This year, despite all the shit going down, I read 285 books, 256 of them for the first time. Of those 256, these are my top 27 reads of 2025:
My top 18 novels in roughly this order:
Marguerite Young, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (1965)
Victor Serge, The Case of Comrade Tulayev (1949)
Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2009)
Wallace Stegner, The Big Rock Candy Mountain (1943)
H.T. Tsiang, The Hanging on Union Square (1935)
Pepetela, The Return of the Water Spirit (1995)
Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye (1953) – the one Chandler I’d never read because I hate the Altman film so much
Andrei Bely, Petersburg (1916)
Maxim Gorky, The Life of a Useless Man (1908)
José Eduardo Agualusa, The Book of Chameleons (2004)
Dorothy L. Sayers, Murder Must Advertise (1933), which I suspect works so well cos I was reading them all in order for the first time and this is the odd one out
Geoff Ryman, Animals: A Tale of Terror (2025)
Benjamin Myers, The Gallows Pole (2017)
Ian McGuire, The North Water (2016)
Andrea Barrett, The Voyage of the Narwhal (1998)
Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Four Hands (1990)
Ira Wolfert, Tucker’s People (1943)
Gypsy Rose Lee, The G-String Murders (1941)
Jacek Dukaj’s Ice (2007, translated 2025) would probably have been in second place but events this shitty December conspired to prevent me finishing it yet.
My top 8 non-fiction books in roughly this order
Paul B. Preciado, Dysphoria Mundi (2025)
Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism (2024)
Samuel R. Delany, About Writing: 7 Essay, 4 Letters, 5 Interviews (2005)
Jordan S. Carroll, Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right (2024)
Amiri Baraka (as LeRoi Jones), Blues People (1963)
Ben Sidran, Black Talk (1971)
Hallie Rubenhold, The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (2019)
Matthew T. Huber, Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet (2022)
My top poetry collections in exactly this order
Tony Harrison, Collected Poems (2007)
Here, for the curious, is the full list
The majority world = 145 (75 women)
Straight white men writing in English = 110
Multi-authored or otherwise don’t fit = 29
Kia Abdullah, Those People Next Door (2023)
Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat (1990)
José Eduardo Agualusa, The Book of Chameleons (2004)
Nikil Anand, Akhil Gupta and Hannah Appel, eds, The Promise of Infrastructure (2018)
David Andress, The Terror: Civil War in the French Revolution (2005)
Robbie Arnott, The Rain Heron (2020)
Ashley Audrain, The Push (2021)
Amiri Baraka (as LeRoi Jones), Blues People (1963)
Andrea Barrett, The Voyage of the Narwhal (1998)
Andrei Bely, Petersburg (1916)
Cyprian Bérard, The Vampire Lord Ruthven (1820)
Earl Derr Biggers, The House Without a Key (1925)
Rob Boffard, Tracer (2015)
–. Zero-G (2016)
Mark Bould, Solaris (2014)
–. The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture (2021)
Philip Braithwaite, Time Lords and Star Cops: British Science Fiction Television in the 1970-1980s (2023)
André Brink, Devil’s Valley (1998)
Kevin Brockmeier, The Brief History of the Dead (2006)
Tobias S. Buckell, Shoggoths in Traffic and Other Stories (2021)
Eugene Burdick and Eugene Wheeler, Fail-Safe (1962)
W.R. Burnett, The Asphalt Jungle (1949)
Brendan C. Byrne, Accelerate (2021)
Lord Byron, The Giaour (1813)
Juan Díaz Canales, Juanjo Guarnido et al., Blacksad: They All Fall Down, part one (2021)
–. Blacksad: They All Fall Down, part two (2023)
Jordan S. Carroll, Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right (2024)
Vera Caspary, Laura (1942)
Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (1950)
Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939)
–. Farewell My Lovely (1940)
–. The High Window (1942)
–. The Lady in the Lake (1943)
–. The Little Sister (1949)
–. The Long Goodbye (1953)
–. Playback (1958)
John Christopher, The Year of the Comet (1955)
–. The World in Winter (1962)
George Makana Clark, The Raw Man (2011)
