The Best Books I Read in 2025

I read 26 books in 2025, besting my Goodreads goal of 25 by one. Here are the best books I read in 2025, in no particular order.  

Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe, 1929: Wolfe’s debut novel announced the arrival of a major new literary talent. Look Homeward, Angel drew heavily from Wolfe’s own life and childhood. Wolfe’s love of language is what animates and drives his writing. When Wolfe gives us a list of smells in the book, he doesn’t just stop at three or four; he keeps going and going for a page and a half. Look Homeward, Angel is a beautiful, messy, sprawling novel, bursting with life on every page. The characters are vivid; the prose is rich with energy and vitality. If you like Wolfe, you should also check out The Short Novels of Thomas Wolfe, and The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe. 

Deeper Blues: The Life, Songs, and Salvation of Cornbread Harris, by Andrea Swensson, 2024: A biography of Cornbread Harris, a fixture of the Twin Cities music scene who is now 98 years old, Deeper Blues details Harris’ life as a pianist and performer. The book also becomes a catalyst for the renewal of his relationship with his son Jimmy Jam, the famous songwriter and producer. Deeper Blues is funny, moving, and touching, an excellent example of how music can connect people.  

The Far Side of Paradise, by Arthur Mizener, 1951, and Scott Fitzgerald, by Andrew Turnbull, 1962: The first two biographies of the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, both books are a fantastic look at the beautiful prose and disordered life of the brilliant chronicler of the Jazz Age. Mizener’s biography gives us glimpses of the charismatic Fitzgerald who entertained with card tricks and created fun and intricate games for children. Turnbull knew Fitzgerald in the 1930’s, when he was a boy, and Scott and Zelda rented a house from Turnbull’s parents. Turnbull’s biography paints a portrait of the man and his work, but it has a personal touch that makes it especially appealing. Turnbull wrote of him: “Fitzgerald focused on you—even riveted on you—and if there was one thing you were sure of, it was that whatever you happened to be talking about was the most important matter in the world. A further seduction was his smile—quick, tight, and very appealing. It was not so much a smile as a flash of confidence in you and your mortal possibilities.” I love how that quote makes Fitzgerald sound a bit magical, like Jay Gatsby. I also re-read The Great Gatsby in 2025, which of course I recommend as the starting point for anyone coming to Fitzgerald’s writing.  

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers, 1940: A fantastic novel about a small town in the South. McCullers brings a sharp, discerning eye to her varied cast of characters. The center of the hub around which the characters revolve is John Singer, who is deaf and speaks only in sign language. Singer is a fascinating figure, he becomes a kind of priest-like figure to those he interacts with, offering them a silent absolution and benediction, while remaining an inscrutable figure himself. McCullers’ skill in writing the novel is how she is able to get into the heads of so many different characters and have them all ring true to life. A remarkable achievement.  

Tuck Everlasting: The Graphic Novel, based on the novel by Natalie Babbitt, adapted and illustrated by K. Woodman-Maynard, 2025: A superb adaptation of the classic young adult novel. Woodman-Maynard, who previously did a wonderful graphic novel adaptation of The Great Gatsby, has the gift of remaining true to the essence of a story while also successfully adapting it for a different medium. Tuck Everlasting is an interesting book, as it asks difficult questions about life and mortality. Woodman-Maynard's gorgeous watercolors are a perfect accompaniment for the pastoral beauty of the setting.  

Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting: the graphic novel, Adapted and Illustrated by K. Woodman-Maynard (2025)

Natalie Babbitt’s novel Tuck Everlasting is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025, and a graphic novel adapted and illustrated by K. Woodman-Maynard has just been published. Woodman-Maynard did a marvelous 2021 graphic novel adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.  

Woodman-Maynard's beautiful watercolor illustrations are a terrific compliment to Babbitt’s story, and they successfully capture the pastoral timelessness of the novel. Woodman-Maynard eschews large blocks of text and often incorporates the narration into the surrounding landscape. This makes for a smoother reading experience, and the narration feels more organic to the book.  

The main character in Tuck Everlasting is 10-year-old Winnie Foster. Winnie lives on the outskirts of a small town named Treegap. Winnie’s parents and grandmother try their best to shelter her from the dangers of the outside world, and she spends most of her summer days within her fenced yard, longing to experience more of what’s on the other side.  

One day, Winnie wanders into the forest near her house. There she sees a handsome young man who is relaxing in the shade of a tree. He drinks from a small spring. Winnie starts talking to him and finds it curious that he does not want her to drink any water from the spring. When the young man’s mother and brother show up, they tell Winnie that they will have to take her with them. 

This strange family that has kidnapped Winnie are the Tucks, and it turns out that they drank water from this spring in the forest many years ago. Since that time, they have stopped aging and are immortal. They have tried to conceal the spring from anyone else, for fear that others would find it and exploit it.  

The villain of the story is the Man in the Yellow Suit, who has been searching for the Tucks for years and has his own nefarious plans for the magical spring. Take a look at the Man in the Yellow Suit’s speech balloons, and you’ll notice that Woodman-Maynard has made the ends of them resemble snakes; to symbolize the way the character tries to seduce whoever he is talking to. It’s such a clever touch.  

