Look, I'm a sucker for end-of-year lists. They're addictive. This year's reading report? Mixed bag. Read a ton, wrote almost nothing (draft folder overflowing with half-finished posts), and my genuine loves? Count them on one hand.
To wrap up 2025, I'm stealing this format from some fellow book bloggers who started it on social media. Works for me.
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The Snow Leopard by Sylvain Tesson (Gallimard, 2024). Felt hollow except for the landscape stuff. The Himalayan wildlife descriptions saved it.
Comédies françaises by Eric Reinhardt (Gallimard, 2025). Waited three years. Devoured it in three days. Life's cruel like that.
Finally got to the legendary Toni Morrison with Beloved (10/18, 1993). Yeah, I know. Embarrassing it took this long.
Somb by Max Monnehay (Seuil, 2025). Crime novel set in La Rochelle. Fine. Forgettable.
The First Man by Albert Camus (Folio, 2000). His final, unfinished, deeply personal work. I worship this writer.
Plenty of contenders—Ian McEwan, Fabrice Humbert—but the real letdown came from Anna Hope. Loved her first two books. Nos espérances (Gallimard, 2025)? Weak sauce.
The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Robert Laffont, 2025)
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Might've skipped Du rififi à Wall Street (Gallimard, 2025) if I hadn't figured out fake Vlad Eisinger was really Antoine Bello.
Summer binge: all three volumes of Murakami's 1Q84 (10/18, 2012. 1680 pages). Bad idea. Love Murakami, but this needed serious editing. 500 pages of fat, easy. Still, he drops lines like this:
"Butterflies are the most elegant and ephemeral living things. Born from nowhere, their quest is peaceful and limited, and they vanish imperceptibly to nowhere. Probably into another world."
Forgiven.
Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary. That unique style. A mother's wild love for her son. Masterpiece.
Le grand vertige by Pierre Ducrozet (Actes Sud, 2025). Humanity teetering on the climate-change edge. Will we finally wake up?
Mississippi Solo by Eddy Harris (Liana Levi, 2025). A completely different way to cross America, North to South. Another side of the country revealed.
The Eight Mountains by Paolo Cognetti (Stock, 2017). Prix Médicis étranger 2017. Found this line that basically summed up my 2025 mindset:
"I lacked nothing in what I didn't possess, except the freedom to roam the world."
Vie de Gérard Fulmard by Jean Echenoz (Minuit, 2025). Zero interest. Didn't even crack a smile.
Barely read during lockdown. Made puzzles, listened to podcasts. Reread some classics, including the essential The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (Folio, 1972). Depressingly current.
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L'enfant céleste by Maud Simonnot (Les éditions de l'observatoire, 2025). Makes you want to stare at the sky.
Les services compétents by Iegor Gran (POL, 2025). Author tells how his writer father drove the KGB crazy by publishing anti-Communist novels abroad.
Esther by Olivier Bruneau (Le Tripode, 2025). Everything you wanted to know about sex robots but were afraid to ask.
Les étoiles s'éteignent à l'aube by Richard Wagamese (Zoé, 2025). Final journey of a father and son to their Indigenous roots.
Trencadis by Caroline Deyns (Quidam éditeur, 2025). Revisits the life and work of Niki de Saint-Phalle. Would've loved to grab a drink with her.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (Libretto, 2017).
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Apeirogon by Colum McCann (Belfond, 2025). Really original in form—a thousand and one fragments to show the thousand and one facets of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Man in Red by Julian Barnes (Mercure de France, 2025). Dizzying patchwork mixing history and art, portrait of a man, reflection of an era, fiction and reality tangled together.
Big brick to cross from one year to the next: La Gang des rêves by Luca di Fulvio (Pocket, 2017)
Betty by (Gallmeister, 2025)
Wishing everyone a solid end to this bizarre year.