and a new parliament was instated. She wrote not so much about the content, the ideas, of the debate, but about the social norms, the way people do things or don't do things. Even though she only wrote about public debates which she viewed from the public gallery, it reads like a 'behind the scenes' of the Dutch political debate. Very insightful.

Best autobiograhical

1 Op een andere planeet kunnen ze me redden

2 Maar ik wil helemaal geen moderne man zijn

3 Everything I know about Love

Many contenders for this category this year, which as I said slightly overlaps with the general non-fiction one. The first, by Lieke Marsman, is a haunting tale of life, death and her struggles with cancer. She used to be the Dutch Poet Laureate, but is better known to the wider public for her decision to amputate her arm to stop the cancer from spreading. Sadly, this did not work. In Op een andere planeet kunnen ze me redden, she discusses how her illness has brought her back to parts of the faith she had lost, going even further into believing that there must be alien life somewhere that could save her (all the while knowing she will die). It is a beautiful book about beliefs, quantum mechanics and the human will to live.

The second book is by Julian Althuisius, who writes a column in my favourite newspaper. This book is about his refusal to be 'a modern man', with all the social expectations and norms that come with that. It is a story of family life, expectations and breaking free of those. I think Lieke and Julian are both great Dutch writers with difficulties, but of a slightly different order of magnitude.

The last is by Dolly Alderton, whom I discovered last year. She has written two non-fiction works about love and relationships, one collection of her newspaper columns (Dear Dolly) and Everything I know about Love. The second feels more meta, as she also describes how she felt like a fraud, giving advice to readers when her own love life or relationships were in shambles. But it is that honesty that makes both books such great reads, even if I wouldn't follow every word of advice she has.

Best short story collection

No short story collections at all this year (unless you count Franny & Zooey, which would then still only be one short story). Must (as always) try to read some more next year.

Best scifi/fantasy

1 Orbital

2 Prophet Song

3 The end we start from

Alright, I'm taking some liberties with the definition of this category, as I only read one 'real' scifi or fantasy novel (apart from rereads), but I did read some hauntingly good dystopian novels. Which is sort of the same thing?

Anyway, I read Orbital in the beginning of the year and enjoyed it a lot, although it does have its faults. Prophet Song by Paul Lynch is another Booker Prize winner and a very differnt cup of tea. It is set in a future Ireland that is slowing slipping into a totalitarian regime. This book kept me awake at night, partly because I was so annoyed at the main character for not acting, partly because I realised I would probably respond in the same way she did. Let's hope this remains a work of fiction, although some elements of the story are already becoming reality. Finally, I read The end we start from by Megan Hunter after watching the film, which isn't always the best way around. But the book is more suggestive of events than it is descriptive, so it was kind of nice to already have some idea of the plot. As the south of England is submerged by floods, a couple and their baby flee north in search of a safe haven. Both society and the characters show their ugliest sides, in yet another story warning us of what may be to come.

Okay, so maybe scifi and dystopian are not the same thing, since the former seems to focus on the nice things of scientific and social advances, on how we would like things to develop, while the latter feels more like a warning sign. But they both show possible stories yet to come, whether we like them or not.

Best romance

1 You are here

2 Romancing mister Bridgerton

3 An offer from a gentleman

A new category! I hesitated about putting one last year, but with all the extra Bridgerton novels passing through, I thought it would be nice to keep track of them. And the new David Nicholls also clearly falls into the 'romance' category and was actually a very nice read (after the huge disappointment of 2020). He could show Julia Quinn how it's done, but then again, nobody reads the Bridgerton books for their depth of character or literary flourish.

Best 'new' author

It is impossible to chose just 3 of the new authors I enjoyed reading this year, as there were so many. So here comes the full list; I would love to read more from Samantha Harvey, Colm Toibin, Elizabeth O'Connor, Ishi Robinson, Carys Davies, Kathryn Stockett, Paul Lynch, Pip Williams, Alison Espach, Richard Osman and Jonathan Coe. Most of these authors have written at least a couple of books already, so I will be spoiled for choice.

