My Top Reads of 2025
- Max Elwood
- Dec 9, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Dec 10, 2025
I've read a decent amount of books across this year - not as many as I'd like, and probably not as many as some of you - but enough to be able to pick 10 of my favourites.
Now, the headline of this post might be somewhat misleading, because not all of these books are from 2025. Some are new, some are old, but all are books which I read at some point in the last 12 months and which - like the good old BBC - informed, educated or entertained in some way. Some even managed all three.
I also made a point this year to expand my reading habits, and while my go-to is still a great crime/thriller novel, I've taken in fantasy, romance, a good amount of non-fiction and even a collection of short stories. Some of those books feature on this list, and all of them have been hours well spent.
So, in no particular order, here we go [cue Top of the Pops chart run down music]...
Box Office Poison, Tim Robey
I'm not usually a huge reader of non-fiction, but I'm a big fan of films and the business of filmmaking, and though this list is in not particular order, this was the first book I read this year, and it set the tone for a great 12 months ahead.
"Entertaining, informative and takes a different point of view of the film business."
Charting some of Hollywood's history via the stinkers it has produced over the decades, we go from 1916's Intolerance to 2019's Cats, with some notable flops in between, such as David Lynch's Dune and the J-Lo-starring Gigli. It's entertaining, informative and takes a different point of view of the film business, but one that's no less interesting (in many ways, much more interesting).
James, Percival Everett
I’ve not read Huckleberry Finn, so can’t speak to how the story of the enslaved Jim fits in with the character from Twain’s original novel, but James was a powerful, human and compelling story - and character - that hooked me from page one.
I’m not sure exactly what I expected from the book, but as a ‘literary’ novel, and a Booker shortlisted book, I was pleasantly surprised at how pacy the story was and how gripping Jim’s adventure proved to be. With man’s cruelty to man at the centre of the novel, the theme cast a constant shadow over the story, but willing Jim onwards and hoping he found what he was looking for pushed me to read James in less than two days.
Uncommon People, Miranda Sawyer
2025 was the year of nostalgia. A 60s inspired setting for Marvel's Fantastic Four, the continued rise of vinyl records, the reintroduction of flip-phones and, of course, the return of the 90s. Oasis secured top billing for that last one, with a behemoth of a reunion tour that saw middle-aged men crying their hearts out as Liam and Noel shared a stage once again [Yes, I went. Yes, it was great. No, I didn't wear a bucket hat].
"Sawyer gives fascinating background into the artists, the songs and the time in which they were created."
Miranda Sawyer's brilliant dive into one part of 90s music - Britpop - ticked all the right boxes for anyone who lived through it, or anyone who loves that music and wished they had lived through it. Picking apart 20 songs from the era - Pulp's Common People, Blur's Girls and Boys and Connection, by Elastica to name a few - Sawyer gives fascinating background into the artists, the songs and the time in which they were created.
Babes in the Wood, Mark Stay
I mentioned at book number one that I'm generally not a big non-fiction reader. Well, you can usually add fantasy to the types of books I don't gravitate towards. However, full disclosure; Mark Stay did a creative edit of my book, and he runs The Green Room, a writer's group of which I am a part.
I'd been promising myself that I would read his successful series of fantasy novels about witches, a small village in Kent and strange happenings in the early 1940s for a while, but it was only after getting the first in the series for Christmas last year that I got stuck in.
The Crow Folk is very good, which is why I bought the next couple in the series at a comic-con earlier this year. On the surface Babes in the Wood - and the village of Woodville in general, where the series is set - has a bucolic sheen of 1940s country life, all quaint pubs, church bell-ringing and village fetes. But it's also a story of the darkness of World War Two, the march of persecution across Europe and, let's not forget, witchy happenings, fast-thinking, bravery and how every bit of kindness helps.
Oscar Wars, Michael Schulman
There's a hat-trick of movie books in this list, and this is the second of them. If I remember rightly, this was recommended on The Rest is Entertainment podcast, and it sounded very much up my street. It's a pretty dense book, but it's 500 pages of brilliant and fascinating information not just about the history of the Academy Awards, but of the birth of Hollywood.
"The chapter about Allan Carr, the producer behind what is often described as 'the worst ever Oscars', is worth the price of admission alone."
It spans almost a century of filmmaking and covers the hits, the misses, the personalities both in front of and behind the camera - Frank Capra, Bette Davis, Jack Warner, Olivia de Havilland, Halle Berry and so many more - and gives a well-rounded view of how a world that’s renowned for glitz and glamour is also one with much darker depths.
