Top 8 Books of 2025 – Year in Review (Part 1)
Welcome to the 2025 Year in Review series!!! The most joyful time of the year indeed!
Last year when I was set to go on a three-week vacation, my boss told me, “Enjoy as much as you can. Travel and read as much as you can! Because, when you are promoted to the leadership role, you will not get time to do it.” I thought, “I have been reading regularly and made it my whole personality for 6 years running, so I don’t see ‘not having time’ as a real possibility.” And, now a year and a half later, I think, “My boss was SO RIGHT!”
I have seen so many versions of myself in those 6 core-reading years. The version where I was just starting to read seriously and wanting to build my blog and bookstagram account back in 2019. Then the version where I consumed books like my livelihood depended on it. (It literally didn’t.) Then the version obsessed with wartime historical fiction. Another version wanting to buy books like they’re going to stop printing them. But, this year was different. In one year, I went through a reader’s rollercoaster. This one year was wildly contrasting to the collective of last 6 years. From an extreme of reading constantly, I went to the extreme of not reading at all!
I had a phase where I didn’t read and didn’t want to read.
Another where I wanted to read but simultaneously didn’t want to read. (I know, I don’t get it either!)
Another where I questioned why I was even a reader, and what would happen if I simply stopped reading. (Shocking, I know!)
Another where I preferred watching movies & TV shows to reading.
Also, a brief phase where I forced myself to read just so that I would stop doomscrolling.
But, in all these crazy reading rollercoasters, I ironically found peace in reading. I listened to my crazy self. When I didn’t feel like reading, I didn’t. When I felt like picking up a random book, I did. 8 times mood reading won. When I felt like giving up on a book, I did. 15 books started and paused. When I felt like reading on my phone, I did. 10 e-books read this year. When I felt like reading a new book, I did, and when an old book, I did that too. No logic. No reason. No purpose. No agenda. Not focused on quantity of books, neither on quality. Not on the author. No bothering to even read the blurb. Reading just for the heck of it. I may have read very very very less than the past 6 years, but I have enjoyed it far far far more.
I read 30 books across 8944 pages in 2025. Here are my top 8 books for the year, which I rated at either 5 or 4.5 stars!
~~THE LANTERN OF LOST MEMORIES by SANAKA HIIRAGI, TRANSLATED by JESSE KIRKWOOD~~
The Lantern of Lost Memories is made up of three short stories, where in each one a person has died and is transported to a rest stop which is a photo studio where their photos are developed based on the memories which flash through their eyes before they die. I found all three stories to be unique, with each speaking of different values all relevant to humans in all walks of life.
The first story, ‘The Old Lady and the Bus’, taught me that even when life gets tough, there is always a silver lining, and how we should never lose that hope. Hope of happiness, hope of success, hope of calm. The second story, ‘The Hero and the Mouse’, taught me that there is good and bad in all of us, and how kindness is always the correct path. The third story, ‘Mitsuru and the Last Photo’, taught me that life is unfair, but you must do your best. If that doesn’t work, go to an echo point and scream into the void and let it all out! Every single life lesson from this book is something I needed to hear right now. It gave me hope, courage and audacity to live my life. I have rated The Lantern of Lost Memories by Sanaka Hiiragi, translated by Jesse Kirkwood at 5/5 stars!
~~THE POETRY PHARMACY: TRIED-AND-TRUE PRESCRIPTIONS FOR THE MIND, HEART AND SOUL by WILLIAM SIEGHART~~
When it comes to poetry, it’s either a hit or a miss. I feel that on one extreme, I love the book so much, I can’t state in words how much it meant to me. And, on the other extreme, I completely loathe it. With The Poetry Pharmacy, I took my time reading it, and I found it just so wonderfully peaceful. The poems were simple and relatable. They made me smile, cry, and ponder without a care in the world. It’s a book I will come back to and re-read a lot. It’s also a book I would gift to someone who appreciates good poetry. It will be a sacred book of poems for me for a long time. I have rated The Poetry Pharmacy: Tried-And-True Prescriptions For The Mind, Heart And Soul By William Sieghart at 5/5 stars!
~~STRANGE PICTURES by UKETSU, TRANSLATED by JIM RION~~
There is always a book that takes Bookstagram by storm. Everyone is either reading that book or can’t stop talking about that book. It’s always a five-star read. It’s an unputdownable book. It’s so unique that you wouldn’t have read anything like it before. I’m here to tell you that ALL of this is NOT an exaggeration because Strange Pictures by Uketsu falls true on all this hype and more!
Strange Pictures consists of four chapters, all look like an individual story but they’re all connected in a glorious way that unravels to the reader little by little and then all at once. The first chapter is layered because what sounds straight-forward has hidden meanings – both words & pictures. The second chapter has a drawing made by a child – which can mean many different things. The third chapter is intriguing because why would an art teacher draw a landscape of mountains during his final moments? It makes you think and draw your own conclusions, which are very closely related to your own life. So, it works on a personal level as well by making you a part of the book. I have rated Strange Pictures by Uketsu, translated by Jim Rion at 5/5 stars!
~~COUNTERATTACKS AT THIRTY by SOHN WON-PYUNG, TRANSLATED by SEAN LIN HALBERT~~
Counterattacks at Thirty pretends to be about the silent protests that employees do as a revenge for not being treated well at their workplace. I say ‘pretends to be’ because this book lured me in because of that, but I stayed because of something else! The book is a mirror. It was to me. It will make you question, “What do you really want to be?” so many times that the escapism route you usually opt for (reading) in itself will banish you from the escape with this question. It will make you question your purpose. It will either make you realize something you already knew or throw light on something you had always ignored. It will be relatable. It will be an eye opener. It will be uncomfortable in the best way possible.
