The best books of 2025

This list is part of the best books of 2025.

Join 1,210 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2025

Book cover of Cathedral of the Drowned

Martin Kearns ❤️ loved this book because...

Cathedral of the Drowned is a beautifully written novella that blends grief, mythology, and horror in equal measure. Ballingrud is one of the best literary horror writers working today, and this story showcases his ability to conjure terror from beauty and longing. If you like your horror soaked in atmosphere with a mythic pulse, this one’s a must read.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Emotions 🥈 Writing
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Nathan Ballingrud ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cathedral of the Drowned as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The sequel to Crypt of the Moon Spider, Cathedral of the Drowned is a dripping, squirming, scuttling tale of altered bodies and minds.

There are two halves of Charlie Duchamp. One is a brain in a jar, stranded on Jupiter's jungle moon, Io, who just wants to go home. The other is hanging on the wall of Barrowfield Home on Earth's own moon, host to the eggs of the Moon Spider and filled with a murderous rage.

On Io, deep in the flooded remains of a crashed cathedral ship, lives a giant centipede called The Bishop, who has taken control…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2025

Book cover of A Lush and Seething Hell

Martin Kearns ❤️ loved this book because...

A Lush and Seething Hell contains two novellas that sit somewhere between dark fantasy and literary horror. One story explores the curse of a haunting piece of literature, while the other dives deep into a folkloric nightmare set against political unrest. Jacobs writes with lyrical intensity and isn’t afraid to get grim. If you enjoy stories that deal with madness, myth, and the cost of truth, this is a great pick.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Originality 🥈 Immersion
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By John Hornor Jacobs ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Lush and Seething Hell as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A World Fantasy Award Nominee!

The award-winning and critically-acclaimed master of horror returns with a pair of chilling tales that examine the violence and depravity of the human condition.

Bringing together his acclaimed novella The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky and an all-new short novel My Heart Struck Sorrow, John Hornor Jacobs turns his fertile imagination to the evil that breeds within the human soul.

A brilliant mix of the psychological and supernatural, blending the acute insight of Roberto Bolano and the eerie imagination of H. P. Lovecraft, The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky examines life in a…


My 3rd favorite read in 2025

Book cover of The Long Walk

Martin Kearns ❤️ loved this book because...

The Long Walk is one of King’s earliest and most brutal works. It’s a dystopian tale that reads like a psychological endurance test, both for the characters and the reader. The horror here isn’t just the looming threat of death, but the slow unraveling of young men forced into impossible choices. If you enjoy stripped-down storytelling with creeping dread and a sharp emotional edge, this is one to revisit.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Thoughts 🥈 Emotions
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Stephen King ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Long Walk as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this #1 national bestseller, “master storyteller” (Houston Chronicle) Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, tells the tale of the contestants of a grueling walking competition where there can only be one winner—the one that survives.

“I give my congratulations to the winner among your number, and my acknowledgements of valor to the losers.”

Against the wishes of his mother, sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty is about to compete in the annual grueling match of stamina and wits known as The Long Walk. One hundred boys must keep a steady pace of four miles per hour without ever stopping...with the winner being…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Kinder

By Martin Kearns ,

Book cover of Kinder

What is my book about?

From the shadows first cast in Beneath the Veil, this collection pulls readers through thirteen stories of warped innocence, generational guilt, and the monsters we invite into our lives before we know their names. A girl follows invisible threads spun by a soul-hungry demon. A centaur delivers brutal justice to a failed father. A man’s memories return to life and remember him too well. At the center of it all is Lilith, the ancient mother of monsters, whispering new lullabies to a broken world.

These are not ghost stories. These are the children left behind by gods and raised by grief.

Kinder is a lyrical and unsettling descent into the secret horrors of growing up where the rules don’t protect you, and the monsters aren’t under the bed.

Book cover of Cathedral of the Drowned
Book cover of A Lush and Seething Hell
Book cover of The Long Walk

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