2025 Master Reading List
Happy 2025! It’s time to set some reading intentions for the year. I had big goals in 2024 but needed to toss most of them aside to handle a family crisis that popped up early in the year. It turns out that getting an elderly parent with dementia into a nursing home is a full-time job that consumes just about every waking moment of your life! I’m still catching up on last year’s books, but I am also jumping ahead and publishing my 2025 master list on time so I start working those selections into my reading time.
Something I worked on last year was reading what I enjoyed and that meant DNFing the books I wasn’t vibing with. It’s hard for this perfectionist not to finish something, but there’s too little time and too many books I want to experience. I will continue this endeavor this year and give myself a limit of 40% of a book to abandon. Let’s normalize setting books aside and passing them on if we aren’t excited about them!
In light of my desire to read for fun again, I've pared my challenge list WAY down from previous years. While I will probably still read over 200 books, I don’t want to set myself up for failure. So, I’m sticking to the two big challenges I have always enjoyed, the PS (Popsugar) Reading Challenge, which shares fifty prompts that cover a variety of genres, and Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge — one of the more challenging lists — twenty-four prompts that encourage readers to choose books from authors and on subjects they normally wouldn’t reach for. I’ve found some of my favorite books and authors doing this challenge.
Two small challenges I’ve done in the past few years and have loved are the #ReadYourBooks challenge, which is self-explanatory, and the Big Book Challenge, which asks participants to choose books that are over 500 pages in length. I’m not gonna lie, big books intimidate me because I often get bored with longer stories, so I’m thrilled to take up this challenge once again and stretch a bit in my reading comfort zone.
Next, I’ve chosen five books each from BIPOC authors, disabled and/or neurodivergent authors (or books about disability/disabled and/or neurodivergent characters,) and LGBTQIA+ authors or subjects. Finally, I’m rounding out my selections with Taylor Jenkins Reid’s backlist in preparation for her new book that should be published later this year.
In addition to these books, I want to pick up a discarded research project from last year, reading all the major religious texts from around the world. This has been something I wanted to do for a long while and I’m glad to be making time for it now. That puts my 2025 tally at 109 books, lower than previous years but I’m sure I’ll pick up more along the way. I’d love to know if you have any interesting reads on your TBR this year.
I’m excited to jump into some new books, and as always, I’ll be updating this list throughout the year and linking my reviews for each book. If you want to follow along directly, connect with me on Goodreads, and check out my master reading lists from the previous 10(!) years here.
PS Reading Challenge (Count: 0/50)
A book about a POC experiencing joy and not trauma - Lovely One by Ketanji Brown Jackson
A book you want to read based on the last sentence - Suite Française by Irene Nemirovsky
A book about space tourism - When the Heavens Went on Sale by Ashlee Vance
A book with two or more books on the cover or “book” in the title - The Book Haters’ Book Club by Gretchen Anthony
A book with a snake on the cover or in the title - The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner
A book that fills your favorite prompt from the PS Reading Challenge - Life’s a Campaign by Chris Matthews
A book about a cult - The Witness Wore Red by Rebecca Musser
A book under 250 pages - The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
A book that features a character going through menopause - Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood
A book you got for free - The Goddess Path by Kirsty Gallagher
A book mentioned in another book - The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
A book about a road trip - Blue Highways: A Journey into America by William Least Heat-Moon
A book rated less than three stars on Goodreads - Revenge Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
A book about a nontraditional education - Stay and Fight by Madeline ffitch
A book that an AI chatbot recommends based on your favorite book - Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
A book set in or around a body of water - Migrations by Charlotte McConaughy
A book about a run club - The Bright Side Running Club by Josie Lloyd
A book containing magical creatures that aren’t dragons - The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
A highly anticipated read of 2025 - Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
A book that fills a 2024 prompt you’d like to do over - Winter Journal by Paul Auster
A book where the main character is a politician - The Lincoln Conspiracy by Brad Meltzer
A book about soccer - The National Team by Caitlin Murray
A book that is considered healing fiction - Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum
A book with a happily single woman protagonist - City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
A book where the main character is an immigrant or refugee - American Street by Ibi Zoboi
A book where an adult character changes careers - The Princess of Las Vegas by Chris Bohjalian
