Books in 2025
In January 2024 I started to do a thing I used to do when I was in my late teens: write down the title of every book that I read as I finished it. I then posted the list in early January 2025. I’ve kept it up and am doing the same this year.
I can’t imagine that this is hugely interesting to anyone but may spark some connections, make some recommendations, open some brains (mine included) and generally stand against the misery of the times..
Having said that, a lot of my reading this year has been about the grim and all too current subject of fascism and the many writers who opposed it, with brilliant novels in translation by Gabrielle Tergit, Lionel Feuchtwanger, Peter Weiss and Ignazio Silone. There’s quite a lot of history about the subject too, including Timothy Snyder’s harrowing BLOODLANDS and Martin Pugh’s study of British fascism.
But then there’s a thread of something entirely different: Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, the marvellous Barbara Pym and the great nineteenth century Danish novelist Henrik Pontoppidan. And rounding off the year was Volume Three of Chateaubriand’s astonishing MEMOIRS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE.
Anyway, here it is. Do with it as you will.
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TIME’S ECHO Jeremy Eichler
THE AUTUMN GHOST Hannah Wunsch
THE FATE OF ABRAHAM Peter Oborne
THE VILLAGE OF BEN SUC Jonathan Schell
THE UNDERGROUND SEA John Berger
GERMINAL Émile Zola
ON TYRANNY Timothy Snyder
EMMA Jane Austen
A FORTUNATE WOMAN Polly Morland
ELIZABETH GASKELL Jenny Uglow
BLOODLANDS Timothy Snyder
BLOOD AND POWER John Foot
THE ALIENATION EFFECT Owen Hatherley
THE FROG IN THE THROAT Markus Werner
THE RESISTANCE Matthew Cobb
SYLVIA’S LOVERS Elizabeth Gaskell
MALAPARTE Maurizio Serra
THE WEIMAR YEARS Frank McDonough
THE AESTHETICS OF RESISTANCE (III) Peter Weiss
CRANFORD and COUSIN PHILLIS Elizabeth Gaskell
SHIRLEY Charlotte Brontë
FASCISM: THE STORY OF AN IDEA Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey
THE DIRECTOR Daniel Kehlmann
MAYBE I’M AMAZED John Harris
‘HURRAH FOR THE BLACKSHIRTS!’ Martin Pugh
LEARNING WITH LEARNING DISABILITY Owen Barden
FONTAMARA Ignazio Silone
BREAD AND WINE Ignazio Silone
THE SEED BENEATH THE SNOW Ignazio Silone
THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES Honoré de Balzac
LONG ISLAND COMPROMISE Taffy Brodesser-Akner
MIAOW Benito Pérez Galdós
VERTIGO: THE RISE AND FALL OF WEIMAR GERMANY Harald Jähner
CONVERSATIONS IN SICILY: A NOVEL Elio Vittorini
THE OPPERMANNS Lion Feuchtwanger
TRISTANA Benito Pérez Galdós
WINDS OF THE NIGHT Joan Sales
THE BIRDS Tarjei Versaas
BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY Danilyn Rutherford
THE WHITE BEAR Henrik Pontoppidan
CRITICAL HEALTH AND LEARNING DISABILITIES Sara Ryan
THE SWEET DOVE DIED Barbara Pym
A FORTUNATE MAN Henrik Pontoppidan
MILTON AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION Christopher Hill
QUARTET IN AUTUMN Barbara Pym
THE EFFINGERS: A BERLIN SAGA Gabriele Tergit
RADICAL UNIVERSALISM: BEYOND IDENTITY Omri Boehm
FERDINAND, THE MAN WITH THE KIND HEART Irmgard Keun
MEMOIRS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE 1815-1830 François-René de Chateaubriand