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52 books a year in 2025

by noelcades - Comment is Closed

Following my first 52 books a year challenge back in 2024, I did it again last year and am doing so for the third time in 2026. I forgot to post the 2025 list and pick the winners, but here it is!

Once again it was an eclectic mix of old favourites, new discoveries and books I stumbled across serendipitously in street libraries and other places.

Like the previous list, rather than pick an overall “best” book, here are several 2025 award winners. The “Book of the year” wasn’t necessarily the most enjoyable or the best written, it was just the one that really stuck in my mind and was incredibly different to anything else I’ve read – and despite being hundreds and hundreds of pages long, it kept me engaged until the end.

Books read in 2025

  1. A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters
  2. Diary of a Provincial Lady in America by E M Delafield
  3. Georgics by Publius Vergilius Maro
  4. The Drowners by David A Anderson
  5. The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  6. The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters by Enid Blyton
  7. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
  8. Kiss Chase by Fiona Walker
  9. The Enchanted Castle by E Nesbit
  10. Mrs McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie
  11. The Good Companions by JB Priestley
  12. Susan Takes a Hand by Anne Hepple
  13. The Rule of Three by Agatha Christie
  14. Quick Service by PG Wodehouse
  15. Caldicott Place by Noël Streatfeild
  16. Miss Buncle Married by DE Stevenson
  17. Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh
  18. Tales from Moominvalley by Tove Jansson
  19. Miss Mole by EH Young
  20. Life, the Interpreter by Phyllis Bottome
  21. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
  22. The Caravaners by Elizabeth Von Arnim
  23. The School at the Chalet by Elinor Brent-Dyer
  24. Recipes from an Old Farmhouse by Alison Uttley
  25. Treasure Hunt by Molly Keane
  26. Later Days at Highbury by Joan Austen-Leigh
  27. Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
  28. Lavengro by George Borrow
  29. Thursday’s Child by Noel Streatfeild
  30. Moondial by Helen Cresswell
  31. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
  32. The Brontës Went to Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson
  33. Fish Preferred by PG Wodehouse
  34. Susan Settles Down by Molly Clavering
  35. The Two Miss Abbotts by DE Stevenson
  36. The Winter of Enchantment by Victoria Walker
  37. A City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge
  38. Why Shoot a Butler? by Georgette Heyer
  39. Miss Plum and Miss Penny by Dorothy Evelyn Smith
  40. Friday’s Child by Georgette Heyer
  41. Emily by Jilly Cooper
  42. The Haunting Season: Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights by Various
  43. Jane Austen in the Classroom by Louise Flavin
  44. Surfeit of Lampreys by Ngaio Marsh
  45. Secret Seven Fireworks by Enid Blyton
  46. Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie
  47. Marriage by Susan Ferrier
  48. The Spice Woman’s Basket by Alison Uttley
  49. The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay
  50. Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan
  51. The Christmas Book by Enid Blyton
  52. Mystery in White by J Jefferson Farjeon.