Here's the breakdowns first.
I read 91 books total. Magazine and invidudal short stories aren't counted, except for novellas published as separate books (including Dickens' five "holiday" novellas, though I counted that as only one book.) 37 books were by women -- about 40%, a bit of a comedown from last years' dead even split. (I blame that in part on reading 6 books by Anthony Trollope and 3 each by Charles Dickens and J. R. R. Tolkien -- if I just count authors the share of women goes up to 46%.) I've reviewed almost all of these book, either here at this blog, at my substack, or at Black Gate.
I read 8 novels in translation, 4 from the French, and one each from the Japanese, the Spanish, the Danish, and the Swedish.
27 books were Science Fiction, and 23 Fantasy. Eight of the SF books were from writers outside the genre, and three of the Fantasies. I read five crime or thriller novels, 14 that I would call "contemporary fiction" (essentially, books written after about 1925). There were 3 nonfiction books, and a rather low (for me) 3 in the category of "Old Popular Fiction" -- books from the late 19th century through the first couple or so decades of the 20th Century. Of the "contemporary" novels, seven were by midcentury UK women writers.
A lot of my reading was novellas -- the five Dickens stories, and quite a few SF/Fantasy stories, a total of at least 14, though a couple books I categorized differently were very short, such as André Breton's Nadja and Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron. 80 of the books were long fiction, novellas or novels, and there were 7 story collections plus one anthology. 10 of the novels I read were very long -- say 500 pages or maybe 175,000 words plus.
Following is the list of books I read, ordered alphabetically by author. More detailed comments on the best of them can be found here: My Best Books of 2025.
The Case of the Late Pig, by Margery Allingham
Hidden Folk, by Eleanor Arnason
Spring List, by Ralph Arnold
Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
On the Calculation of Volume I, by Solvej Balle
The Early Worm, by Robert Benchley
The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett
A Drop of Corruption, by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Horse Without a Head, by Paul Berna
Tanner's Twelve Swingers, by Lawrence Block
The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen
A Royal Pain, by Rhys Bowen
Rowany de Vere and a Fair Degree of Frost, by Chaz Brenchley
Nadja, by André Breton
Belinda, by Rhoda Broughton
Evelina, by Frances Burney
Rakesfall, by Vajra Chandrasekera
Saint Death's Herald, by C. S. E. Cooney
Starhiker, by Jack Dann
The Artistry of Magic, by Helen De Cruz
The Tents of Wickedness, by Peter De Vries
Some Trick, by Helen DeWitt
Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol and Other Holiday Treasures, by Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas
The River Has Roots, by Amal El-Mohtar
Euphoria Days, by Pilar Fraile
Treacle Walker, by Alan Garner
The Love of Monsieur, by George Gibbs
The River, by Rumer Godden
In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden
Annie Bot, by Sierra Greer
The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman
Den of Thieves, by Daniel Hatch
A Mourning Coat, by Alex Jeffers
A Sorceress Comes to Call, by T. Kingfisher
Space Trucker Jess, by Matthew Kressel
Lies and Weddings, by Kevin Kwan
The Book of the Night, by Rhoda Lerman
Radiomen, by Eleanor Lerman
In Memoriam: A Novel of the Terran Diaspora, by Fred Lerner
This Shape We're In, by Jonathan Lethem
The Brothers Lionheart, by Astrid Lindgren
Changing Places, by David Lodge
Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
Metallic Realms, by Lincoln Michel
Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell
The Adventures of Mary Darling, by Pat Murphy
Where the Axe is Buried, by Ray Nayler
Collisions, by Alec Nevala-Lee
The Ante-Room, by Kate O'Brien
The Blighted Stars, by Megan O'Keefe
Miss Marjoribanks, by Margaret Oliphant
A Ladder of Swords, by Gilbert Parker
Haunt Sweet Home, by Sarah Pinsker
Major Arcana, by John Pistelli
Bewilderment, by Richard Powers
Inverted World, by Christopher Priest
The Old English Baron, by Clara Reeve
On Strike Against God, by Joanna Russ
The Female Man, by Joanna Russ
The Gipsy in the Parlour, by Margery Sharp
Up the Line, by Robert Silverberg
The New Atlantis, edited by Robert Silverberg
Cahokia Jazz, by Francis Spufford
The English Air, by D. E. Stevenson
The Sleep of Reason, by Michael Swanwick
Naomi, by Junichiro Tanizaki
Angel, by Elizabeth Taylor
Alien Clay, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Service Model, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Fellowship of the Ring, by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Two Towers, by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Perilous Realm, by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Wings of the Morning, by Louis Tracy
The Small House at Allington, by Anthony Trollope
The Last Chronicle of Barset, by Anthony Trollope
Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope
The Eustace Diamonds, by Anthony Trollope
Miss Mackenzie, by Anthony Trollope
The Fixed Period, by Anthony Trollope
The Curious Case of the Somnambulist and the Psychic Thief, by Lisa Tuttle
The Feathered Serpent, by Edgar Wallace
The Children of Llyr, by Evangeline Walton
The Elfland Prepositions, by Henry Wessells
A Philosophy of Thieves, by Fran Wilde
Someone You Can Build a Nest In, by John Wiswell
Endangered Species, by Gene Wolfe
Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods!, edited by Richard Wolinsky
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