Best Books of 2025 – Epilog

PREFACE:  Tomorrow (February 9^th) marks the completion of my 13th year of blogging.  In years past, I have dedicated an entire post to mark the milestone.  But this year, I again realized the most important thing I could say is simply a big THANK YOU to all my followers, my dedicated readers, and to my occasional readers.  Whether you have been with me from day 1 or just started reading recently, I appreciate you taking the time to read my posts and I sincerely thank you for every bit of positive feedback you give me.  Thanks, and my hopes are that you will continue to find my humble blog a worthwhile place for you to visit on the Internet. 

 Cheers to another year and now on with the topic at hand!

In 2022, I discovered Debbie Macomber’s Christmas books that she had been publishing one annually for a number of years.  These short holiday novels usually feature a love story (or two) that fully blossoms usually around Christmas or shortly thereafter.  They are sweet stories, filled with holiday traditions many of us can relate to and when finished, leave you with a special happy feeling.  Every year since that first year, I have read two or three during December and this year I read four so I could technically credit Ms. Macomber with helping me break my book reading record of 64 from 2024.

While I have enjoyed almost every one of them, I never considered them one of the best books I read that year and so none made my “best of” list—at least not until this year with A Ferry Merry Christmas.

Her Christmas book for 2025 was extra special to me as it was set in Seattle where my daughter lives with her family and I very much enjoyed reading about the characters visiting many of the downtown famous sites that I too had been to.  The story is set on one of the many car ferries that reliably ply the waters of Puget Sound between some of the western islands and Seattle.  Only this time, the ferry breaks down more than halfway on its journey to Seattle.  On board are a number of passengers each desperate to get to Seattle on time for their own reasons.  After grumbling for hours due to the delay and nearing almost a riotous frenzy, the passengers come together to help one of those most desperate in a very loving way.

As with all of her books, this one had a really sweet happy ending.  After three years of reading these books in December, they have become a small part of my Christmas traditions that I look forward to each year.  If you have never read one, I would encourage you to try this one and if you enjoy it, there are a number of others you can try.

When I came across this book by Alyson Richman and read the short description, I knew I had to buy it. If you’ve read my book posts before, you know I’m a sucker for Titanic historical fiction.  And this one did not disappoint.

This story tells the tale of Harry Elkins Widener, a real-life wealthy bibliophile who by the young age of 27, has already amassed an envious collection of rare books.  In England on one of his collecting trips, he purchases an extremely rare 1598 edition of Francis Bacon’s Essays.  And then he boards the Titanic.

Decades later a student page at the Widener Memorial Library on the campus of Harvard begins to unravel the unknown story behind Harry.  As she and a fellow student explore what happened, gaining clues at some of the historical shops around Harvard Square where Harry was a student, I was amazed at how much of this story was factual.  As I read the last few pages, I got chills as to how this story unfolded.

The Memorial Library is real as is the Memorial Room with his book collection and what gave me pause as I finished the book, was knowing that my son-in-law, a Harvard graduate likely would have seen these during his time there along with the fresh flowers delivered weekly to Harry’s desk even to this day.

And now, on to my classic for the year…

If you have previously read my annual book blogs, you know that to make up for missing out on reading classics in high school, I read one classic novel each year.  And in every case, there is always a story behind the selection I chose.  In this case, this book came as a recommendation to me.

As suggested by my wife, last year I read the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  And if you read that post last year, you may recall that I did not particularly like the book although I admitted it probably would have been most enjoyable to a young reader.  I went on to say that having finished the second of Twain’s books about these characters, I had no desire to go back and read his first.

Well one of my readers mentioned in a comment that she had written on Huck in college and thought it would be fun to go back and reread it now.  I don’t know if she read both books that featured Huck Finn for her project, but it was encouragement enough for me to try reading the first book.  I’m glad she made that comment to me.

Rather than buy a digital copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, I chose to check it out of the library.

I so thoroughly enjoyed it that I finished reading it in just three days.  I could only imagine that if I had read this before I had turned ten years old, I would have been quite caught up in the adventures.  For what young boy would not be intrigued to become a pirate and go off in search of hidden treasures.  Or to meet the love of your young life and explore a dark cave with her.  The story had its twists and turns but came full circle back with a very satisfying ending.

If you have never read it before, in my opinion, you should.

And as I did last year, I read a second classic this year; maybe this will start a new trend for me.  Thanks to BookBub, I came across one of John Steinbeck’s lesser-known novels, The Wayward Bus.  I have read and enjoyed some of his other classics, so I figured it was worth a chance.  And for $1.99, I figured I couldn’t go wrong—which I didn’t.

This novel tells the story of ten major characters, four associated with the Rebel Corners, a bus stop, garage, and diner, with the other six being vastly different and unique individuals who are passengers about to embark on the old bus affectionally known as “Sweetheart.”  Each of the characters is well developed by Steinbeck and you really feel you get to know each one, not just what drives them but their intimate dark secrets as well.

After getting to know a little about each of the characters at the diner, the bus takes off on its short journey leaving behind the wife of the bus driver who manages the diner.  Unfortunately, not heeding warnings of sever rainfall, the bus trip takes some unexpected turns with the characters equally displaying some rather uncharacteristic behaviors.  As the book “drove” towards its conclusion, I could envision several different ways the story might end.  But I won’t spoil it for you.

If you have not read any of John Steinbeck’s books, I would highly recommend that you do as I have enjoyed all of his I have read so far and with my next year’s classic selection likely being another of his.

Well, I hope you have once again enjoyed reading my best of books for 2025.  If I have piqued your interest enough to read one, then my efforts have been worthwhile.  But if you read one and thoroughly enjoy it as much as I did, then my reading and sharing with you will have brought pleasure to both of us.  Because there is nothing better than a great book!