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ed., Monster Theory: Reading Culture (1996)
Ralph Cooper with Steve Dougherty, Amateur Night at the Apollo: Ralph Cooper Presents Five Decades of Great Entertainment (1990)
Susan Cooper, Over Sea, Under Stone (1965)
–. The Dark is Rising (1973)
–. Greenwitch (1974)
–. The Grey King (1975)
–. Silver on the Tree (1977)
Caroline Corcoran, The Baby Group (2020)
Julio Cortázar, Fantomas Versus the Multinational Vampire: An Attainable Utopia (1975)
Bernard Cornwell, Crackdown (1991)
Mia Couto, Under the Frangipani (1996)
Jessica Cuello, Yours, Creature (2023)
Joanna Davis-McElligatt, Black Aliens: Kinship in the Cosmic Diaspora (2026)
Len Deighton, The IPCRESS File (1962)
Samuel R. Delany, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999)
–. About Writing: 7 Essay, 4 Letters, 5 Interviews (2005)
Philip K. Dick, Confessions of a Crap Artist (1975)
–. Puttering About in a Small Land (1985)
–. In Milton Lumky Territory (1985)
–. Mary and the Giant (1987)
Dilman Dila, Where Rivers Go To Die (2023)
Isak Dinesen, The Angelic Avengers (1946)
Bryony Dixon, 100 Silent Films (2011)
Jules Dornay, Lord Ruthven Begins (i.e., Douglas le Vampyre 1865)
Benjamin Dreyer, Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style (2019)
Alexandre Dumas, The Return of Lord Ruthven (i.e., Le Vampire 1851)
Masha du Toit, Crooks & Straights (2014)
Robert Edric, Salvage (2010)
Junius Edwards, If We Must Die (1963)
Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman (2013)
Percival Everett, James (2024)
Hans Fallada, Alone in Berlin (1947)
Silvia Federici, Wages Against Housework (1974)
Paul Féval, The Vampire Countess (1856)
–. Knightshade (1850, 1875)
–. Vampire City (1867)
C.S. Forester, Mr Midshipman Hornblower (1950)
–. Lieutenant Hornblower (1952)
–. Hornblower and the Hotspur (1962)
Athol Fugard, Tsotsi (1980)
Alan Garner, The Owl Service (1967)
–. Red Shift (1973)
Cecily Gayford, ed., Murder in a Heatwave (2023)
Peter George, Red Alert (1958)
–. Dr Strangelove: or, How I Learned Not to Worry and Love the Bomb (1963)
Sam George and Bill Hughes, eds, The Legacy of John Polidori: The Romantic Vampire and Its Progeny (2024)
Aaron Gerow, A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan (2008)
Rumer Godden, Black Narcissus (1939)
Tao Leigh Goffe, Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean and the Origins of the Climate Crisis (2025
Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays (1910)
Witold Gombrowicz, Possessed (1939)
Maxim Gorky, The Life of a Useless Man (1908)
Richard Gott, Britain’s Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt (2011)
Stefan Grabinski, The Dark Domain (1918/22; 1993)
Barry Keith Grant, 100 Science Fiction Films (2013)
Jen Green and Sarah LeFanu, eds, Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind (1985)
Lotte and Søren Hammer, The Girl in the Ice (2010)
Dashiell Hammett, The Continental Op (1975)
Elizabeth Hand, A Haunting on the Hill (2023)
Donna J. Haraway, The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant Otherness (2003)
Nick Harkaway, Titanium Noir (2023)
MacDonald Harris, The Balloonist (1977)
Tony Harrison, Collected Poems (2007)
Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train (2015)
Lily Herne, Deadlands (2011)
Olive Higgins Prouty, Stella Dallas (1923)
Jim Hillier and Alastair Phillips, 100 Film Noirs (2009)
Jim Hillier and Douglas Pye, 100 Film Musicals (2011)
Eric Hobsbawm, Bandits (1969; 2000 edition)
bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (1994)
Nalo Hopkinson, Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions (2024)
Matthew T. Huber, Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet (2022)
Marie-Hélène Huet, Monstrous Imagination (1993)
Charlie Human, Apocalypse Now Now (2013)
Leon Hunt, Danger: Diabolik (2018)
Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil’s Day (2017)
Mehita Iqani and Wamuwi Mbao, eds, Flow (2023)
–. The Night Sky (2024)
Vicki Jarrett, Always North (2016)
Gayl Jones, Corregidora (1975)
Franz Kafka, The Castle (1926)
John Kessel, Pride and Prometheus (2018)