The chapter about Allan Carr, the producer behind what is often described as 'the worst ever Oscars', in 1989, is worth the price of admission alone. Well worth a read if you’re interested in film and filmmaking.
It Happened in Clissold Park, Hugh Todd
Like non-fiction, short stories collections aren't something I generally gravitate towards, but I know Hugh Todd and was excited - and somewhat trepidatious - to read this. What if I didn't like it? Should I lie? Dodge the issue entirely? Be honest? Well, as it happened, I didn't just like it, I loved it, and could therefore be completely honest.
It Happened in Clissold Park is series of twelve short stories set across a calendar year. one per month. The characters weave in and out of the different months/stories, and it's a brilliantly written, emotive and engaging read. The characters all feel very real, and the situations - a couple of which dip a toe into magical realism, but still manage to root themselves in reality - hook you in even though the chapters are relatively short. It's life affirming stuff and actually made me wish I lived near Clissold Park!
The Dentist, Tim Sullivan
OK, now I'm back in my comfort zone; a criminal investigation, a series of bodies and, of course, a detective to solve the case. But that's where The Dentist plays its trump card, because the detective in this book [and the following books in the series, which are on my list] is George Cross, who has Asperger's which, while helping him excel as a brilliant, focussed, details-oriented detective, also makes his relationships - both personal and professional - much harder to navigate.
"George Cross is not the gruff, combative, no nonsense detective we are often used to seeing in crime novels."
I have no personal experience of Asperger's but it feels as if Tim Sullivan has done his research because while George's personality and experience of the world is sometimes played for laughs, it's not really at his expense and is just about other people adjusting to or reacting to his different way of being. George Cross feels like a fully rounded person and his portrayal highlights both the advantages and disadvantages of living with a neurobiological condition that's now considered to be part of the wider diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder.
George is not the gruff, combative, no nonsense detective we are often used to seeing in crime novels, but a gentler personality who is no less dogged, and whose unusual approach to the world, to people and to the cases he oversees, makes him an incredibly interesting and likeable character, and The Dentist a thoroughly enjoyable read.
From one detective with an unusual approach to solving crime, to another crime series which has a protagonist with an unusual but very interesting job. The character of Dr Jo McCready is a forensic profiler who peers inside the minds of killers in a bid to understand what makes them who they are, and what compels them to do what they do.
The opener in this series, The Murder Mile, is a pacy, taut and compelling read but the hook comes in the form of who the antagonist is; Jack the Ripper. Yep, one of the world's most notorious serial killers returns more than 130 years after his original crimes were committed. But how, and why? It's a cleverly plotted and very tense affair, and one I raced through.
Hits, Flops and Other Illusions: My Forty-Something Years in Hollywood, Ed Zwick
I'm a big fan of some of Ed Zwick's films - Glory, Courage Under Fire, Legends of the Fall - and while this book isn't a tell-all, gossip-mongering, deep-dive into everything around the film business and Zwick's place in it, it does have some personal insight and some very interesting anecdotes about the industry.
"Zwick talks candidly about his hits and misses, the professional relationships he's built and the ones which didn't really pan out."
Zwick talks candidly about his hits and misses, the professional relationships he's built and the ones which didn't really pan out and, in certain areas, he doesn't pull any punches. More than that, though, it's a fascinating look at the life of a Hollywood director and some of the trials, tribulations, successes and failures it can throw up, and as Zwick is still a presence within the film industry, it's interesting to see what's changes and how things - him included - have had to adapt over the years. If you are a movie fan, I'd highly recommend it.
I've read quite a few of Fiona Cummins' novels, all the way from her debut in 2017, the darkly macabre Rattle, and while Some of Us Are Liars isn't in the same creepy vein as Rattle and its follow up, The Collector, this domestic thriller still has you on the edge of your seat as you follow the story of three sisters whose lives are irrevocably changed after one devastating event.
The book weaves in different characters' points of view, none of which are necessarily trustworthy, which adds to the tension. There's also a returning character from some of Cummins' other books, the brilliantly named detective Saul Anguish, who is less of a main character here, but who looks into the events featured in the book and adds some of his own drama, too.
Like all good thrillers, it's pacy, twisty and unexpected but also has an emotional weight not every good thriller can claim to provide.
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