Dear Friends and Readers:
2026 is less than a week away. It's thrilling to look back at all of the projects and progress I've made as well as the new year to come. I hope that 2025 was as creative and satisfying for you as it was for me.
Per tradition, I've rounded up my top ten books from the past year that I whole-heartedly enjoyed. This year as you'll see below, the theme was classic literature. I couldn't stop reading great writers and great stories from the western canon. Some titles had been on my to-read list for decades. Some were re-reads. A few were spontaneous pick-ups.
And it was one of the most rewarding years of reading I've ever had. Whether you pick up one or ten of them, fiction or non-fiction, now or in the future, I hope that they give you as much as they have given me.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Jon
P.S. Here are my yearly book roundups from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015.
2026 is less than a week away. It's thrilling to look back at all of the projects and progress I've made as well as the new year to come. I hope that 2025 was as creative and satisfying for you as it was for me.
Per tradition, I've rounded up my top ten books from the past year that I whole-heartedly enjoyed. This year as you'll see below, the theme was classic literature. I couldn't stop reading great writers and great stories from the western canon. Some titles had been on my to-read list for decades. Some were re-reads. A few were spontaneous pick-ups.
And it was one of the most rewarding years of reading I've ever had. Whether you pick up one or ten of them, fiction or non-fiction, now or in the future, I hope that they give you as much as they have given me.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Jon
P.S. Here are my yearly book roundups from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015.
10. FAUST
|
Goethe’s Faust is a sweeping two-act drama that begins in intimacy and moral tension, then expands into a kaleidoscope of history, politics and myth. A the outset, we meet Dr. Faust, who is entirely dissatisfied with his scholarly life thus far. So, when chance has it, he actually strikes a pact with the Devil himself, to regain his youth and vitality in order to experience life to the fullest.
Faust longs to be and feel and live in totality; to have the greatest successes and even the most tragic falls—not in books or theory or study—but rather to "drink from living streams." The catch? If and only if Faust finds such a moment so perfect that he wishes it to last forever, does the Devil get to claim Faust's soul.
Act I (1808) is a tightly woven moral tragedy with Faust driving. Act II (1832) is more of a sweeping, episodic ride. Together, the two acts capture the nearly unquenchable ambitions of a man who wanted to drink deeply of life. And Goethe's treatment of the Faustian bargain is unqiue with the author's answer and conclusion.
You can read my full recommendation for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust here.
Faust longs to be and feel and live in totality; to have the greatest successes and even the most tragic falls—not in books or theory or study—but rather to "drink from living streams." The catch? If and only if Faust finds such a moment so perfect that he wishes it to last forever, does the Devil get to claim Faust's soul.
Act I (1808) is a tightly woven moral tragedy with Faust driving. Act II (1832) is more of a sweeping, episodic ride. Together, the two acts capture the nearly unquenchable ambitions of a man who wanted to drink deeply of life. And Goethe's treatment of the Faustian bargain is unqiue with the author's answer and conclusion.
You can read my full recommendation for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust here.
9. WHITE FANG
by Jack London
My love for anthropomorphic fiction began with Brian Jacques Redwall series in 5th grade, and continued with David Clement-Davies' Fire Bringer in 7th grade, and its inspiration, Richard Adam's Watership Down, in 8th grade. Skipping a few decades, I finally turned for the first time to Jack London’s classic anthropomorphic novels, White Fang and The Call of the Wild.
White Fang is set in Canada's wintry wilderness at the turn of the 20th century, a wolf pup is born into a cold, harsh, world. Through both instinct and experience, our protagonist struggles to discovers the hierarchy of plants and animals and Man by transforming himself into a mature, alpha predator and protector, fulfilling his wolf nature. He codifies these life-saving laws into his wolf-mind:
You can read my full recommendation for Jack London's White Fang here.
