My Top 5 Books Read in 2025 — Nicole O'Meara

Without delay, I give you the best books I read in 2025. Some of these titles were published long before 2025, and I am only now getting to them. They still merit mention.

Best in Nonfiction

Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle

I had a bit of a Madeleine L’Engle streak this year. I was introduced to the Austin family and fell in love. A Ring of Endless Light featured dolphins, so there’s that. But it was her book on being a Christian and a Creative that got the most highlights this year. In my opinion, she rambles a bit here and there, taking rabbit trails with no definitive end but she earns the right to ramble with wisdom in all those highlights. Take this, for example:

To paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birth-giver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary, who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. . . .
God, through the angel Gabriel, called on Mary to do what, in the world’s eyes, is impossible, and instead of saying, “I can’t,” she replied immediately. “Be it unto me according to thy word.” God is always calling on us to do the impossible.

I will re-read this one. For sure.

Runners Up:

Waiting Isn’t a Waste by Mark Vroegop

The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon

Best in Fiction

Theo of Golden by Allen levi

This book instantly made it onto my Top 10 List, alongside titles like Anne of Green Gables and Persuasion. Good company.

Runners Up:

Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery

The Bronte Plot by Katherine Reay

The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner

Watership Down by Richard Adams
Holy Cow! How did I miss this one? Chris said he read it as an assignment in high school. Not I. All I wanted to do when I finished was talk about it, with anyone and everyone! A long discussion at the office was had about various books based on anthropomorphic rabbits, but none are like this one. (Side note: why so many books about anthropomorphic rabbits?)

Best in Poetry

Still Life by Megan Huwa

Megan’s poems are calls, really, to see the unseen right in front of you. Then see them in the light of eternity. This little book will be a treasure on your shelf.

Best in Cozy Mystery

Latter End - a Miss Silver Mystery by Patricia Wentworth

I enjoyed several Miss Silver mysteries this year and they were all good. I chose this one as my favorite because the members of the household are just so dear and likable. Miss Silver is her steadfast self, knitting away while thinking to herself. Good luck trying to figure out what’s going on in her head.

Best in Biography

Giant by Judith McQuoid

I read disappointingly few biographies this year, but this one would have stood out in a large stack. Giant is written in a creative nonfiction style, retelling the pre-adolescent years of C.S. Lewis through the eyes of an imaginative friend. A friend who very well could have been real, but we have no evidence of it. The author is Irish and brings details of a life lived in Belfast to the reader. Perfect for young readers.

Find all the books I read in 2025 with ratings and reviews on my Goodreads Page.