Most disappointing novel

1 Everything is Tuberculosis

2 Mania

3 12 ways to kill your family at Christmas

The first one isn't really a novel, it is yet another non-fiction book by John Green. But in sharp contrast to The Anthropocene Reviewed, I did not like this one. It feels too contrived, with the history of tuberculosis interspersed with a personal human interest story that feels fake or at least exaggerated... It was the most disappointing because I liked his other book so much. 

Mania is a book by Lionel Shriver, who've I've been ambivalent about for some time, but this one was the worst yet. I wrote about why I disliked it earlier. 

The final book on the list is one in a series of 'cosy crime' I've been reading (which I've been wanting to write a post about, but which hasn't happened yet). I thoroughly enjoyed books like The Thursday Murder Club or Proof of my Innocence, but 12 ways to kill your family at Christmas was not cosy, it was filled with horrible characters and a murderer reveal that was so unrealistic and not in line with the rest of the book that after finishing it, I immediately put it on the pile of books for the second-hand bookshop.

Authors I read more than once:

- Julia Quinn (3)

- J.K. Rowling (3)

- Dolly Alderton (2)

- John Green (2)

Some usual suspects on the multiple reads list, but also many new authors I enjoyed reading. This year was a very varied bag, even though I didn't read any Dutch fiction or short story collections. I'm sure 2026 will bring loads more new books, as I continue to reread some old favourites.

The Help

The Help is one of those books I've been wanting to read for ages, but which somehow hasn't made it into Dutch territory. I've never seen it in the English sections of the bookstores and it is one of the few acclaimed English novels that is not available in the library. So when I was in London last May (annoyed by the Sally Rooney advert), I was happy to finally be able to buy it at Waterstones.

Now the danger of finally reading something you've been looking forward to for many years is that it will inevitably disappoint, as with new novels of authors you love (again, looking at you, Sally Rooney). It all depends on how high your expectations are. With The Help, I knew the novel took place in one of the Southern US states in the middle of the last century, centered on a group of black workers and a white journalist who wanted to record their stories. I also knew that it had been made into a film with Emma Stone and Ocatvia Spencer, two of my favourite actrices. But that was it.

My expectations were wrong on some accounts. The Help is set in the middle of the 1960s, a time which at least in my mind is not as black-and-white, not as segregated, as the story promised to be. But history is uglier than that; although this is a work of fiction, the truth of the social norms and struggle of those who did not fit the white hierarchy shines through the lines. This not only goes for the black female workers; all the white women in the novel are marginalised as well, expected to marry and take their place in the house, busying themselves with their children and their charities. As if they are from a Jane Austen novel. 

And these women for the most part are happy to conform to that norm, like prototype soccer moms. They are not fighting for social change, they are only fighting to keep their own superior position. The delicious irony of those white women, working against rights for their help, but at the same time raising money for the 'poor starving children of Africa' goes right over the heads of the characters and right into the heart of the reader.

Now the 60s were a time of social upheaval. Rosa Parks is mentioned offhandendly. The march on Washington and 'I have a dream speech' by Martin Luther King are discussed, as is Kennedy's assassination. But although important moments, they do not have an immediate effect. Events that we, looking back from their future, see as momentous moments of change, were seen in passing by those living through them. They were busy living their lives. The publisher tells Skeeter to hurry up with her writing, before all the attention on civil rights will die out again and their book won't sell. Those living through the change do not see it.

All this is a roundabout way of saying that this book is not about social change, it is about people. For those women, the white society ladies, the black help, the fancy publisher, they are the heart of this book. And they are so much more than their labels, there is so much nuance in these characters. Yes, Skeeter is the one who writes the book, but as we discover from the testimonies, several other white ladies support their black help through times of trouble, without breathing a word about this to their female friends. Yes, Minny is one of the forfighters, but she is afraid of her husband and doesn't want her kids to fight for civil rights. She cannot seem to stop herself, both when doing good as when she is vindictive to her former employer, but all that bravado disappears in the presence of her abusive husband. And then there is Aibileen, tying the story and the community together. In the film she became the sole narrator, which I think took away for the myriad of perspectives and voices of the novel. But she is the steady, loyal, caring, strong heart of the story. And although she seems to love the little white girl in her care desparately, she is her own person, with more backbone than anyone would expect.

