keepers

my favorite books I read this year

I read so much more this year than in the past many years — really since before I had kids. The postpartum brain fog I had perpetually been caught in finally lifted and I could read again! I could weep with gratitude, truly. Reading means so much to me, it always has. To have reading back feels like welcoming back a part of my brain that had been trapped in a locked room. The part of me that reads and then quietly digests and integrates what I read is an essential part. I was less of myself without it.

When we read a library book my five-year-old enjoys, at the end of the book he says “this one’s a keeper!” That means he loved it, and he wants it not to go in the return pile by the door. He wants to read it again sometime soon. He wants it to float around our house in our various library piles, maybe forever. He wants to take a moment with it on his own by the window, turning pages very slowly. I love when he and I agree on keepers. Most recently, reaching the end of poet Donald Hall’s exquisite Ox Cart Man with tears in my eyes, I heard my kiddo say, emphatically, “keeper!” which made a huge smile sweep my face. The kids are alright, you guys.

I know a book I read is a keeper if I read the last page and want to clutch the book to my chest in gratitude. If I have the urge to immediately buy a copy to add to my own personal shelves (since 99% of the books I read are from the local library). Keepers are the books that I know I will continue to carry inside of me, the books I will unknowingly draw on when I write, the books that become part of the web of my mind. Keepers are startling and stunning, they make me want to write, they make me want to read another book immediately and also live inside of that book forever. They are both hard to part with and spur me onward. That is truly the sign of a book book — when they move you both inwardly and outwardly.

The world is changing rapidly in ways I don’t understand. Reading is a place where I can re-orient myself to what is real and true and always has been. Novels are empathy machines, offering us the inside of someone else’s head, where we can find that it is (shockingly!) so much like our own, and also so different! I love that I can’t do anything else while I am reading. That experience of singleness of mind is so rare for me. Reading offers it to me, keeps me off my phone, narrows the focus of my brain to a sentence at a time like a skipping stone. Tell me a story, sing me a song, make me listen and hear! The world requires so much of us all — a book only, humbly, asks that listen and that I keep going until the end. What a beautiful invitation. I could go on and on but I won’t. You know that reading is wonderful too. So, here’s what stunned me this year, my keepers. I will be carrying these around in my mind forever.

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer

I think this was my favorite book of the year. I’ve been telling everyone about it. I will be thinking about it for the rest of my life and will surely revisit it many times. I wrote a fair bit about it here. This novel startled me because it presented me with one of my biggest fears, and so carefully followed that fear so far past my own imagination that it became a great solace to read it. It is about one woman’s apocalypse and her life past it. I loved it very much. It’s an unusual book (it’s like at least 60% detailed descriptions of chores), and I want everyone to read it and tell me what it made them feel!

Fair Play by Tove Jansson

A perfect small quiet book about art, devotion, and love that I read on my kindle while holding my youngest over the course of a few nights. This was my first Tove Jansson book ever. I quickly followed it with The Summer Book which I obviously also loved. The kind of magic book that you just sigh and think thank goodness this was published just so I could read it here and now.

Small Rain by Garth Greenwell

I read this book while tending my sick kids, sitting beside their too-warm little bodies on the couch. It’s funny how you can remember where you were while you spent time with a particular book. This one is a novel about a poet who is suddenly very sick and then gets better. This book felt like music, had so much music inside of it. I recommend this if you love to hear from narrators who are complicated, moving through something difficult, and slowly changing in ways they don’t yet understand.

Foster by Clare Keegan

JUST READ THIS BOOK IT IS VERY SHORT AND YOU WILL CRY AND THEN FEEL SO GRATEFUL TO BE ALIVE IN THIS BEAUTIFUL WORLD FULL OF STORIES. (Ditto to Small Things Like These by the same author, perfect for Christmas!)

Practice by Rosalind Brown

This is a book that took me a little bit to get into and once I was in I was so captivated by its narrator and her strange life in college. It’s a campus novel, but not like any other you’ve read before. This one’s for my weird girls who feel too much. This one’s for my book girls. This one’s for me, actually. Maybe it’s for you too. It’s a little spicy in very surprising ways too, just to loop you in on that. The kind of book that could never have been written in any other way by anyone else — truly one of a kind! Reading it felt immersive and private and so intimate, which is such a testament to the writing. I loved it!

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Everyone was talking about this year and for good reason because it is SO GOOD OMG. I am still thinking about it. I couldn’t put it down. My friend was reading it recently and I sent them so many aggressive voice memos about how much I love it and all my thoughts, so activated, so enthusiastic. This book is the ultimate book club book, a read-all-night page turner, and also so beautifully written — so smart and tender and literary. I honestly do hope they make it a movie so I can relive it anew. Ah, even thinking about it now I feel all excited and emotional!!

