What I Read This Year

And am currently reading: a mostly complete list

Submission alerts: New American Press Poetry Prize - full-length collections only - no pp # specified - $1,500 cash prize, 25 copies, and promotional support - annual submission period is usually September 15 - January 15.

W.S. Porter Prize for a short story collection, 100-350 double-spaced pp, $1,000 cash prize, publication by Regal House Publishing. Submission period is annually September 2 - December 1. $25 submission fee, via Submittable; final judge: Heather Bell Adams.

LitMag is open for poetry and prose submissions through December 15. Submission guidelines here. Payment ranges from $100-300.

A preview of November’s agent list is accessible here. Bookish subscriptions are currently 30% off.

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In early January of this year, in a time that feels so distant it might as well be another century, I started using the Libby app and alternating between ebooks and hard copies of books already on my shelves. With your local library card, you can create a Libby account and check out ebooks and audiobooks with your phone or tablet. I had never previously been interested in reading ebooks, but I’m an enthusiastic late adopter now.

I know I missed a few books, but this list includes most of them. A happy surprise is that it includes as many story collections as novels.

Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate. I hope you’ll have some time to spend with a good book this week.

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2025 Reading List

Heart the Lover, Lily King (novel)

A Complete Fiction, R.L. Maizes (novel)

Flesh, David Szalay (novel)

The Dime Museum, Joyce Hinnefeld (novel-in-stories)

Mystery Lights, Lena Valencia (stories)

My Chicano Heart, Daniel Olivas (stories)

The History of Sound, Ben Shattuck (linked stories)

Radical Empathy, Robin Romm (stories)

The Plan of Chicago, Barry Pearce (linked stories)

The Perils of Girlhood, Melissa Fraterrigo (essays)

The Morgue Keeper, Ruyan Meng (novel - currently reading - interview w/author forthcoming)

Fonseca, Jessica Francis Kane (novel - interview with Kane and John Warner for The Biblioracle here)

Sex of the Midwest, Robyn Ryle (linked stories)

Little Rabbit, Alyssa Songsiridej (novel)

All the Way to the River, Elizabeth Gilbert (memoir - currently reading)

Rejection, Tony Tulathimutte (stories)

The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter, Grace Tiffany (novel)

What the Dead Can Say, Philip Graham (novel in stories)

Are You Happy?, Lori Ostlund (stories)

Three Women, Lisa Taddeo (nonfiction - fiction hybrid)

Intermezzo, Sally Rooney (novel)

You Can Go Home Now, Michael Elias (novel)

The Girls from Corona del Mar, Rufi Thorpe (novel)

Mouth to Mouth, Antoine Wilson (novel)

Lion, Sonya Walger (novel-memoir hybrid)

The Snowbirds, Christi Clancy (novel)

The Book of George, Kate Greathead (novel)

Laura & Emma, Kate Greathead (novel)

The Disappeared, Andrew Porter (stories)

Save Me, Stranger, Erika Krouse (stories)

Three Keys, Laura Pritchett (novel)

Twilight of the Gods, Kurt Baumeister (novel)

Salvation City, Sigrid Nunez (novel)

Vacuum in the Dark, Jen Beagin (novel)

Vivian’s Decision, Della Leavitt (novel - forthcoming)

The Golden Hour, Matthew Specktor (novel? nonfiction? both…)

A Small Disturbance on the Far Horizon, Richard Babcock (novel)

The Satyr in Bungalow D, Joyce Wadler (novel)

Music Through the Floor, Eric Puchner (stories)

True Failure, Alex Higley (novel)

You Know Nothing, Yasmina Din Madden (stories, forthcoming - currently reading)

Clara’s Big Discovery, Don Tassone (children’s book)

Leaf Town Forever, Kathleen and Beth Rooney (children’s book)

Nothing Compares to You: What Sinéad O’Connor Means to Us (essays - interview with editors forthcoming)

Waterline, Aram Mrjoian (novel - interview forthcoming)

Every Exit Brings You Home, Naeem Murr (novel - currently reading - forthcoming)

Apple & Palm, Patricia Henley (stories - forthcoming)

Be Brief and Tell Them Everything, Brad Listi (novel)

Worry, Alexandra Tanner (novel)

Dancing in Their Dead Mother’s Dresses, Doug Ramspeck (stories - forthcoming)

You Think It, I’ll Say It, Curtis Sittenfeld (stories)

Show Don’t Tell, Curtis Sittenfeld (stories)

Learning to Drown, Scott Stubbs (poetry collection - interview forthcoming)

Run the Song: Writing About Running About Listening, Ben Ratliff (music criticism/personal essays)

Boys & Sex, Peggy Orenstein (currently reading - nonfiction)

Coolest American Stories 2025 (short story anthology, Bookish interview with Mark Wish, co-editor, here)

Exchanges: Fictions, Transcriptions, Stories, Geoffrey Little (audiobook now available too)

Bad Thoughts, Nada Alic (stories; the first story, “My New Life,” includes one of the funniest passages I’ve read. Among many hilarious and strange observations, her OCD-plagued POV character says this of penises: “I imagined them as wind chimes waiting to be struck.”)

Mercy, Joan Silber (novel)

We Were the Universe, Kimberly King Parsons (novel)

Sad Grownups, Amy Stuber (stories)

Mixed Company, Jenny Shank (stories - interview forthcoming)

So Sad Today, Melissa Broder (essays)

Coda: A podcast I’ve been enjoying this fall is Ellen Ancui and Sophie Levine’s Filthy MILFs. You’ll find it on Substack too as Ellen and Sophie's Filthy Podcast.