It is so easy to fall back on stereotypes. To rewrite both history and people as more black and white than they were. In The Help, you can find people (mostly women, but some men) in all shapes, sizes and varieties, in all shades of grey. Apart from the plot, which is nice in itself but sometimes a little bit too present, it is the characters who make this story so worthwhile. 

In the end, my expectations certainly weren't too high; this book is among the best and deserves all the awards it got. I'm just sorry I didn't read it sooner.

Intermezzo

I finished reading Intermezzo quite some time ago. Storygraph reliably informs me I finished reading on the 5th of March, more than 10 weeks ago. I told myself I would have a little think on this book and how it compared to Sally Rooneys's earlier novels, especially after the disappointment of 2021, and then write a post. I had my think, and I talked about the book with some people, but I never really got around to writing. Perhaps because I never really got around to making up my mind.
Then last week I was in London and Intermezzo was everywhere. And I don't mean in bookshop windows, there were advertisments for the book all over the Underground. The main heading read "Come for the romance, stay for the meaning of life". Which, now that I've searched to get the wording right, is apparently a quote from a reviewer in the Irish Times. And that quote triggered something, as did the new cover design below the heading. So now I am ready to write this post.

To start with the quote; who ever comes to a Sally Rooney novel looking for romance? If you think Normal People or Conversations with Friends (I'll keep it to the novels I liked for now) are about romance, you're missing the point. They are about relationships, sure, about love perhaps, but certainly not about romance. The same is true for Intermezzo. There are romantic relationships in the book, but that is not what it is about. It is about grief, about family, about standing still when the world around you keeps moving at full speed, about coming to terms with change. So yes, I fully agree with the second part of the quote, but it should read "Come for the meaning of life, stay for the beautiful language" or something to that effect. Because the writing is once again great, even if it can be a bit tough to get through, especially the earlier chapters when the grief is still influencing the tone of voice of the characters a lot. But once you get through those, the going is good. 

Because of the language and the personal points of view, the characters in Intermezzo have so much more depth to them than those in her earlier novels, with maybe the exception of Naomi, who felt like Marianne all over again. But the brothers who are central to the novel, Ivan and Peter, are fully developed literary characters with very distinct personalities and voices. They assume so much about the other, based on their livelong bond and own point of view, that they're not really listening, not really experiencing the other anymore.Sally Rooney put such a complex relationship into words by showing, not telling.

I enjoyed reading Margaret's chapters as well, as she tries to protect herself from harm, while realising that she is doing so, but at the same time unable to stop doing it. It is in these very human and relatable ways of thinking that Sally Rooney is at her best. Unfortunately we don't get to hear from Naomi or Sylvia, who I see as equally important as Margaret. So that somewhat detracts from Peter's part of the novel.

Now for the cover image. In the original image, we see Ivan (I think) as a smallish figure in the background while the foreground is framed by Peter's legs (again, I think) and a chess piece, a white queen, laying on its side. This gives a nice insight into some of the main patterns of the novel; the power dynamics between the brothers, how much we 'see' of them in the novel, their loneliness, the importance of chess. 

In the new image, we just get the smallish figure, now accompanied by a dog sitting as a mirror image of the standing person. This to me confirms the smaller figure is Ivan, now joined by his dog Alexei. While I was worried about Alexei's fate for most of the novel (somehow I always care more about the animals than the people in these books), I don't think he is such a important part of the novel that he deserves a place on the cover. Also, by removing Peter from the image, it feels as if Ivan has the stronger voice, as if the book is more 'about' him. But the one won't work without the other, that is the beauty of it. Both brothers are a central part of the story.