Of course, there is a lot that happens on the lines as much as it does between the lines. The ugly truth of organizations and their power over employees is explored perfectly. Even though it was about Korean corporates, it mostly holds true across the globe. The way that employees are paid minimum wage but have to put in a lot of hard work. How they are told they will move from an internship to a permanent employment if they do this and do that. How there is always a carrot dangling in front of them by their team leaders. How when you are at the brink of quitting, they give you something tiny, like 3% raise or a slightly better role, and you along with the organization trick yourself into believing that it’s better now. All of it was just like a page taken out of any employee’s real life. I have rated read Counterattacks at Thirty by Sohn won-pyung, translated from Korean by Sean Lin Halbert at 4/5 stars!
~~THE LABYRINTH HOUSE MURDERS by YUKITO AYATSUJI, TRANSLATED by HO-LING WONG~~
Are you a mystery aficionado? Love reading whodunits? Enjoy figuring out who’s the murderer? If you do, I believe you would have read too many crime, mystery & thriller novels. And, more often than not, you are able to identify the killer. Most times, it’s pretty predictable. I get it, because we’re the same. So, when I came across a book which shocked me and proved me wrong multiple times, I immediately loved it, and now I cannot stop recommending it!
Four authors, a critic, a publisher & his wife, and our ‘great detective’ Shimada Kiyoshi are all invited to Miyagaki Yotaro’s labyrinth house for his 60th birthday party. What starts as a harmless April Fools’ joke turns into grim mass murders. They are all locked in the underground labyrinth house. Will they be alive until they figure out how to get out is the real question. The labyrinth concept and the entire architecture of the house was brilliantly executed. I have rated The Labyrinth House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji, translated by Ho-Ling Wong at 5/5 stars!
~~MILK TEETH by AMRITA MAHALE~~
Milk Teeth comes across as the story of Ira and Karthik. But, it’s a story about Mumbai told via Ira and Karthik. The city that never sleeps. The land of opportunity. Maximum City. Aamchi Mumbai. What no one talks about is the city and its people’s many flaws casually ignored and masked under the love for the city. The book portrays that with such brilliance that while those flaws could still be casually ignored by some readers, its nuance will hit the right kind of readers.
Mumbai is central to diversity. Diverse ideas from diverse people. It is home to both locals and migrants; rich, poor and the middle class; all genders; all races and ethnicities. It’s very easy to write a story where you could highlight all of it in a very glaring manner making it the central theme. But what’s not so easy is to make it a central theme in such a nuanced manner that you would be tricked into believing that the theme was actually just a love story. I have rated Milk Teeth by Amrita Mahale at 4.5/5 stars!
~~THE EXAMINER by JANICE HALLETT~~
The Examiner is the story of six students; Jem, Patrick, Jonathan, Alyson, Ludya & Cameron, taking an MA course led by tutor Gela Nathaniel focusing on improving their artistic skills to make them employable in the real world. In a typical epistolary fashion, we see the one year of academia unfold in the form of emails, chats, WhatsApp groups, essay submissions and the like. The students are all diverse, ranging from the ages 21 to 59, some professional artists, one designer, few with no art background but a lot of interest, and one who had just completed BA. We see them bonding and bitching throughout the school year.
But, only after a third of the book is completed, do we understand that it wasn’t about academia and art at all. What unfolds is a disappearance of a student, underground climate activists, undercover PI agent and the twisted unravelling of what happened on the trip to Somerset when 5 of the 6 students went to retrieve objects for an art installation. I have rated The Examiner by Janice Hallett at 5/5 stars!
~~SHABDA KASE HE PURE PADAVE by RAVINDRA SHENOLIKAR (MARATHI LANGUAGE)~~
I read a book of poems written in Marathi language written by Ravindra Shenolikar, who’s my dad! The title loosely translates to ‘How can words be enough?’ I have been reading his poems over the years, but to read them in a book just feels too real and wholesome. There are 100 poems covering various themes, some will teleport you to a forest, some will make you nostalgic, some will make you remind of all your regrets, some will make you laugh. I loved them all and I’m a #1 fan, and that’s not even a biased opinion. If you can read Marathi, you should read this book! I have rated Shabda Kase He Pure Padave by Ravindra Shenolikar at 5/5 stars!
~~STATS~~
I definitely spend more time on creating the visuals for my yearend posts than I spend on actually writing them. So, here’s the wonderful process of turning data into excel into pivot tables into charts into pretty aesthetics! I read half as few books as last year. But, I read more fiction, more translated literature, more books from physical TBR & more diverse authors!
That is all for books, folks! Stay tuned for the next post tomorrow: Top 14 TV Shows & Top 14 Movies of 2025!
Until next time,
About The Author
Aishwarya Shenolikar
Hello! I'm Aishwarya, an Introverted bookworm & writer. I have been reviewing books since 6 years on my blog - Mindscape in Words. My favourite genres are Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers, Magical Realism, Poetry, Fantasy & Memoirs. I like the kind of books which evoke emotions on several levels leaving me wrecked, but also incredibly content. I'm dreaming for the world to paint a landscape full of words, more like Mindscape in Words. Hope you enjoy the view.