25 in 2025, plus a few recs

Usually I base at least some of my reading plans each year on the Literary Life Podcast Reading Challenge for that year, but they aren’t doing a new one for 2025, leaving us to either do one of the earlier ones or roll our own. Since I’ve followed along with most of them the past few years, I decided I would just focus on some books I've been meaning to read for a while, most of which I already own.

I’ve also been recommended a few books by friends that I hope to read, though I’m not doing any official recommendation challenge: I will continue Kristen Lavransdatter with the second book The Wife, plus I’ve been recommended Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino, If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio, and The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe.

Aside from those, here are the 25 books I intend to read in 2025.

Metamorphoses by Ovid
This is a long-time TBR and I keep putting it off and it keeps coming back to front of mind when I have too much else on my plate to prioritize it. So this year I’m prioritizing it. Students at our school read excerpts from it in 9th grade, which is only a couple of years away for Karina (okay, that was a startling recognition right now) and I’d like to have read it first. Plus I just generally love mythology and am kind of astonished that I’ve never read Ovid directly.

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
This is my “doorstopper” read for the year, which I usually tackle starting at the beginning of summer and read slowly but consistently the rest of the year. I struggled between choosing this one or Tristram Shandy, but this one won out for…no discernable reason, honestly. But both fit with an overall desire to improve the massive gap in my literary knowledge that is the 18th century.

Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope
The impetus for this one was a guest speaker we had at school last year - also a literature guy, he asked what my “specialty” was and I said 19th century British lit, and he goes “Oh, I love that, have you read Trolloppe?” And I had to admit that I hadn’t (hellllllo, imposter syndrome) and he was like, “I just finished his entire corpus and it’s so great.” He said start with this one and so I’m starting with this one. I actually have started it now and I’m kind of loving it; I also discovered it’s like 850 pages so apparently I’m attempting two doorstoppers this year.

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
I’ve been teaching Tess of the d’Urbervilles for a few years, and I love it, but have never read any other Hardy novels. I saw the movie version of Far from the Madding Crowd about ten years ago and LOVED it, so it’s time to read the book.

The Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I hoped to read this last year, but didn’t get to it (would’ve been another King Arthur one to add to that theme!) - ideally I’d like to read it with my 11yo, so maybe a project to pursue in the summer.

Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams
Time to move beyond Lewis and Tolkien in my Inkling reading! I also have Poetic Diction by Owen Barfield, and maybe I’ll sneak that one in as well, but I’m intrigued by the weirdness I’ve heard about Charles Williams’ fiction.

The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
I hoped to get to this one last year but didn’t - I first heard about this in 1000 Books to Read Before You Die and was immediately interested because, well, medieval setting. And then everything else I’ve seen says it’s really challenging due to allusions, references, vocabulary and all the kinds of things that make me MORE interested to tackle it rather than less. Challenge accepted.

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
I’ve had this one on my shelf for a while after hearing about it as a good academia novel (the main characters are professors), and then I read another Stegner book on recommendation two years ago and really liked it. Time to get to this one.

In the Woods by Tana French
I’ve heard so many good things about this crime/detective series, so I picked up the first one at a library sale like…three years ago? Really I guess this is the year of reading books I own.

Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin
I read A History of the Island last year and mentioned that I had really wanted to read Laurus. I even had it on hold at the library at one point but couldn’t pick it up in time, so I backburnered it a little. But I’ve heard so many great things about it from people I trust (and who are similarly interested in medieval things and monasteries and stuff like that) that I need to try again to get to it.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
I was a big fan of Mandel’s Station Eleven several years ago and I want to do a better job of continuing to read contemporary authors I like. Like Station Eleven, sounds like this one plays on the edge of sci-fi and realism, and I love that.

James by Percival Everett
No book has been more hyped in 2024 than this reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and I had a friend directly recommend it to me, so okay. I’ll give it a go. I’m actually reading Huck Finn to my 11yo right now, so I’ll probably wait until we finish that and then put this one in the queue.