White Fang is set in Canada's wintry wilderness at the turn of the 20th century, a wolf pup is born into a cold, harsh, world. Through both instinct and experience, our protagonist struggles to discovers the hierarchy of plants and animals and Man by transforming himself into a mature, alpha predator and protector, fulfilling his wolf nature. He codifies these life-saving laws into his wolf-mind:
- The Law of Meat — There are meat-eaters, and those who are eaten.
- The Law of the Wild – Strength rules; weakness invites attack.
- The Law of Instinct – Behavior guided by innate impulses.
- The Law of the Club – Pain establishes hierarchy.
- The Law of the Sled – Discipline allows coordinated survival.
- The Law of Authority – Humans are supreme.
- The Law of Property – Boundaries under humans.
- The Law of Love – Affection as a civilizing force.
You can read my full recommendation for Jack London's White Fang here.
8. SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT & OTHER ESSAYS
by George Orwell
I love essays. Writing them. Reading them. 'Essay' comes from the French 'essayer,' meaning 'to try' or 'to attempt.' One of my favorite essayists is George Orwell. This collection of six essays form a constellation of themes that are just as relevant nearly 100 years later: power coerces; institutions harden us humans; and language decays under dishonesty. Yet clarity, sympathy, nature, and plain speech remain available for us to reclaim our dignity. I love his terse, unvarnished honesty.
In Shooting an Elephant (1936), Orwell reflects on his time as a police officer in British-ruled Lower Burma, and the corrupting of his soul in the imperialist system. In The Spike, Orwell recounts a military exercise in which he and other soldiers are sent to survive briefly as tramps. Such, Such Were the Joys turns to Orwell’s rough childhood at St. Cyprian’s boarding school. In Why I Write, Orwell outlines four motives behind writing: egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, political purpose, and historical impulse. He argues that political awareness does not corrupt art, but clarifies it. This concern deepens in Politics and the English Language, where Orwell diagnoses modern prose as evasive and insincere. He critiques dying metaphors, pretentious diction, vague abstractions, and euphemisms that conceal responsibility.
Against systems of domination and distortion, Orwell repeatedly turns to ordinary, daily pleasures. In Some Thoughts on the Common Toad, he celebrates seasonal changes and small encounters with nature as experiences that are untouched by propaganda, bureaucracy, and economic class. Similarly, In Defense of English Cooking praises everyday foods—bread, puddings, apples, sausages—found not in restaurants, but in real English homes.
You can read my full recommendation for six of Orwell's autobiographical essays here.
In Shooting an Elephant (1936), Orwell reflects on his time as a police officer in British-ruled Lower Burma, and the corrupting of his soul in the imperialist system. In The Spike, Orwell recounts a military exercise in which he and other soldiers are sent to survive briefly as tramps. Such, Such Were the Joys turns to Orwell’s rough childhood at St. Cyprian’s boarding school. In Why I Write, Orwell outlines four motives behind writing: egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, political purpose, and historical impulse. He argues that political awareness does not corrupt art, but clarifies it. This concern deepens in Politics and the English Language, where Orwell diagnoses modern prose as evasive and insincere. He critiques dying metaphors, pretentious diction, vague abstractions, and euphemisms that conceal responsibility.
Against systems of domination and distortion, Orwell repeatedly turns to ordinary, daily pleasures. In Some Thoughts on the Common Toad, he celebrates seasonal changes and small encounters with nature as experiences that are untouched by propaganda, bureaucracy, and economic class. Similarly, In Defense of English Cooking praises everyday foods—bread, puddings, apples, sausages—found not in restaurants, but in real English homes.
You can read my full recommendation for six of Orwell's autobiographical essays here.
7. INFINITE JEST
by David Foster Wallace
This modern American classic rallies back and forth through junior tennis matches, turns inward to vulnerable addiction therapy sessions, and expands outwards across a midwest-vastness worth of mass media culture. The novel is encyclopedic and mythic, hilarious and grotesque, and, at times disorienting with its nearly 400 endnotes. And yet, it's not insurmountable.
