I’ve been doing this list since 2006, which as anyone who is good at math will tell you, means this is my 20th edition of recording and quipping about the books I read. When I started doing my Year in Read, on raronauer.blogspot.com, writing about the books I read was part of my larger, fledgling internet persona. In 2006, you could have a blogspot and write about your friends and loneliness and a misleading movie review without any real ambitions beyond the pleasure of writing. Now, it seems like we’re all living in that last chapter of A Visit from the Goon Squad, where many of us have converted our social capital to more tangible, and in some cases profitable, internet selfhood.
I hope that doesn’t come off as old-man speak. It’s obviously a great time for self-expression, even if such self-expression is owned by someone else. If I were 23, I’d probably have a very active Instagram persona. Even at 42, I find myself posting about absurd vanity license plates. I don’t know why, beyond wanting people to know about the BY3BOI car that passed me by.
License plates and this list are really the only things I show of myself on the internet, though against my better interest, I do consume a lot of content generated by aspiring and successful influencers. As someone who loves narrative (gossip), it’s very easy for me to get entangled in human interest stories, and Instagram knows it. I have to stop myself from the deep dives on the family with two boys that tried for a girl, and ended up with boy triplets, two of whom are identical twins. Obviously, I’m very interested in the journey of the non-identical triplet, which his mother will no doubt document, but I should get off my phone and go for a walk.
I’ve become too self-conscious to share any real stories about my life. Like all years, this one was filled with triumph and disappointment, highs that I will hopefully remember more than the lows. The weather and the politics got worse, and my kids got older. Still, my gratitude for what is good keeps growing, and I’m grateful for that too.
But enough personal information for the algorithm. All I really want to tell you, the internet public and my friends who follow the link I gave them, is about the books I read this year. And here they are:
Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout
I started this year strong with Tell Me Everything, which became my de facto recommendation for 2025. The title evokes how I want to feel when I’m reading a book, that a good friend is dishing the dirt.
Meditations for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman
The Burgess Boys, Elizabeth Strout
I didn’t love The Burgess Boys as much as Tell Me Everything, but I was happy to spend more time in Crosby, Maine. Strout heads will understand.
Good Material, Dolly Alderton
Family Romance, Jean Strouse
I’m a John Singer Sargent stan, and I read a captivating review of this book, which is about Sargent’s Jewish-British art dealer who died in the Holocaust. I thought, sign me up! Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into this book. I made a similar mistake after spending a lot of time on the Wikipedia page of Samuel Jean de Pozzi. I couldn’t finish The Man in the Red Coat either. (I still recommend the book review and the Wikipedia page for Sargent fans out there.)
This Strange Eventful History, Claire Messud
Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris
I first read this book about 20 years ago, during my first year with a desk job. The experience of desk jobs, with Slack, hybrid and remote set-ups, and the ever-more-distracting internet has changed over the past 20 years. But the book still resonates and I think will remain a classic depiction of office culture.
Tilt, Emma Pattee
Show, Don’t Tell, Curtis Sittenfeld
The novella at the end of this collection, “Lost but Not Forgotten,” was one of my favorite reading experiences of the year. The story is a sequel to Prep; at Lee Fiora’s 30th reunion, we find her matured, which is a relief, and fully seen by Jeff Oltiss, an Ault classmate, which is a thrill. I’ve relistened to the Jeff Oltiss parts of the novella many times. A neurotic finding love: it’s true comfort listening.
The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai
Dancing Alone at the Pity Party, Tyler Feder
Notes to John, Joan Didion
I don’t think you need to care about Joan Didion to love her journal. It’s actually not quite a journal; it’s a set of unsent letters to her husband after Didion’s therapy sessions, which mostly concern their daughter. I guess even in a semi-unguarded state, Didion needed a device. I do think Didion realized this would be published eventually. She knew who she was and that her papers had been sold to the New York Public Library, and she chose not to throw this away. Whatever she thought would happen to this project, everyone—the therapist, her husband, her daughter, and Didion herself—is dead now. Fair or not, we afford less privacy to the dead than the living.
In these letters, there’s less of the Didion remove and coldness, but her precision remains. Didion is the master of control, but like any mother, she’s not in control of her child. Any parent who wants to guarantee a child’s happiness will relate to her struggle. And anyone whose mom or dad has overstepped would do well to read this to understand just how desperate parents are to protect their kids.