Joseph Kessel, Belle de jour (1928)
Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (1988)
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Childhood Among Ghosts (1976)
Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism (2024)
Ailton Krenak, Life is Not Useful (2020)
Rebecca F. Kuang, Yellowface (2023)
Lady Caroline Lamb, Glenarvon (2016)
Joe R. Lansdale, Sam Keith et al., 30 Days of Night: Night Again (2011)
Károly Lathjay and Mihály Kertész (Michael Curtiz!) (?) and László Tamásfi, Dracula’s Death (1924, 2020)
Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon, The Virgin Vampire (1825)
John le Carrè, A Murder of Quality (1962)
–. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)
–. The Looking Glass War (1965)
–. A Small Town in Germany (1969)
–. The Naïve and Sentimental Lover (1971)
Gypsy Rose Lee, The G-String Murders (1941)
Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961)
–. Highcastle (1975)
Lilian Le Mesurier, The Socialist Woman’s Guide to Intelligence: A Reply to Mr Shaw (1929)
Maja Lunde, The End of the Ocean (2017)
Ed McBain, Heat (1981)
Andrew McCoy, The Insurrectionist (1979)
Amy McCulloch, Midnight aka The Girl on the Ice (2023)
Ian McGuire, The North Water (2016)
Peter McPhee, Liberty or Death: The French Revolution (2016)
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas aka Epitaph of a Small Winner (1881)
Charles Eric Maine, The Tide Went Out (1958)
–. The Darkest of Nights (1962)
Clarence Major, All-Night Visitors (1969; restored 1998 version)
Alberto Manguel, ed., Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature (1983)
Edward Margolies and Michel Fabre, The Several Lives of Chester Himes (1997)
Paule Marshall, Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959)
Richard Matheson, Hell House (1971)
Seichô Matsumoto, Tokyo Express (1958)
Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)
Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957)
Charles Mingus, Beneath the Underdog (1971)
Octave Mirbeau, Diary of a Chambermaid (1900)
Asa Simon Mittman and Peter J. Dendle, eds, The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous (2012)
Michael Moorcock, An Alien Heat (1972)
–. The Hollow Lands (1975)
–. The End of All Songs (1976)
C.L. Moore, Jirel of Joiry (1934–39; 1977)
John P. Moore et al, The Martian Trilogy (2025)
Ward Moore, Greener Than You Think (1947)
–. Bring the Jubilee (1953)
Bob Mortimer, The Hotel Avocado (2024)
Benjamin Myers, The Gallows Pole (2017)
Kris Neville (and uncredited, despite Neville’s protests, Mel Sturgis), Invaders on the Moon (1970)
Marie Nizet, Captain Vampire (1879)
Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism (1965)
Charles Nodier, Smarra, or the Demons of the Night (1821)
Charles Nodier, Achille de Jouffroy, Toussaint Merle and Carmpouche, The Vampire (1820)
Masande Ntshanga, Triangulum (2018)
Lizzie O’Shea, Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us about Digital Technology (2019)
Joyce Carol Oates, Jack of Spades (2015)
Brandon O’Brien, Can You Sign My Tentacle? (2021)
Nnedi Okorafor, Akata Warrior (2017)
Chibundu Onuzo, The Spider King’s Daughter (2012)
Pepetela, The Return of the Water Spirit (1995)
–. Jaime Bunda, Secret Agent (2001)
Chris Petit, The Psalm Killer (1996)
Gary Phillips, Violent Spring (1994)
Pierre-Alexis Ponson du Terrail, The Vampire and the Devil’s Son (1852)
Richard Powers, The Gold Bug Variations (1991)
–. Playground (2024)
Paul B. Preciado, Dysphoria Mundi (2025)
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, The Ice Limit (2000)
–. Beyond the Ice Limit (2016)
Stephen Prince, A Year in the Country: Wandering through Spectral Fields (2018)
Ann Quin, Berg (1964)
Mark Rascovich, The Bedford Incident (1963)
Olga Ravn, The Employees (2020)
Mack Reynolds, Tomorrow Might Be Different (1960/1975)
Luke Rhinehart, The Dice Man (1971)
John Rieder, Truth, Lies, and Speculative Fiction: Confronting Dogmatism, Demagoguery, and Disinformation (2026)
Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism (1938)
Sally Rooney, Intermezzo (2024)