Set in 2009 (written in 1996), the U.S., Canada, and Mexico have since merged into O.N.A.N.—The Organization of North American Nations. The acronym is not subtle: “onanism” means self-pleasuring, and the book is quite literally about a society that has made mass-consumption and endless pleasure its highest god. The new president, Johnny Gentle, is a germaphobic, former crooner who solves America’s increasing waste problem by “gifting” Canada a massive toxic dump called 'The Great Concavity' (modern Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire).
In addition, time itself has been corporatized. Instead of the Gregorian calendar, companies sponsor entire years (The Year of the Whopper, The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, The Year of Glad, etc.). At the center of the novel is an art-house film called Infinite Jest--a film so beautiful, pleasurable, and addictive that anyone who watches it loses all desire for anything else, eventually dying of dehydration or starvation.
For all of the novel's cultural satire and political absurdity, Infinite Jest essentially is a story of broken humans longing for real connection—with themselves and others. The novel's lengthy and numerous recovery sessions, coached practices, and private moments of sobriety reveal the heart of the novel whose characters are defeated by some form of addicitve consumption: ideology, drugs, media—and therefore are starving for meaning.
This novel is one of the longest and most earnest stories I've had the pleasure of finishing.
You can read my full recommendation for David Foster Wallace's magnum opus here.
Set in 2009 (written in 1996), the U.S., Canada, and Mexico have since merged into O.N.A.N.—The Organization of North American Nations. The acronym is not subtle: “onanism” means self-pleasuring, and the book is quite literally about a society that has made mass-consumption and endless pleasure its highest god. The new president, Johnny Gentle, is a germaphobic, former crooner who solves America’s increasing waste problem by “gifting” Canada a massive toxic dump called 'The Great Concavity' (modern Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire).
In addition, time itself has been corporatized. Instead of the Gregorian calendar, companies sponsor entire years (The Year of the Whopper, The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, The Year of Glad, etc.). At the center of the novel is an art-house film called Infinite Jest--a film so beautiful, pleasurable, and addictive that anyone who watches it loses all desire for anything else, eventually dying of dehydration or starvation.
For all of the novel's cultural satire and political absurdity, Infinite Jest essentially is a story of broken humans longing for real connection—with themselves and others. The novel's lengthy and numerous recovery sessions, coached practices, and private moments of sobriety reveal the heart of the novel whose characters are defeated by some form of addicitve consumption: ideology, drugs, media—and therefore are starving for meaning.
This novel is one of the longest and most earnest stories I've had the pleasure of finishing.
You can read my full recommendation for David Foster Wallace's magnum opus here.
6. SILAS MARNER
by Mary Ann Evans
Paperback | 180 pages
This is the shortest novel of 19th century English author, Mary Ann Evans (pen name 'George Eliot'), and one of my favorites. Perhaps best known for her sweeping, pastoral, social novel Middlemarch (1872), Evans' Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861) is a powerful portrait of an innocent man's life-long quest for social and moral redemption. It seems to rhyme in tone and themes with Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850). And Evans' narration brilliantly introspects inside characters with the same force as Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden.
Evans began writing fiction in her late thirties, adopting the pen name 'George Eliot' in part to ensure her work would be taken seriously. Her works are rich, lyrical, and packed with subtle observations: careful psychological insights, attention to personal and social cause and effect, and an interest in how individuals are shaped by their community. Evans described her novels as “a series of experiments in life.” Silas Marner seems to be an experiment to see if readers find it plausible for an uprooted individual to find roots in a new society, and, if so, how that re-rooting is made possible.
Upon finishing Silas Marner, I found myself happily perplexed by the novel's conclusion. There is something enigmatic about it—a question not of the fates of the characters but in the cause of their fates. Who—really—is the weaver of Raveloe?
You can read my full recommendation for George Eliot's Silas Marner here.