A book set at a luxury resort - The Club by Ellery Lloyd
A book that features an unlikely friendship - News of the World by Paulette Jiles
A book about a food truck - The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg
A book that reminds you of your childhood - Aloha, Baby-Sitters by Ann M. Martin
A book where music plays an integral part of the storyline - Night Music by Jojo Moyes
A book about an overlooked woman in history - Matrix by Lauren Goff
A book featuring an activity on your bucket list - The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth
A book written by an author who is neurodivergent - Two Wrongs Make a Right by Chloe Liese
A book centering LGBTQ+ characters that isn’t about coming out - Girl Crushed by Katie Heaney
A book with silver on the cover or in the title - I’m a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson
Two books with the same title (1) - Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Two books with the same title (2) - Life After Life by Jill McCorkle
A classic you’ve never read - One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A book about chosen family - Happy Place by Emily Henry
A book by the oldest author in your TBR pile - Politics by Aristotle
A book with a left-handed character - The Left-Handed Twin by Thomas Perry
A book where nature is the antagonist - The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
A book that features a married couple who don’t live together - Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas
A book with a title that starts with the letter Y - You by Caroline Kepnes
A book that includes a nonverbal character - The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro
A book you have always avoided reading - Ulysses by James Joyce
A dystopian book with a happy ending - The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
A book that features a character with chronic pain - All’s Well by Mona Awad
A book of interconnected short stories - Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge (Count: 0/24)
A 2025 release by a BIPOC author - Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A childhood favorite book - Sunny Side Up by Patricia Reilly Giff
A queer mystery - The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe
A book about obsession - The Obsession by Jesse Q. Sutanto
A book about immigration or refugees - This Land is Our Land by Linda Barrett Osborne
A standalone fantasy book - The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
A book about a piece of media you love - What’s Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing by Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack
Literary fiction by a BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and/or disabled author - The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
A book based solely on its setting - The Library Book by various contributors
A romance book that doesn’t have an illustrated cover - Beginner’s Luck by Kate Clayborn
A work of weird horror - We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
A staff pick from an indie bookstore - Lot by Bryan Washington
A nonfiction book about nature or the environment - Life on Svalbard by Cecilia Blomdahl
A comic in translation - Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed
A banned book - The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
A genre-blending book - Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
A book about little-known history - The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon
A “cozy” book by a BIPOC author - The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
A queernorm book - Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell
The first book in a completed young adult or middle-grade duology - The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
A book about a moral panic - The Crucible by Arthur Miller
A holiday romance that isn’t Christmas - The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer
A wordless comic - The Wanderer by Peter Van den Ende
A 2015 Read Harder Challenge task - Stiff by Mary Roach
Read Your Books Challenge (Count: 0/5)
Astronomy for Amateurs by Camille Flammarion
How to Write Letters by Mary Owens Crowther
This Telling by Cheryl Strayed
The Contractors by Lisa Ko
Shine, Pamela! Shine! by Kate Atkinson
Big Book Reading Challenge (Count: 0/5)
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
BIPOC Reads (Count: 0/5)
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
Celebrations by Maya Angelou
Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes
In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park
Books About Disability or Written by Disabled Authors (Count: 0/5)
Disability Pride: Dispatches from a Post-ADA World by John D. Kemp
The Theory of Everything by Stephen Hawking
A Face for Picasso by Ariel Henley
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
LGBTQIA+ Books (Count: 0/5)
I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Something Like Gravity by Amber Smith
The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune
Taylor Jenkins Reid Backlist (Count: 0/10)
Forever, Interrupted
After I Do
Maybe in Another Life
One True Loves
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Evidence of the Affair (Amazon Original Story)
Daisy Jones & the Six
Malibu Rising
Carrie Soto is Back
Atmosphere (publishing in June, 2025)
