Novels Read — First Half of 2025

I’ve finished reading 12 novels so far this year. Two a month seems like a good pace, leaving room for other reading. Below are the titles in the order I read them. The ones with the + signs I recommend in particular. I put Middlemarch on pause after I was about a quarter of the way in, and I’ve picked it back up, though I really need to read a good essay or two about what I’m due to appreciate about it (recommendations welcome), as it’s precisely the sort of compendium of courtship micro-interactions that I could never get engaged by. I’m also currently reading Blood Meridian, Moby Dick (which I’ve started several times in the past, and this is the first time when I’ve felt like I will actually not just finish it but enjoy it), and The Hummingbird.

1: C.S. Lewis: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

2: Jakob Kerr: Dead Money

3: + Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon (reread)

4: Ford Madox Ford: The Good Soldier (reread)

5: + Cory Doctorow: Walkaway

6: + Ali Smith: Autumn

7: + Joan Didion: Play It as It Lays

8: + Adrian Tchaikovsky: Children of Time

9: Michael Connelly: The Black Echo (Bosch Vol. 1)

10: Stephen King: The Long Walk

11: Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr. Ripley

12: Michael Connelly: The Black Ice (Bosch, Vol. 2)