Evans began writing fiction in her late thirties, adopting the pen name 'George Eliot' in part to ensure her work would be taken seriously. Her works are rich, lyrical, and packed with subtle observations: careful psychological insights, attention to personal and social cause and effect, and an interest in how individuals are shaped by their community. Evans described her novels as “a series of experiments in life.” Silas Marner seems to be an experiment to see if readers find it plausible for an uprooted individual to find roots in a new society, and, if so, how that re-rooting is made possible.
Upon finishing Silas Marner, I found myself happily perplexed by the novel's conclusion. There is something enigmatic about it—a question not of the fates of the characters but in the cause of their fates. Who—really—is the weaver of Raveloe?
You can read my full recommendation for George Eliot's Silas Marner here.
5. THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE
by Daniel Defoe
Hardcover | 265 pages
First published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe blends spiritual reflection, survival narrative, and exotic adventure into what is often regarded as the first English-language novel. Despite some pacing and thematic problems in the second half, Crusoe remains a compelling journey of mind and body.
The first half of Robinson Crusoe surprised me with its powerful, personal, philosophical meditations. As I read the yearning of young Crusoe for an adventure at sea and experienced his heartbreaking captivity by Barbary pirates, his ingenious emancipation, and tragic shipwreck onto the island, I greatly appreciated most Crusoe's internal dilemmas. He wrestles with God, cursing his physical and spiritual isolation. And after many years of toil on-island and of honest self-reflection, he celebrates his victories over the sea, starvation, bouts of bad health, and cannibals. This transformation from victimhood to a kind of stoic gratitude, is enthralling.
You can read my full recommendation for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe here.
The first half of Robinson Crusoe surprised me with its powerful, personal, philosophical meditations. As I read the yearning of young Crusoe for an adventure at sea and experienced his heartbreaking captivity by Barbary pirates, his ingenious emancipation, and tragic shipwreck onto the island, I greatly appreciated most Crusoe's internal dilemmas. He wrestles with God, cursing his physical and spiritual isolation. And after many years of toil on-island and of honest self-reflection, he celebrates his victories over the sea, starvation, bouts of bad health, and cannibals. This transformation from victimhood to a kind of stoic gratitude, is enthralling.
You can read my full recommendation for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe here.
4. ROBIN HOOD
by Henry Gilbert
Hardcover | 288 pages
"Once upon a time the great mass of English people were unfree. They could not live where they chose, nor work for whom they pleased. Society in those feudal days was mainly divided into lords and peasants. The lords held the land from the king, and the peasants or villeins were looked upon as part of the soil, and had to cultivate it to support themselves and their masters.”
It's been at least twenty years since I last wandered the "leafy paths" of Sherwood Forest with Robin of Locksley. Henry Gilbert's classic, century-old retelling of Robin Hood is fresh, episodic, and inspirational. I also loved this Paul Creswick rendition as a boy, which is beautifully illustrated by N.C. Wyeth.
13th century England was an age of impenetrable castles and far-away crusades, widespread serfdom and untamed forests, barons and nobles, lords and ladies, monks and abbeys, and, of course, death and taxes. The green woods becomes more than a hiding place for Robin and his small group of outlaw companions. There, he establishes an alternative moral order. The forest shelters those wronged by knights, abbots, and the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire. And his lifelong grail quest is one of restorative justice across the land—here and now, on earth, in England, for every innocent and abused man, woman, and child.
You can read my full review of Henry Gilbert's Robin Hood here.
It's been at least twenty years since I last wandered the "leafy paths" of Sherwood Forest with Robin of Locksley. Henry Gilbert's classic, century-old retelling of Robin Hood is fresh, episodic, and inspirational. I also loved this Paul Creswick rendition as a boy, which is beautifully illustrated by N.C. Wyeth.
13th century England was an age of impenetrable castles and far-away crusades, widespread serfdom and untamed forests, barons and nobles, lords and ladies, monks and abbeys, and, of course, death and taxes. The green woods becomes more than a hiding place for Robin and his small group of outlaw companions. There, he establishes an alternative moral order. The forest shelters those wronged by knights, abbots, and the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire. And his lifelong grail quest is one of restorative justice across the land—here and now, on earth, in England, for every innocent and abused man, woman, and child.