So I disliked the quote and I disliked the cover image, which made me write this post to state how much I loved the book. There was quite an intermezzo (yes) between reading and writing about it, but the main parts of the novel still stand out clearly in my mind, despite having read 10 other books in between. I hope the book will reach a new audience with the new marketing campaign, although I do hope they're not just looking for romance, because then they will get so much more than they bargained for.

Too much zeitgeist

I usually read two or more books at the same time, generally at least one fiction and one non-fiction. This means I can switch out books according to my mood; if I don't feel like reading something informative, I can go for something fictional instead. Or, more often, if I don't feel like something 'heavy' or 'literary', I can go for something a bit lighter. Added to that, reserving books at the library gives you no influence on when a chosen book will arrive. There are no fines for late returns, but I try to finish a library book in four weeks at the maximum, so other people can enjoy it too.

All of these mechanisms combined in January. I'd started reading Gliff, the new novel by Ali Smith, shortly after receiving it for Christmas. Her books tend to be on the literary side, but are generally light and uplifting (although my heart was in my throat the entire time when reading about the curlew in Companion Piece, but he turned out fine). This newest novel is a lot darker in tone, however, there are no little bright sparks as in the seasonal quartet books. Reading this during the darkest days of the year was quite depressing, and I read lots of non-fiction books on the side.

Then one of my library reservations came through; Mania, by Lionel Shriver. Now I'd only reserved this based on a Storygraph suggestion. Apart from the blurb I hadn't read any reviews or anything else about the book. I enjoyed some of her previous works, although again We need to talk about Kevin kept me on the edge of my seat, but from the blurb this felt like a comic escape. So I thought this book would be a nice distraction from the Gliff universe.

As it turns out, Mania lives in the same dark world as Gliff. They are both set in alternate versions of our times, where destructive politics have gotten the upper hand. In Smith's England, people and words are cancelled by drawing red lines around them, although I haven't read far enough to know why. In Shriver's US, it is no longer appropriate to call someone stupid, dumb, or any derivative. We are all born the same, we are all equally smart, we just process information at different speeds. The main character, with the puzzeling first name of Pearson, does not want to adhere to these rules, especially since she went some length with donors to make sure her children would be highly intelligent. So she rebels against an alternate universe in which Obama is not re-elected because he is too smartist. Exams and entry tests are discontinued and if you're not hired for a job, you can sue because you feel discriminated against. The results are predictable; society falls into disarray. In a not-alternative parallel, Donald Trump is elected because he can in no way be called smart.

Now this could have been a humorous book. It takes a satirical approach on several social movements that culminate in something pretty horrific (apart from the election result). However, the tone of the book is biting. The main character, although her motives are understandeable, is pretty unlikeable. She mistreats and endangers her children and her partner, solely because she cannot control herself. Her best friend, who may or may not turn out to be an enemy, is the voice of reason throughout but for that she is snubbed. And in the end, a deus ex machina appears to make everything alright again, although our main character still protests to much. She is a classic tragic hero, but without any tragic irony.

Added to that, the writing is laboured. We are supposedly reading Pearson's diary, composed during Covid times when most of the US population died from vaccines as pharmaseutical companies are now staffed by dummies who created a poison. But really, nobody writes like this. We get one day out of each year, with loads of exposition to fill in the gaps. These chaters contain never-ending sentences full of strained alliterations. The inside joke throughout the novel is that Pearson herself is not all that bright, so this is possibly alluding to her using posh synonyms, but as she is a teacher of English composition and creative writing at a university, one would expect her to be able to write properly. The bits that read nicely are the dialogues, but no one can remember conversations from a decade ago ad verbatim, so again we cannot trust our narrator.

