Have you ever wondered why we use ten as our demarcation for lists?  I was listening to a podcast that talked about the 11 most endangered historic places in the United States.  The podcaster asked the person he was interviewing, why 11?  She responded that the first year they couldn’t narrow the list to 10, so ever since they have had 11.

For the last five years I have given you a favorite books of the year list.  My goal has been to keep it to ten books.  But, in order to do that, I have to play with the numbers or leave out books that got five star ratings.  It seems like a very artificial number.

This last year I read 123 books.  I like to keep track of them and rate them on Goodreads.  Out of those 123 books, I rated 16 of them as five star books, less than 8%.  Most of the books I read get four stars.  Some get three.  I rarely rate anything below a three because I just don’t finish a book that is going to get a lower rating.

I like to read a variety of styles.  Five of the books that got five stars are nonfiction.  Two history, one biography and two memoirs.  Of the 11 fiction books, five are mysteries, four are fiction, one is historical fiction, and one is romance.

I have thought about this best books of 2025 list for a couple of weeks.  I wanted to rank them in order like I have in previous years.  But this list gets so long that most of you don’t read it.  Instead of a paragraph, I’m going to give you just a few sentences about each.  You can skim the list or read all the way to the end.  Here are my best books of 2025.

1. Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley.  My favorite book of 2025.  I loved this sweet little book. Over 100 years old, it still shares a wonderful message about taking a chance on life and the value of a good book.  I recommend this book so highly that I wrote a stand-alone review on it.  You can read it here.

2. Forget Me Not Library by Heather Webber.  A sweet and perfect book. I wish there was a town just like this. I love books with a touch of magic in them and this one had it. As well as enough romance to keep any romance-lover happy.

3. Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks.  A beautiful examination of a deep love and the resultant grief. I appreciated how the book wasn’t maudlin or self-pitying. Brooks eventually made room to process her grief. This does not mean she stopped grieving. But it was a way to come to terms with it, to learn to live with it and go on.

4. Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a dead man) by Jesse Sutanto.  Vera continues to grow her adopted family by refusing to take no for an answer.  I love this Chinese grandma and her invincible spirit.  Looking forward to the next one!

5. A Southern Underground Railroad: Black Georgians and the Promise of Spanish Florida and Indian Country by Paul Pressly.  An excellent resource for anyone interested in the enslaved history of Georgia and Florida. Spanish Florida, while it existed, provided a path for freedom. To escape slavery, these slaves went south!  Pressly has done extensive research and enlivens the history with individual stories of freedom seekers. Highly recommended.  This book gets five stars on Goodreads because my five star review is the only review!

6. The Skeleton in the Closet.  MC Beaton, author of the Hamish Macbeth and Agatha Raisin series, is one of my favorite authors.  The Skeleton in the Closet was written before either of these series.  This book is a delight. The two characters, Fellworth and Maggie, grew and developed as they learned more about each other and themselves. There is romance and mystery. It is all a lot of fun.

7. Quackery, a Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Anything by Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen is an interesting and humorous look at quack cures.  I liked it so much I bought a copy and gave it to my dad for Christmas.

8. The Guncle by Steven Rowley tells the story of gay Uncle Patrick who suddenly finds himself the guardian of his niece and nephew.  The book is funny, poignant and very human.

9. Heartwood by Amity Gaige.  Loved the book. Beautifully written. The different points of view were not confusing, as many of them are. Loved learning all the stories. Suspenseful with a loving heart at the center.

10. Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout.  Wonderful book. Poignant story about unrecorded lives woven together by the caring of Bob Burgess. I haven’t read any of the other books in the series and am not sure I want to. This one was perfect.

11. My Friends by Fredrik Backman.  This takes me back to the very first Backman books. Beautiful, perfect, where people save each other. All of the things I love about his writing. So much better than his other recent books. A few too many quotes, but a wonderful story about brokenness and friends saving each other.

12. Desi Arnaz:  The Man Who Invented Television by Todd Purdum.  A fascinating book about a brilliant but deeply flawed man.  Most of what we remember about sitcoms was invented by Desi Arnaz.

13. The Briar Club by Kate Quinn.  A haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

14. Two books in the Joe Pickett series by CJ Box ended up getting five stars this year.  Force of Nature is book #12 and Endangered is book #15.  This is a mystery series with a game warden who always ends up solving murders.  It seems a little out of his job description, but CJ Box makes it work.

What do you think?  Did you read any of these books?  What was your favorite book of 2025?