My Reading Year 2025

A participant in a literary forum once asked me about my reading habits. My actual response escapes me now. But if you had asked me that right at this very moment, I'd say: I don't have any, except that I carry a book with me anywhere. I read bits and pieces of a book, and many books all at once. There are moments when I read many chapters in one sitting, if the work is compelling and if I don't have a lot of work to do. Owning a Kindle helps a lot. Tote bags also leave enough room for a paperback, even a hardbound.

But I should keep track of my reading with more rigor and discipline. The timelines are not clear in my memory. You'll notice that some books reappear here, mainly because I'm not done with them yet. I'm writing specifically about the short story collections, which I do not read from cover to cover. Tita Mavis wrote:

Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else.

I also did a lot of rereading this year. I realize now that I profit greatly from reading a book over and over again. I find new meanings. The words and sentences don't change, but I do.  Overall,  2025 has been a good year for reading. What books surprised and delighted you?

Here are the books that have kept me company.

Honeybees and Distant Thunder by Riku Onda. Friendship and a piano competition! Bought this in the Instabul airport. 

 

A Carnival of Snackery by David Sedaris. David is funny. 

The Humans by Matt Haig. An alien and a dog!

Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong. Ocean's poetry takes me to places. 

Voyager and Other Fictions by Jose Dalisay Jr. Great Filipino stories in English by a master storyteller.

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. Made me want to escape my daily routines for a bit. Was surprised to hear about this book in the New York Times Book Review podcast, many weeks after I had finished reading it. Bought this in the Melbourne airport. I notice that I'm likely to finish a book if I buy them from the airport!

The Collected Stories of Gregorio C Brillantes. Each story is a masterpiece and brings home the reality of the beauty of life in the Philippines. 

The Journal by Henry David Thoreau. I read him when I'm out of ideas to write about. I also want to be with nature, in the outdoors. 

 

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino. Thoughtful essays, especially the first one: about internet and social media. 

Mga Bulawan Nga Bulak (Golden Showers) by John Iremil Teodoro. His poems are in Kinaray-a, translated to English. Kanami gid. Naghibi ako sang ginbasa ko. 

Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing by Jen Soriano. Masterful, playful writing about trauma and identity. 

Imagine a City: A Pilot's Journey Across the Urban World by Mark Vanhoenacker. Superb writing about cities. Made me book many flights to various places. Why hadn't I heard of him earlier? I picked this book in the discount bin at National Bookstore in Gensan. 

The Bloodied Nightgown and Other Essays by Joan Acocella. What a thinker! I especially love her essay on JRR Tolkien. 

Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon. Extremely funny novel about academia, specially about a writer-professor who has not churned any new novel in years. He has other weird friends along the way. 

Winter Hours by Mary Oliver. I love Mary Oliver, and I love Prof. Majorie Evasco who gave this to me. 

The Uncollected Stories of Mavis Gallant. I don't read tita Mavis before I write. I get too intimidated and self-conscious just thinking of her surgically precise sentences.

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell. Friends make songs and form a rock band. I cried at the end. I love David Mitchell. I endeavor to read everything he writes. I also enjoyed The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. 

Montreal Standard Time by Mavis Gallant. A collection of the stories the author wrote for a newspaper, until she decided to leave Canada and start a life writing fiction in Paris. 

 

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. Must-read for all doctors, especially medical oncologists. 

Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod. I follow his blog (craigmod.com), and I'm a huge fan of his writing and photography. So much wisdom and compassion. I'm considering doing a solitary pilgrimage hike of sorts in Japan. 

Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis. I like a good science fiction work. 

Vintage Munro by Alice Munro. Her stories are richer than full length novels. 

Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer. Brilliant. 

Varieties of Exile by Mavis Gallant. I'm a fan, clearly.

A Wilderness Station by Alice Munro. I'm a fan, too, obviously.

Silence and Beauty by Makoto Fujimura. Christ's image being trampled, and what the means in Japanese society. His sentences, not just his art, are a gift to the world and to artists, in general. 

Vital Signs, edited by Ronnie Baticulon and Marjorie Evasco. What a celebration of short stories about healing by Filipino writers. 

The Books of Jacob by Olga Tocarczuk. A heavy lift for me, but otherwise enjoyable when read once chapter at a time, with a few days in between. 

The MacArthur Study Bible given by Kuya Vance and Ate Milaine. 

The Glory of Christ by John Owen. A feast for the soul as Owen reminds us of what it means to behold Christ's glory. 

First Love, Last Rites by Ian McEwan. He's a genius. 

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan. His novel about the future but otherwise feels very present. 

A Month of Sunday by John Updike. A Protestant minister takes a leave of absence because of sexual misconduct. You deplore the minister, but Updike's prose is a joy. 

The Longing for Home by Frederick Buechner. I learned about Buecher through Russel Moore's podcast. 

The Remarkable Ordinary by Frederick Buechner. I plan to read everything he's written. 

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. A fantasy novel about the persecution of people who are able to do magic. 

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I echo the director Steven Soderbergh's testimony about Chimamanda's work:

But the bottom line is her understanding of just pure storytelling matched with a prose style that's just as aerodynamic as can be achieved. Like there's not a wasted syllable in any of these works. And there are sentences, there are single sentences that you go, well, you could write a whole book about that sentence.

It's just I was completely floored. And so burn through everything that I could get really quickly because it was like a drug, like it was just great storytelling.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Powerful story about many generations of a Korean family. 

 

The Collaborators by Katrina Tuvera. From a previous blog post: 

I read Katrina Tuvera's 203-page novel, The Collaborators, simply one of the finest novels you'll lay your eyes on. It traces the intertwining lives of Carlos and Renata, their daughter Brynne, and Jacob, son of Carlos's friend. The story spans key points in Philippine history: from the Japanese occupation, Martial Law, to the end of the 20th century, with President Estrada's impeachment trial in the background. I ordered the novel, along with a few others, a month ago from the Ateneo Press website, without knowing much about her and her genius. Since I'd started reading it last night, I couldn't put it down.

 

 

I hope I didn't miss anything.