The Antidote by Karen Russell

As soon as I saw this book was coming down the pipeline I started telling everyone about it because I was so excited, and it surpassed even my high expectations. Another book I will continue to think about for so long. Expert use of magical realism, expert historical fiction that doesn’t feel trapped by heavy historical narrative, expert everything. This is a Great Depression novel that is NOT depressing! Can you even believe that?! Russell is a master of what she does, which is indescribable. I can’t believe she pulled off this book, it is such a huge achievement, and such a treat to read. In awe, tbh!

Tilt by Emma Pattee

This is a high-concept novel that felt stunningly approachable and recognizable in the midst of its intensity. A 40-week pregnant woman has to move through the aftermath of “the big one” earthquake in Portland, OR. I loved the explorations of pregnancy/motherhood/matrescence, and I loved seeing how this author would get her mc through this big crisis. It all felt very unexpected and fresh and exciting and emotional. Ultimately it lost steam a little for me as it went on, but it still makes the list because I haven’t forgotten about it, and it was such a pleasure to read. Pregnant main characters are rare, so it felt so special to me to get to spend time with one in such a wild setting!

The Wilderness by Aysegul Savas

I loved this book length essay about the first forty days after having a baby. This is the kind of book that I want to read again and again, could never tire of, want to hear in a thousand different voices. Savas’ account of this experience so many of us have in common is raw, intellectual, revealing, and recognizable. It sent me spinning with so many new ideas and connections to keep following. It is literary and smart but easy to read.

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

I love Louise Erdrich, I find her work remarkable (how does one person’s mind contain so much?). Every novel of hers I read stuns me anew. But THIS one really stunned me because it felt like it was written especially for me. Birth! Faith/religion stuff! Weird dystopian stuff! I think this book is fairly polarizing, which makes sense because it is definitely unusual, but I loved it. I also loved her newest novel, The Mighty Red.

Dayswork by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel

I adore books about reading and writing, and this book feels like the ultimate reading and writing book, I loved it so much. Not for everyone, I’m sure, but extremely for me. This book is about a woman’s obsessive Herman Melville research interwoven with her own marriage and domestic life. You might think I don’t want to read about someone else’s research — ohhhh yes you do. At least I did!

On the Calculation of Volume (Book One) by Solvej Balle

This is the first book in a seven book series about a woman who gets caught in a time loop, living the same day again and again (Groundhog Day style). The first book in the series is so quietly powerful, and drew me right in. Knowing that there are so many more books to come makes it feel all the more exciting — like a great long mystery to sink into. Series’ of books are not usually so literary, so a special treat for us who are drawn to literary fiction but want the pleasure of knowing there’s another book to come! Huge recommend.

Heart the Lover by Lily King

UGH! This book ripped my heart right out! In the best way! This was the best romance I’ve read in a while. Spanning time and life stages, I was so invested in this story and it swept me right away. The best kind of emotional page-turner, and my favorite Lily King. It all felt so recognizable and romantic and epic and human. Still thinking about it weeks later.

Wreck by Catherine Newman

A perfect novel — I inhaled this book. Catherine Newman is one of those authors whose voice is so singular, I never wanted this book to end. Her three novels have all delighted me, this one the most of the three. Some of the best motherhood writing I’ve encountered, from a stage that still feels far enough away from where I am that missives from it sound like letters from a far away land I know I will find my way to in due time. Yes, please, tell me what it’s like over there! I laughed so much reading this book! True laughing out loud, repeatedly! So lovable, so tender, so truthful, so raw, I could have read 100 more pages so easily.

And, stand out picture books we enjoyed this year as a family:

Ox Cart Man by Donald Hall
The Skull by Jon Klassen
Building Our House by Jonathan Bean
Henry’s Awful Mistake and other Robert Quackenbush treats
There’s a Ghost in This House by Oliver Jeffers
Pizza Day by Melissa Iwai
The Hideout by Susannah Mattiangeli
(there were others, those are just what I remember off the top of my head)

(All the links in this post are affiliate links so I will make a small commission if you buy the book using this link — a great way to support me in a tiny way! but I read almost exclusively library books, so I always recommend first supporting your local library by circulating books!)

I put all the adult books mentioned in this post in a Bookshop list for convenience! Find it here: https://bookshop.org/lists/favorite-books-of-2025-amy-bornman

I’m also on Storygraph if you’d like to see my full recent reading list! I don’t write reviews on there though, those are reserved for my physical “little book book” — I share photos of those little reviews on instagram sometimes.

I always love book recs! Especially if you can tell that we’re into the same things based on the thoughts and rec’s I’ve shared. Leave some in the comments! What are your keepers?

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to keepers!

Amy