So both in form and in content, it was a difficult read. The message saddened me, but not as much as how a nice concept, which may well partly turn out to be reality in the not-to-distant-future, was strangled to death by an annoying character, difficult language and unrealistic style. As Shriver is a somewhat controversial activist, I realise that some have simply disregarded her novel because of her political views. In my opinion, not taking into account the author or her possible intent still leaves you with a pretty poor product, plodding powerlessly onward and never nearing a neat narrative nexus (see what I did there?). 

My escape from Gliff turned out to be a jump into the same boat. I finished Mania, but without any joy in reading. However, I still look forward to reading more of Smith's book, since her writing is always beautiful and her characters are more likeable. Not for now, though. For now I buried myself in a Bridgerton novel, another library book, to properly escape the darkness of winter. 

Orbital

Once upon a time I started the year by reading the Booker winner (I still can't get used to leaving the 'Man' out) of the previous year. This was a nice tradition, but it could provide me with a tedious book that stalled my reading speed, so I would still be griding my way through it in the first half of February. So I stopped enforcing the habit on myself, creating quite a backlog of Booker winners still to read. After getting through most of these in 2023, I felt like I could freely enjoy the Booker winners again, if they seemed to my liking.

Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, was the 2024 winner. I probably would have read it by the beautiful cover design and intriguing blurb alone, thinking that at less than 140 pages, I would blast through. I would have been terribly wrong.

Although this is a small and short book, it is dense. We get the whole of humanity, its history, its faults and achievements, its purpose and future, sometimes broken down into personal backstories but generally focussed on how it has impacted the rest of the planet and perhaps the universe, in a small-sized package. Sticking to the theme of the novel; if it were just a little bit denser, it would be a black hole. 

There isn't much of a plot. We spend one day with the six people living aboard the International Space Station, looping around the Earth in 90 minute intervals. Lots of sunrises, lots of sunsets (these apparently never get old, even when you've seen thousands of them up there). Lots of measurements, research, practical stuff like moving garbage bags around or eating honeycomb. But in the sense of what happens; nothing much.

In a somewhat related sideplot, there is also a group of astronauts on a different mission to visit the Moon on that same day. I am not sure why this was included, as to me it just distracted from the six and their lives and musings. But it is the only thing that really happens, apart from a typhoon on Earth just about to hit the Philippines. Both of these things obviously do not physically impact the ISS, they are just in the mind of its inhabitants.

We get to know some of them. I found Chie's story, the Japanese astronaut whose mother survived the atomic bomb and who died the day before the story took place, the best. There were so many different layers to how she experienced life, both her mother's life, her own life but also life in general, how she managed to cope with her grief in this confined space, that for me could have been the whole of the novel. But there are five other people in the ISS with her and we get some glimpses of them; the Russian astronaut who misses his kids, the British astronaut musing on her Irish farm, the American busy with his faith. The fact that I'm referring to these characters by their nationality is because I've blatantly forgotten their names; that is how much impact they made on me. 

And that to me is the second main fault of the book; we do not get to share the six characters' experiences, backstories, feelings etc equally. That to me made it feel a bit lopsided, as if some of the others were token additions but not real people. Which is funny, because the whole novel otherwise felt incredibly real. I read somewhere that astronauts who've been in the ISS were surprised at the level of realistic detail, both on how it looks, on how it is to live there, and on all the practical things. If the setting is so real, why couldn't the characters all be real as well?

Finally, as I said earlier, this novel is not about what happens. It is about taking a step back, reflecting on the human impact on Earth. Which can be durable and sustainable, such as the ISS itself, but also destructive, such as the impact of climate change or the human encroachment on natural habitats. Zooming out to this macro level, also somewhat zooming out to see all of human history, puts a lot of the emotions that the characters feel into perspective. But you need both. And you need the realisation that in the end, we are still at the mercy of other powers, as the typhoon is a constant reminder of. I found these relfections, several of which take place as the astronauts sleep, the most inspiring and thought-provoking parts of the book.

All in all, Orbital was a beautiful read that could have been better if it had better balance and/or focus. But its message, about our progress and our pitfalls, makes it a clear Booker winner.