Be Ready When the Luck Happens, Ina Garten
Speaking of iconic women of a different generation … I never thought much of Ina Garten either way. I don’t watch the Food Network and never came across her recipes. But a profile of her in the New Yorker got me into a hole, and I happily listened to her memoir while gardening. I discovered what a lot of people already know: she’s good company, which is ultimately the highest compliment for a book.
Playworld, Adam Ross
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
Bad Company, Megan Greenwell
I went to college with Megan; she was my editor at the Columbia Spectator. This book is serious—it’s about private equity disrupting (read: destroying) various companies—but here and there, I could spot Megan’s wry humor peeking through.
Second Life, Amanda Hess
Seduction Theory, Emily Adrian
Spent, Alison Bechdel
I enjoy Bechdel’s company and her curiosity about how to be a good person in a corrupt world. This book is her meta-fictional account of post-COVID, late modern capitalism living. Bechdel is honest about her hypocrisies, aware of her blind spots, and open to seeing how the kids are going to make the world a better place than her generation did.
Doppelgänger, Naomi Klein
Oh, this one was a tough read, only because Klein is so right about how the rise of individualism and failure of the social state have made collective action impossible. Everything she writes is true and interesting, but ultimately deeply depressing.
Perfection, Vincenzo Latronico
Not enough modern fiction explores how much we’re on screens and what that’s doing to us. And while I understand that there’s very little narrative tension in checking email, checking Reddit, and reading half of a New York Times article, that’s how I spend a lot of time. You’d think a book about two indistinguishable expats with ample time and money looking for purpose in Berlin would be slow-going. But a good enough writer can make anything propulsive, and Latronico is more than good enough. This book kept me up reading and made me wish I had experienced it with a book club, because it posed a lot of questions about happiness, the appearance of happiness, and our digital age. If you do read it, check out Latronico’s interview on the Otherppl podcast, which does not quite connect you with a community about this book centered on adults adrift without community, but it’s close.
Heart the Lover, Lily King
I can’t explain what Lily King does to me, but I stayed up until 10:30 pm (1:00 am for normal people) reading this part sequel, part prequel to Writers and Lovers. Hard recommend for all Lily King fans out there. She’s the master of the love triangle.
Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld
I’ve read this book maybe a million times, but I wanted to revisit it after my delightful experience with its sequel.
On Love, Amy Bloom
After watching my mom die, I’ve thought a fair bit about end-of-life assisted suicide, and how nice a quick trip to Switzerland would be. As this book details, it’s a lot more paperwork than I had imagined, and still sad, because there’s never enough life, even when there’s not much more quality of life.
The Correspondent, Virginia Evans
A crotchety old woman in an epistolary novel: not what I think I’d like! But the epistolary format created narrative momentum; there were certain letter writers I was eager to hear back from. I was so into this book that Bryon and I spent our date night hiding in our bedroom so I could finish reading it. And reader, I cried!
Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain
I’ve never consumed much Bourdain content, but he’s a figure I knew of and was curious about. In his first memoir, he’s so vibrant and in love with the possibilities, pleasures, and pain of the cooking life that his suicide in 2018 feels extra incomprehensible.
Hey Ladies, Caroline Moss and Michelle Markowitz
I read this book about girls planning a series of wedding-related activities as a lark, but the writers are in on the joke. They deftly portray group dynamics and the experience of being single in your late 20s. The book was good company and perhaps too relatable.
Trust, Hernán Diaz
I don’t know if you need me to recommend a book that won the Pulitzer Prize, but in case you do, I recommend it! The book is intricate and erudite, curious about the nature of storytelling and informed about early 20th-century capitalism. But who cares about all that high-brow stuff? It was a true pleasure to read!
Dead and Alive, Zadie Smith
Am I Zadie Smith’s biggest fan out there? I’m sure there’s someone with a cardboard cutout of her head somewhere. But I do love her a lot. This book of essays has her trademark curiosity and smarts on full display. She reads the audiobook and is a great narrator. I started listening to the book, but ended up buying it so I could underline sentences and lend it out. It also seemed antithetical to this book, which features an essay about the freedom of the novel—no app can create or sell data on your experience of reading a book—to have a third party mitigate my experience with Zadie Smith. That said, I’m sure I will use Spotify to relisten to “Some Notes on Mediated Time,” her discourse on what having a computer in our pockets is doing to our brains, whenever I find myself looking at my phone instead of being a person.
Previously read: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006