2025 in books

This past year I did something I had never done before: I kept a list of everything I read. I’m not sure why I never did this before; probably laziness, although there’s a strong argument for time spent writing things down is time not spent reading.

Regardless, in the past year I apparently have at least started reading 57 books (as of December 21st) of which I have completed 48.

We could add one more to that list, as I read the Legions Imperialis rulebook cover to cover as well, I just didn’t bother to include it for some reason. It has stories AND pictures so it is a real big boy book, though, and it’s heavy enough to conceivably kill a small animal.

• Children of Ruin – Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Rebel Girl – Kathleen Hanna
• Children of Memory – Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Berserk deluxe edition Volume 1 – Kentaro Miura
• How to Blow up a Pipeline – Andreas Malm
• Deathworlders – Victoria Hayward (audiobook)
• It’s Not A Bloody Trend: Understanding Life as an ADHD Adult – Kat Brown
• Tallarn: Ironclad – John French (audiobook)
• Double Eagle – Dan Abnett
• Knights of Macragge – Nick Kyme
• Shroud – Adrian Tchaikovsky
• The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team – Patrick Lencioni
• Dogs of War – Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Bear Head – Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Bee Speaker – Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Redemption’s Blade – Adrian Tchaikovsky
• It wants us alive – Rebecca Cantrell
• Cadian Blood – Aaron Dembski-Bowden
• Cadian Honour – Justin D. Hill
• War of Secrets – Phil Kelly
• I Think I Might Be Autistic – Cynthia Kim
• Sociopath – Patric Gagne
• Stalking the Atomic City – Markiyan Kamysh
• All Systems Red – Martha Wells
• Artificial Condition – Martha Wells
• Rogue Protocol – Martha Wells
• Exit Strategy – Martha Wells
• Network Effect – Martha Wells
• Fugitive Telemetry – Martha Wells
• System Collapse – Martha Wells
• City of Bones – Martha Wells
• The Books of Clash: Volume 4 – Gene Luen Yang, Les McClaine, Alison Acton
• Dieselpunk: Retro Futures of the All-American Art Deco Years – Stefan (ed.)
• Battle of the Fang – Chris Wraight
• Witch King – Martha Wells
• Traitor Rock – Justin D. Hill
• Vraks – Steve Lyons
• Aromic Habits – James Clear (audiobook)
• The Wraithbone Phoenix – Alec Worley
• Atomic Habits James Clear (audiobook, second pass)
• Shadow of the Eighth – Justin D. Hill
• Talking Miniatures 1 – John Stallard & Robin Dew
• High Functioning – Dr Judith Joseph (audiobook)
• Hell’s Last – Justin D. Hill
• Steel Tread – Andy Clark
• Talking Miniatures 2 – John Stallard & Robin Dew
• High-Functioning Anxiety – Dr Lalitaa Suglani (audiobook)
• Legions Imperialis: The Ruin of the Salamanders – James Workshop

Note that these are in order I started reading them, and because I frequently read multiple books at once I often finish them out of order.

Some strong patterns are immediately evident.

Firstly, I like books by my favourite current author, Adrian Tchaikovsky. I’ve not written everything he’s written, but I am not far off. I started re-reading the Children trilogy last Christmas; the third I think remains the weakest, but when the pieces come together it’s a wonderfully interesting and heartbreaking story. There were several other re-reads in anticipation of Bee Speaker, which really goes places quite beyond its two predecessors. Shroud was a great book, and featured some of his weirdest aliens yet.

Secondly, I read a lot of Warhammer tie-in books this year. Of the list above, I think this accounts for fourteen books. Some of these were random Space Marine books from an ebook bundle I picked up a few years ago, but the bulk are Imperial Guard books, which tend to be more fun because they involve more ordinary-feeling people. They are very much comfort reading and I like reading them when I travel, or when life is tough. My favourites of these were Deathworlder, which involves Catachans on a planet being consumed by Tyranids, Double Eagle, which is by one of Black Library’s strongest authors and is basically a World War fighter ace tale, and Steel Tread, which focuses on a single tank crew and has good, claustrophobic character dynamics.

Thirdly, I also like books by my rising second favourite author, Martha Wells. I had forgotten where I was with the Murderbot Diaries books, so I just started again. Some of those listed are novellas and very quick reads. I’ve also begun reading some of her fantasy books; Witch King took a moment to land for me but I’m glad it did as I thoroughly enjoyed it. City of Bones was the last book finished before this was published. I’m delighted to have so many new books ahead of me from her.

On the non-fiction side of things, Rebel Girl and Sociopath were fascinating autobiographies. The former is from the frontwomen of Bikini Girl and is a great insight into her personal background, the era of Riot Grrl and the opportunities, challenges and trials of 90s activist feminism, and there’s a rawness to parts of it. Sociopath was a fascinating personal insight into how some human brains work, where even primary emotions are only felt in a muted fashion, and secondary emotions are only understood intellectually and not viscerally. The destructive behaviours exhibited by many sociopaths can be better understood in light of this book, and it was a little shocking to learn that the condition itself is so poorly defined, understood or even explored (at least going by the author’s account; she herself trained in psychology, initially at least to try and understand her own behaviour).

I also read books around adult diagnosis of ADHD and autism, and both also helped me to better understand the minds of friends and colleagues, and also laid groundwork to help me with my own ongoing efforts in self-understanding.

Finally, Talking Miniatures contains a fascinating series of interviews from some of the people involved in the era of Games Workshop from the early to mid 1980s through to the early 2000s, chiefly spanning the eras of Bryan Ansell and Tom Kirby as leaders of the company. There was a lot of nostalgia here for me, and I learned a great deal from the conversations herein. It also complements Dice Men very nicely, a book I read last year from Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson, which covers the earliest days of Games Workshop, and largely concludes when they fully pass ownership on to Ansell.

There was only one book I chose not to finish, and I won’t name the author as that feels unfair. I will say that it has left me with low opinions on the calibre of writers contributing only to the Amazon Unlimited ecosystem.