Tuck Everlasting is a book that asks difficult questions and doesn’t provide easy answers to its readers. Each member of the Tuck family has a different viewpoint on their accidental immortality. The novel asks us to consider difficult questions: what would it mean to stop aging? What would it be like to be immortal? How would being immortal change the decisions that you made, and the way you lived? How do we come to terms with being mortal? Winnie’s unlikely friendship with the Tuck family forces her to ponder some of these questions.  

Woodman-Maynard's storytelling style is a wonderful fit for this fable-like novel. Her handling of the climax of the book, which uses hardly any words, is a master class in visual storytelling. At the end of the book, there’s an enlightening conversation between Natalie Babbitt’s daughter Lucy Babbitt and Woodman-Maynard, and several pages detailing Woodman-Maynard's artistic process, which is fun to see.  

If you’re a long-time fan of Tuck Everlasting or just coming to the novel for the first time, Woodman-Maynard's graphic adaptation is a wonderful way to experience this timeless story.  

Book Review: The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, adapted and illustrated by K. Woodman-Maynard, based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald (2021)

 

The cover of K. Woodman-Maynard's graphic novel adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, 2021.

Woodman-Maynard's speech bubbles help to characterize the square Tom Buchanan, and the playful, vivacious Daisy.

On January 1, 2021, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby entered the public domain, meaning that anyone is now free to adapt the novel however they choose to do so, without getting approval from the Fitzgerald estate. One of the earliest new adaptations to be released is K. Woodman-Maynard’s graphic novel adaptation, published on January 5^th by Candlewick Press.

The Great Gatsby is Woodman-Maynard’s first graphic novel, and she does a fantastic job of translating Fitzgerald’s timeless novel into the graphic novel format. Gatsby is an excellent candidate for the graphic novel treatment, as Fitzgerald’s language throughout the book is full of colors. Of course, there’s the famous green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, as well as Gatsby’s pink suit, his yellow car, and the “yellow cocktail music” that plays at his parties.

Nick searches for Gatsby as the champagne flows. (That's Jordan Baker in the background.)

Woodman-Maynard’s medium for her Gatsby graphic novel is watercolor and digital media, and her vibrant colors pop off the page. Her version of Gatsby is a treat to look at. The attention to detail is superb—pay attention to the character’s speech bubbles, and you’ll see that everything Tom Buchanan says is in a square bubble, perfect for his tiny, square mind, while everything Daisy says has tendrils and curlicues that occasionally ensnare the other characters. It’s a perfect visual illustration of her seductiveness.

An example of how Nick's narration sometimes appears.

Nick Carraway’s narration appears in creative ways throughout the book—on clouds, on the sides of buildings, stretching across a landscape. This is an elegant and visually stimulating way to present the novel’s narration without relying on huge blocks of text intruding into the book.

Gatsby's car, with its' gold top hat hood ornament. Pretty snazzy, old sport.

Throughout the book are little “Easter eggs” for Gatsby fans to pore over. For example, the hood ornament on Gatsby’s car is a tiny gold top hat—a reference to Gatsby’s epigraph poem “The Gold-Hatted Lover.”

While Woodman-Maynard’s use of color is bold, she makes the dramatic choice to show the hapless George Wilson without any color at all. It’s a great decision, and makes Wilson stand out from the other characters.

I couldn’t help but compare Woodman-Maynard’s adaptation to the officially sanctioned Gatsby graphic novel, with illustrations by Aya Morton, adapted by Fred Fordham, that came out in June of 2020. (I reviewed that adaptation here.) Woodman-Maynard has made more dramatic editorial choices than Fordham did, and for that reason, I found Woodman-Maynard’s to be a more successful adaptation.

In my original review of the Fordham/Morton version, I praised Fordham’s adaptation of the text. But now that I’ve read Woodman-Maynard’s, I think Fordham left in too much narration. I know, that sounds like heresy, considering how beautiful Fitzgerald’s prose is. But an adaptation will always be someone’s version of the original text—it will always be different from the source. If you want all the language of the novel, go read the novel. Woodman-Maynard succeeds in creating a graphic novel that has narrative drive that isn’t overly reliant on Fitzgerald’s narration. In doing so, she has made a tight narrative even tighter.

Woodman-Maynard also succeeds in differentiating the characters more than Morton did. In Woodman-Maynard’s version, Tom Buchanan becomes the hulking person he’s described as in the novel, as he towers over all the other characters.

Woodman-Maynard also chooses to make some of Fitzgerald’s metaphors literal—Daisy and Jordan are literally hovering in the air when we first see them. In Fitzgerald’s words, they “were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon.” For me, those moments were never distracting or intrusive, they just added to the atmosphere of the book. There’s something slightly unreal about Gatsby to begin with—this isn’t a novel that’s all about naturalism.

If you’re looking for a new way to experience The Great Gatsby, pick up K. Woodman-Maynard’s graphic novel adaptation. Chances are you’ll find something new you’ve never noticed before.