The R&W 2025 Book List in Order
Merry Christmas and an early Happy New Year from The Reader & the Writer!
Rhea and I are already in full, new year swing over on the R&W podcast. We have twelve great books lined up for deep reading in 2025, as well as one year-long read: War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy.
If you missed our 2025 Big Draw Episode (it aired on Christmas Eve), you can listen to it here. Besides just being a fun episode to listen to, you will gain insight into the method of our selection madness: how the Big Draw worked, the eras we selected from, and how we decided on our “switch outs” in order to come up with a list that—we hope—spans wide across time, cultures, and literary styles. It was hard to make cuts! But, as became the going phrase… “There’s always next year.”
Without further ado, here is The Reader & Writer 2025 Book List in the order we will read them:
The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis
Crossing the Mangrove, by Maryse Condé
Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee
The Odyssey, by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
Moll Flanders, by Daniel Defoe
Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson
Middlemarch, by George Eliot
Phantastes, by George MacDonald
Deacon King Kong, by James McBride
The Feast, by Margaret Kennedy
East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Year Long Read: War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
The link I have provided to each book is the edition and/or translation from which Rhea and I will be reading. Except in the case of The Odyssey where we specifically want to read and discuss Wilson’s translation, we aren’t overly partial to the edition/translation we’ve selected. In most cases partial… but not zealously so.
With twelve books, the conventional thinking is that we will read a book a month. For most our reads, this is so. However, we plan to spend extra time on Middlemarch, and possibly East of Eden, which is why we sandwiched these books in-between shorter reads. We will make final decisions about how many weeks to spend on each book as the year progresses.
Finally, a quick heads-up on the writing side of The Reader & the Writer: On January 5th, I leave for my first, week-long, MFA residency at Queens University of Charlotte, NC (Yay!). Directly after residency, my husband and I are headed to Mexico for a week of sunshine, and ocean air. (Double Yay!) With all this new life adjusting and travel, my letters and essays through the month of January will be less than weekly, and may not post at my usual, end-of-the-week time.
It won’t be completely dark here, though! I have a couple posts already in the works: one that I hope sparks future collaboration and sharing with other “book club” Substacks like ours, and another on the art of note-taking—at least, according to me. Stay tuned.
As always, Rhea and I are beyond grateful for all of you journeying alongside us here on The Reader & the Writer. This is just the beginning! We can’t imagine any better reading-traveling companions than you.
So, until we meet again—in 2025(!): Read Wide, Read Well, and live always in witness to the Great Story.
Much Love,
Shari