You can read my full review of Henry Gilbert's Robin Hood here.
3. THE THREE MUSKETEERS
| by Alexandre Dumas Translated by William Barrow |
The Three Musketeers' pace, characters, and sheer sense of panache made it an unforgettable summer read. Best paired with a glass—or three—of Red Anjou (Cabernet Franc), the favorite drink of the novel's four heroes. The coming-of-age tale of a fiery Gascon youth, d'Artagnan, is swashbuckling to-the-hilt. We feast on chivalrous duels, deadly seductions, tragic betrayals, and undying friendship. Set against the political currents of seventeenth-century France, we also traverse far and wide into Parisian ballrooms, the siege works of La Rochelle, and English castles. Every character’s fate feels both earned and inevitable. And what characters there are!
Dumas' descriptions of d’Artagnan, Athos, and Aramis are vivid. Porthos is left more to the reader’s imagination, though I'm told that the later novels he is fleshed out as Herculean strength incarnate. Captain Tréville is drawn as a 'Jupiter' among men, thundering over his Musketeers with paternal pride. Even minor figures—valets like Planchet, Grimaud, and Mousqueton—are sketched with humor and individuality. And Lady de Winter, the novel's villain, is a twisted, witchy, seductress that greatly disturbs the characters with her proudly dishonorable plotting. Dumas' style leaps off the page. It has a cinematic quality to it.
In fact, Disney's 1993 film adaptation was a childhood favorite, starring Kiefer Sutherland as Athos, Oliver Platt as Porthos, Charlie Sheen as Aramis, and Chris O'Donnell as d'Artagnan. My favorite though was Cardinal Richelieu played by Tim Curry.
You can read my full recommendation for Alexander Dumas' The Three Musketeers here.
Dumas' descriptions of d’Artagnan, Athos, and Aramis are vivid. Porthos is left more to the reader’s imagination, though I'm told that the later novels he is fleshed out as Herculean strength incarnate. Captain Tréville is drawn as a 'Jupiter' among men, thundering over his Musketeers with paternal pride. Even minor figures—valets like Planchet, Grimaud, and Mousqueton—are sketched with humor and individuality. And Lady de Winter, the novel's villain, is a twisted, witchy, seductress that greatly disturbs the characters with her proudly dishonorable plotting. Dumas' style leaps off the page. It has a cinematic quality to it.
In fact, Disney's 1993 film adaptation was a childhood favorite, starring Kiefer Sutherland as Athos, Oliver Platt as Porthos, Charlie Sheen as Aramis, and Chris O'Donnell as d'Artagnan. My favorite though was Cardinal Richelieu played by Tim Curry.
You can read my full recommendation for Alexander Dumas' The Three Musketeers here.
2. THE SECRET GARDEN
by Francis Hodgson Burnett
Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden (1911) is the greatest children's story I have ever read. In a bleak midwinter in Yorkshire, cousins Mary Lennox and Colin Craven along with their friend Dickon uncover a neglected garden on the grounds of Misselthwaite Manor.
For all the protagonists' weeding, planting, nurturing, and playing in their secret garden, the greatest growth is actually within the characters' own souls. And the final chapter delivers one of the most satisfying crescendos in literature that I have ever encountered—the revelation, reunion, the restoration of the broken family—by means of nature. For it's evergreen gentle and healthy examples of growth and beauty inspire Mary, Colin, and even Master Craven to choose to change their minds, their actions, and themselves.
The 1993 film adaptation is exceptional too. It deepens the internal conflicts of Mary Lennox more than the novel, especially in the film's climax.
You can read my full recommendation for Burnett's The Secret Garden here.
For all the protagonists' weeding, planting, nurturing, and playing in their secret garden, the greatest growth is actually within the characters' own souls. And the final chapter delivers one of the most satisfying crescendos in literature that I have ever encountered—the revelation, reunion, the restoration of the broken family—by means of nature. For it's evergreen gentle and healthy examples of growth and beauty inspire Mary, Colin, and even Master Craven to choose to change their minds, their actions, and themselves.
