Best Books of 2025

Reading is lots of fun. It feels a bit more difficult, in our video and social media saturated age, to quiet my heart and mind enough to settle into a good book. But once I do, I’m always glad. Reading is also serious business. As the poet Mary Oliver describes, “literature is the apparatus through which the world tries to keep intact its important ideas and feelings” (A Poetry Handbook, p. 108). So, as is now my custom, I list here my favorite reads of 2025 in philosophy, theology, apologetics, spiritual formation, and non-fiction. A little bit of fun. And a little bit of seriousness. All mixed together. This year I read 43 books. I list title, author, and one sentence description, as recorded in my book journal. Here are my favorites:

Best in Philosophy

• Wonderstruck, by Helen De Cruz. “Wonder and Awe as self-transcendent/epistemic emotions that keep help us see reality clearly.”
• The Virtue of Limits, by David McPherson. “Expertly argued essay on learning to accept the givenness of life applied to morality, politics, and economics.”
• Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, by Zachary Manis. “A defense of the divine presence model of hell as the traditional view.”

Honorable Mentions: Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, by Jerry Walls; Christian Philosophy as a Way of Life, by Ross Inman; God’s Final Victory, by Joh Kronen and Erick Reitan; Spiritual Emotions, by Robert Roberts; What is Reality?, by Ross Inman; God and Abstract Objects, by Einar Bohn; Science and its Limits, by Del Ratzsch; Aesthetic Knowledge, by Jon Robson; Metaphysics, by Alyssa Ney.

Theology/Apologetics

• This Sacred Life, by Norman Wirzba. “A beautifully written book on the sacredness of all things in God’s good world.”
• The Genesis of Gender, by Abigail Favale. “A wonderfully written book exploring the sacramental view of the body as understood in Scripture and the Christian tradition.”
• The Privileged Planet, by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards.” An updated defense of the thesis that the Earth is uniquely suitable for life and discovery.”

Honorable Mentions: God and the Astronomers, by Robert Jastrow; Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design, ed. James Stump; On Beauty and Being Just, by Elaine Scarry.

Best in Spiritual Formation

• Sabbath as Resistance, by Walter Brueggamann. “Sabbath as an antidote to commoditization and idolatry.”
• The Shattered Lantern, by Rondald Rolheiser. “A helpful essay on seeing all things in God in a disenchanted world.”
• Confessions, by Augustine. “A penetrating analysis of the human soul confessing to God.”

Best in Fiction

• Katabasis, by R. F. Kuang. “A story about two Cambridge PhD students and their journey to hell and back.”
• James, by Percival Everett. “A beautifully written story of Huck Finn from Jim’s perspective.”
• Project Hail Mary, by Ander Weir. “A compelling science-fiction adventure full of extraterrestrial intelligence and hope for the world.”

Honorable Mentions: The Aeneid, by Vergil; The Buffalo Hunter, by Joseph Graham Jones; Artemis by Andy Weir; Atonement, by Ian McEwan; Earthsea: A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin; The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien; Hannah Coulter, by Wendell Berry

What about you? What are some of your favorite books read from this past year? What are you looking forward to reading this year? 

Other fun facts: I’ve been keeping a book log since July 1, 2009. I’ve read my 722 books by the end of this past year (book #1 = Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen; book #722 recorded on December 30, 2025, is The Hobbit, a delightful book, refreshingly adventurous). 

To see prior year favorite books, see here and follow the link back and back and back through the years. Happy reading!