These aren’t necessarily the BEST things I read, but rather, the top 12 (because it makes for a better photo collage) books I read in 2025 that stuck with me. There are other excellent books that I read, like Ulysses, or Emma, that just stay with me always, are so much in the fabric of my being that it seems silly to put them in the Best of. And there were other books that I really loved and was surprised not to be including here, most notably, Maria Reva’s Endling, which really should be here, because I think of it all the time (just yesterday, for example, talking to my parents about the snails in their aquarium). Oh shit, and My Son’s Story, by Nadine Gordimer, how is that not here. Well, whatever, I’m not redoing it now. Blame the cold medicine, I’m not feeling super sharp right now.
Many of these I’ve written about already (which is a nice surprise — I did a better-than-usual job actually writing about things I loved this year), so rather than reiterate what makes them great, I’m going to just jot some quick, hopefully not too loopy, impressions.
Being Mortal, Atul Gawande. It’s so hard to think about end of life decisions. This book asks you to think about what matters to you, how you want to live your life when it’s not possible to keep going the way you have been.
Poufne, Mikołaj Grynberg. The kind of sparing, austere, abstract writing that I am often drawn to, here reckoning with Holocaust trauma passed on through generations. I was mesmerized.
Home Fire, Kamila Shamsie. Could not put it down. I love a good re-telling of a classic, and this is so brilliantly placed in a new context so as to make you think about contemporary politics in a fresh way, and also to remind you of the timeless brilliance of the original Antigone.
The Husbands, Holly Gramazio. So fun, so smart. What is a husband? What is a marriage?
The Boy from the Sea, Garrett Carr. What sticks with me are the characters. I was so attached to them.
The Singularity, Balsam Karam, tr. Saskia Vogel. Somehow the fact that the place is never named is so unsettling. The account of life in circumstances of extreme precarity and violence, it haunts me.
Aug 9—Fog, Kathryn Scanlan. So delightfully funny and strange!
The Hypocrite, Jo Hamya. Complicated family relationships and art-making. Kind of a companion piece to the movie Sentimental Value, if you think about it.
Memory Piece, Lisa Ko. The inside look at performance art, how it sat alongside the tech stuff, and then apocalypse. The vision of a horrific future was not as extreme as Ali Smith’s Gliff, which also stuck with me, but the continuity with parts of the past sections was creepy.
Fire Exit, Morgan Talty. Heart-breaking but also moving. It’s a powerful book on trauma and inherited cultural tradition, but in my cough-medicine muddled state the word that keeps floating up for me is acceptance.
Blue Ruin, Hari Kunzru. Another book about performance art, funnily enough. It’s also a covid story, but it’s the stuff about art that I can’t stop thinking about. When does the performance end?
Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, Peter Beinart. The ending. Out of the greatest despair, the greatest hope — “what other place on earth could more effectively rouse humanity from its desolation and birth a new age of freedom?”
And, bonus, my 10 favorite movies that I saw in the theater, in the order in which I saw them:
Porcelain War. Incredible film about the war in Ukraine and the artists fighting in it, with both weapons and art.
Mickey 17. This was so fun, but also thought-provoking. Philosophical reflections on cloning feel almost quaint these days, and yet. Great performance from Robert Pattinson.
No Other Land. Devastating, necessary.
Bob Trevino Likes It. Such a sweet, moving story about chosen family. John Leguizamo is so great.
Sinners. Duh.
Caught by the Tides. Astonishing meditation on the past 25 years of turbulent history.
The Baltimorons. So sweet!
Bugonia. Punishing and deeply disturbing but also brilliant in the way it unfolds.
Sentimental Value. Incredible meditation on family relationships and inherited trauma and art-making.
Remaining Native. Wonderful story of a Native American high school track star training to be the best cross country runner he can be while thinking about his great grandfather running away from Indian Boarding School. On inherited cultural trauma, but also, movingly, about community remembrance and healing.
Kasia Reads 