A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason
I have been teaching at least loosely according to Charlotte Mason principles for a couple of years now, but to my shame I have never actually read Mason herself - only books by Karen Glass and others outlining/explaining her philosophy of education. I meant to get to this one last year and didn’t (well, I started it), so I’m doubling down this year. This is going to be my major summer non-fiction read.

Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C.S. Lewis
Somehow as big a fan of Lewis as I am, I’ve never read his spiritual/educational autobiography, despite having heard about it so much and heard so much quoted from it that it FEELS like I have. I actually read this Jan 1-5 this year, so I have already checked this one of this list (and I loved it). 24 to go!

Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning by Jacques Barzun
Barzun’s name came up in certain classical education circles quite a bit a couple of years ago and I tried to jump on the bandwagon, buying two or three of his books, but I’m terrible at bandwagons (too much already in the queue) so I have had this sitting on my couch-side table for two years. Gonna begin here this year. See what I did there?

Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation by Josef Pieper
We’re reading (rereading for me) Pieper’s book Leisure: The Basis of Culture as a whole school this year (faculty and staff) and I want to branch out into some of his other books. This is a really slim one, so should be easy to slip in some off week.

The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton
Reading more Chesterton has been an ongoing goal, and I’ve been really interested in reading his main book about history, which then also got a lot of mention in Lewis’s Surprised by Joy so I’m even more excited about it. I started this two years ago, but it was more difficult than that particular time in my life could handle, but I’m feeling good about this year.

The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen
One of my favorite YouTube channels right now is ParkNotes, a philosophy/theology student who makes videos about philosophy but even more so about note-taking, and he did a video a bit ago about commonplace books and zibaldones, one of which I’ve kept for years and the other I’ve barely heard of, but he included a bit of a podcast interview he did with the author of this book, and I immediately ordered the book. I’m trying to be a better note-taker and use physical notebooks better, and I’m trying out a zibaldone this year (watch the video), but I’m excited to find out more! (I’m a nerd, aren’t I? I’ll own it.)

The Grand Canyon Expedition by John Wesley Powell
We went to the Grand Canyon this summer and found out about this guy Powell, who really captured my imagination. He was the first to take a boat down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, and it’s really dangerous to do that, with lots of rapids and rough water and difficult terrain. There’s actually a book about it by Wallace Stegner (whose fiction I have enjoyed and am reading more of this year) which I hope to read sometime, but one of the park ladies convinced me to just get Powell’s diaries, that they’re very readable and exciting.

The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England’s Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus by Andrew Klavan
This has been on my yearly to-read list for three years straight. I’ve said that about a bunch of things. Do you think I’ll get to them all this year? I certainly want to prioritize books I’ve owned a long time, so maybe.

Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self by Andrea Wulf
Continuing the focus on literary history, this recent release caught my eye. I’m very interested in the Romantic movement in general, and also in the question of identity and the self, so this seems like a great combination.

Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God by Malcolm Guite
I ordered this last year and was pretty surprised to see how diminutive it is! But everything Guite writes is amazing, so I’m looking forward to it. This is one of my favorite topics right now, the relationship of imagination, literature, and Christianity.

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
I’ve been reading Haidt’s Substack (After Babel) pretty regularly, and as both a mom and a teacher this is a subject that’s coming up more and more. I feel like I probably have a pretty good sense what’s in the book, but I’m interested in reading it for myself.

Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age by Rod Dreher
Seems very different in focus from Dreher’s previous books that I’ve read (The Benedict Option and Live Not By Lies) but I guess they’re all about living as Christians in a secular age, come to think of it. The addition of wonder and mystery here really intrigue me as I’m always interested in developing the faculty of wonder.

So that’s my list!

I usually get up to about 50 books total (though that does include rereading books I teach and books I read aloud to my kids), so I intend to augment this 25 (and 4 recs) with at least 5 new releases that sound interesting, leave some space for book club reads and whimsicality, and continue a few series that I’ve been enjoying, like Stephen Lawhead’s Pendragon series and Robert Galbraith’s Cormoron Strike books. All of that said, I do hold my reading plans loosely and I will feel no shame or regret should I not complete these goals - I just need a plan to keep focus.

I’d love to hear any thoughts you have on my plans - which of these have you read? Do you recommend them? What are you hoping to read in 2025?

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