Top 5 Books I’ve Read in 2025

Another year, another rounding up of literature. While during the first half of the year, my reading fell off, upon my arrival in New Zealand, it picked back up, and I found 5 books that stood apart.

5. Wolf Hall

Despite my various stints in the United Kingdom, I’ve only known the broad strokes of the story of Henry VIII. I never gave proper attention to how bold a move, politically and financially, it was for Britain to break off from the Catholic Church, nor to the players who helped make that happen, using Henry’s desire for a new wife as a tool for accomplishing it. Hilary Mantel does a great job of both illuminating the world stage and developing the characters into something that feels like it is true canon. Though I specifically name Wolf Hall, the entire Thomas Cromwell trilogy is a consistently well done story, and the characters, motifs, and hints carry across each of the volumes. I am always a fan of good historical fiction (shoutout to I, Claudius), and this is another one that deserves its proper place.

4. The Worst Journey in the World

I admittedly do not read enough nonfiction. This one, however, caught my attention not only because the fateful journey to the Antarctica by the Scott Expedition of 1910 takes off from New Zealand, but also because the story promised to be exciting: a race to be the first to reach the South Pole, only to have been beaten to it 3 weeks earlier and never make it back alive. Shockingly, though, that is not what is considered the Worst Journey in the World. That is devoted to a winter trip, in eternal darkness, hurricane winds and -70 degree weather, to get an emperor penguin egg for the sake of science. The only surviving member of that expedition, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, is the author of this book accounting why the expedition acted as it did, and why things went so catastrophically awry. Some may recognize this book, as I mentioned it having inspired me during the Tongariro Crossing earlier this year. Despite the dryness of constant bleak and scientific journal entries, the substance of the story and the testament to the strength and perseverance of mankind shines through it and leaves the reader fascinated and full of admiration. It is proof that sometimes the truth can be more incredible than fiction.

A video of the Tongariro Crossing

3. The House of the Spirits

I had read 100 Years of Solitude just the year prior, ranking it 4th in my list of favorites, for those who may recall. I consider this to be the sister novel to that one, a magical realism retelling of the history of Isabel Allende’s Chile instead of Marquez’s Colombia, with a more feminist lens and much easier family tree to follow. Importantly, the novelist was fairly closely related to Salvador Allende, the socialist president of Chile who was overthrown in an American-backed coup which led to his death that same day. It led to a military dictatorship, and holds a renewed poignancy today, considering the role the United States continues to play in ousting of South American leaders. But even more than that, it’s a great novel with beautiful language and captivating characters.

2. The Sellout

Paul Beatty is the first American author to win the Booker Prize, and it was for this satirical novel. Taking place at the end of the Obama Era, it follows the circumstances which led to a black man, called the Sellout, defending himself in the Supreme Court for holding a slave. The humor is sharp and witty, and the story flies. It replaces pastoral sunsets with an intercity farm clouded in smog and follows the protagonist as he weaponizes people’s racial stereotyping and biases to bring about positive results for his disenfranchised community. I burst out laughing many times at the audacity of both the protagonist and the author alike.

I finished reading The Sellout while hiking the Rakiura Track

1. Midnight’s Children

Speaking of Booker Prize winners, this one won the best of the books to have received the award during the first 40 years of the prize’s existence. Often considered Salman Rushdie’s masterpiece, I was eager to read it after The Satanic Verses ranked 4th in my 2023 list of top books I had read. Interestingly, it is easy to also see Marquez’s influence in this book as well, as it, too, tells a magical realism story of a family, weaving in the birth of India with the birth of the protagonist, Saleem. Unlike with those, however, this one weaves humor and satire into it as well. The callbacks are also taken to a new level: almost every description and every occurrence is a motif of some kind, as the narrator tries to find connection and meaning in everything that occurred in his life, tying it to national events and family history. It makes for a densely packed story that poses just as many questions as it does themes.

A significant portion of Midnight's Children takes place in Mumbai, which I visited back in 2018