My Recommended Reading List from 2025

Recommended Reading List 2025

Slough House Series by Mick Herron. Any of the books in this series are seriously wonderful entertainment. As a writer, Mick does a lot of interesting things worth studying. He does some great floating viewpoints in many of the novels, often seamlessly switching to multiple characters in the same scene. This is something people will tell you shouldn’t do. But go read Herron and you’ll see why if you know what you are doing, the rules don’t apply to you.

The Secret of Secrets: A Novel, Dan Brown, Random House, 2025. I remember thinking what a perfect book The Davinci Code was when I read it. It had the special sauce that made it an international bestseller. With The Secrets of Secrets, we are getting a good solid Robert Langdon mystery thriller. But it’s really hard to get something as big as Da Vinci code. It is a good book though and very entertaining. I consumed it via audiobook, just because I can’t read as many books as I’d like in a month, but there is always moments where I can listen. As I get older, I am also finding my eyes are tired at the end of the day. So, I am more likely to pop on some headphones and listen to something. When I am taveling into work on the train I can listen to book during the car ride to the station, while waiting on the platform, while riding the train, and even while walking the last mile to the office. And then when I am at work, I work as a digital artist, I can keep listening for most of the day. That’s a lot of story consumption I wouldn’t be able to get if reading was the only option.

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019, edited by Sy Montgomery, Mariner Books, 2019. Now this is not a book I would have picked up on my own accord. It was recommended for a writing course I was watching that gives you six to seven books to read before you start the class. One of the assignments was to pick a story you liked and use it as inspiration for a work of fiction. To my surprise I really enjoyed these essays curated from multiple magazines. There is something to learn from these talented writers. How to make a technical topic approachable to the general public for one. I was also impressed at how they were all able to craft subjects that might by themselves utterly boring into well crafted page turners. And on top of all that you might just learn something new about the world we live in. Articles like the one about placebos introduced me to an issue I had never thought about when it comes to pharmaceuticals.

Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, translated by Ken Liu, Tordorcom, 2019. I’ve talked about this book before on this blog. It makes the list because there are some good stories in this book. Hats off to the translations of Ken Liu as well. You might miss out on some of the cultural significance in some of these stories unless you are up to date on your Chinese history, but I found all the stories to be entertaining. One thing that stood out to me is how similar we all are as humans. I get this feeling when I hear people speaking different languages on TV. Some dialects sound angry to my western ears. But when you see the translation on the screen, it completely changes your interpretation of what the person is saying. Without subtitles, a man yelling in Arabic looks angry. He’s probably condemning the West. And then you see the subtitles and he’s just excited because it’s his mother’s birthday and he was able to get her the sweets she likes. Context is everything.

We Are Legion (We Are Bob): Bobiverse: Book1, Dennis E. Taylor S&S/Saga Press, 2025. I consumed the entire series via Audible. The books are read by Ray Porter, who is the Taylor Swift of the audiobook world. I recommend you get these on audio as well. The book combines hard science and pop culture to create a great sci-fi adventure. If you enjoy what ifs, science, space travel, speculative fiction, action and thrillers, this book is for you.

Sun Symbol Series, Scott Sigler, Empty Set Entertainment, 2018. This is another book series I consumed on Audible. Also read by Ray Porter, although I believe there are full-cast versions as well. I listened to the Ray Porter version as I like his readings. This is Earth-based science fiction happening in the here and now. This is a very bingeable series as well. A great follow-up if you enjoyed the Bobiverse books above.

Leave me a comment about your favourite reads of 2025.