Jordy Rosenberg, Confessions of the Fox (2018)
Hallie Rubenhold, The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (2019)
Geoff Ryman, Animals: A Tale of Terror (2025)
James Sallis, The Long-Legged Fly (1992)
–. Sarah Jane (2019)
Albert Sánchez Piñol, Cold Skin (2002)
Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? (1923)
–. Clouds of Witness (1926)
–. Unnatural Death (1928)
–. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928)
–. Strong Poison (1930)
–. The Five Red Herrings (1931)
–. Have His Carcase (1932)
–. Murder Must Advertise (1933)
–. The Nine Tailors (1934)
–. Gaudy Night (1935)
–. Busman’s Honeymoon (1937)
Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace, The Documents in the Case (1930)
John Sayles, To Save the Man (2025)
Paul Scheerbart, The Perpetual Motion Machine: The Story of an Invention (1910)
Steven Jay Schneider, ed., 100 European Horror Films (2007)
Eugène Scribe and Mélesville, The Vampire (1821)
Ousmane Sembene, Niiwam and Taaw: Two Novellas (1987)
Victor Serge, The Case of Comrade Tulayev (1949)
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Zastrozzi (1810)
Kim Sherwood, A Spy Like Me (2024)
M.P. Shiel, The Purple Cloud (1901
Ben Sidran, Black Talk (1971)
Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (1977)
Herbert Simmons, Corner Boy (1957)
Lillian Smith, Strange Fruit (1944)
J.E. Smyth, Nobody’s Girl Friday: The Women Who Ran Hollywood (2018)
Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland (2021)
Dickon Springate, ed., 1816: The Year Without Summer – 12 Original Stories of Lovecraftian Horror (2019)
Wallace Stegner, The Big Rock Candy Mountain (1943)
Harry Stein, Malt Leav et al, The Heap, volume one (1942–48; collected 2013)
–. The Heap, volume two (1948–50; collected 2013)
–. The Heap, volume three (1951–1953; collected 2013)
James Stephens, The Charwoman’s Daughter (1912)
Fred Strydom, The Raft (2015)
Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Four Hands (1990)
Shaun Tan, Tales from the Inner City (2018)
Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Doors of Eden (2020)
–. Alien Clay (2024)
Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2009)
B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927)
Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun (1939)
H.T. Tsiang, The Hanging on Union Square (1935)
Two Fingers and James T. Kirk, Junglist (1995)
Herbert van Thal, ed., The Pan Book of Horror Stories (1959)
Jules Verne, The Underground City (1877)
–. The Castle in Transylvania (1892)
Harl Vincent, The Doomsday Planet (1966)
Dave Wallis, Only Lovers Left Alive (1964)
Rosie Warren, ed., Salvage 15: Bewitched and Distorted (2024–25)
David E. Weaver, Black Diva of the Thirties: The Life of Ruby Elzy (2004)
James White, Hospital Station (1962)
–. Star Surgeon (1963)
–. Major Operation (1971)
Paul Wild, Akira Kurosawa (2014)
Kate Wilhelm, The Mile-Long Spaceship (1963)
Ally Wilkes, All the White Spaces (2022)
Charles Willeford, Cockfighter (1972)
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (1944)
D. Harlan Wilson, Strangelove Country: Science Fiction, Filmosophy, and the Kubrickian Consciousness (2025)
–. A Scanner Darkly (2026)
Ira Wolfert, Tucker’s People (1943)
Jason Woods, 100 American Independent Films (2004)
Cornell Woolrich, The Bride Wore Black (1940)
–. I Married a Dead Man (1947)
Helen Wright, A Matter of Oaths (1988)
Jonathan Wright, ed., Adventure Rocketship! Let’s All Go to the Science Fiction Disco (2013)
Richard Wright, Black Boy (1937)
John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids (1951)
–. The Kraken Wakes (1953)
–. The Chrysalids (1955)
–. The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)
–. The Trouble with Lichen (1960)
–. A Plan for Chaos (2009)
John Wyndham and, well, John Wyndham (as Lucas Parkes), The Outward Urge (1959/1961)
Marguerite Young, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (1965)
George Zebrowski, The Omega Point (1972)
–. Ashes and Stars (1977)
–. The Monadic Universe (1977)
–. Mirror of Minds (1983)
Sarah Zettel, Kingdom of Cages (2001)
Mark Bould 