The 1993 film adaptation is exceptional too. It deepens the internal conflicts of Mary Lennox more than the novel, especially in the film's climax.
You can read my full recommendation for Burnett's The Secret Garden here.
1. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
| by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Translated by David McDuff |
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov's dark journey through mid-19th century St. Petersburg and into the depths of his own soul was a truly unforgettable experience.
Our disaffected Russian student's sweating, trembling, hallucinatory state before and after his horrible crime is some of the greatest characterization and psychological writing that I have ever encountered in literature: the endless pacing in his claustrophobic, attic room as he broods and argues with himself, his elitist taunting of the police officers and wealthy patrons of the Crystal Palace, his confession to Sonya of his disgust for conventional 'louse' morality and his proto-Nietzschean views that the few extraordinary men stand above the louses' superstitious morality—all this is masterfully painted.
As is Dostoyevsky's portrait of St. Petersburg: the city's central sewer-like canal which witnesses murder, prostitution, and corruption; the labyrinth of backstreets that trap the crowds like a pressure chamber of heat and noise and distrust; coffin-like apartments with walls too thin to keep secrets; the rich and detached Crystal Palace with its glassy, vaulted veneers of high class; the spiritual decay creeping over a modernizing and increasingly envious society.
The energy of the story is more about the fallout after the murders than the murders themselves. The psychological corruption and philosophical justifications leading up to the heinous deed, the self-deception involved in those justifications, the impact of the deed on society at large, and the potential redemption of the criminal both communally and individually.
While in Siberian exile, Dostoyevsky was deeply affected by Victor Hugo, specifically The Last Day of a Condemned Man and Les Miserables (1862). In fact, I've been told that there is a terrific non-fiction work exploring the inspiration of Russia's greatest romantic author by France's own greatest.
You can read my full recommendation for Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment here.
Our disaffected Russian student's sweating, trembling, hallucinatory state before and after his horrible crime is some of the greatest characterization and psychological writing that I have ever encountered in literature: the endless pacing in his claustrophobic, attic room as he broods and argues with himself, his elitist taunting of the police officers and wealthy patrons of the Crystal Palace, his confession to Sonya of his disgust for conventional 'louse' morality and his proto-Nietzschean views that the few extraordinary men stand above the louses' superstitious morality—all this is masterfully painted.
As is Dostoyevsky's portrait of St. Petersburg: the city's central sewer-like canal which witnesses murder, prostitution, and corruption; the labyrinth of backstreets that trap the crowds like a pressure chamber of heat and noise and distrust; coffin-like apartments with walls too thin to keep secrets; the rich and detached Crystal Palace with its glassy, vaulted veneers of high class; the spiritual decay creeping over a modernizing and increasingly envious society.
The energy of the story is more about the fallout after the murders than the murders themselves. The psychological corruption and philosophical justifications leading up to the heinous deed, the self-deception involved in those justifications, the impact of the deed on society at large, and the potential redemption of the criminal both communally and individually.
While in Siberian exile, Dostoyevsky was deeply affected by Victor Hugo, specifically The Last Day of a Condemned Man and Les Miserables (1862). In fact, I've been told that there is a terrific non-fiction work exploring the inspiration of Russia's greatest romantic author by France's own greatest.
You can read my full recommendation for Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment here.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
 THE BEST BOOKS OF 2024 Georgian knights, growing gardens, Pride, Prejudice, Bitcoin, Web3, and more...  THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 The most popular fairy tale, lessons on writing, Yellowstone wolves, Greek mythology, atomic habits, and more... |  THE BEST BOOKS OF 2023 Cooking with Epicurus, walking with Aristotle, Austrian economics, and more...  THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021 The Dwarf King, personality archetypes, creepy suburbs, Nietzsche, Taleb, aging gracefully, and more... |
