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.
