Year 2025 Final Bracket

 2025 Book Bracket Finale

The new year is in its infancy, and that means that it's time to decide which book was the best one I read in 2025. This also marks the fifth year of my book-blogging project, so I may need to make a special blog post determining the best book of the last five years. Or, maybe I wait until the end of 2026, so I can have a more even bracket.

Regardless of when the ultra-special bracket will happen, I'll follow the structure from last year's post to summarize 2025's best books.

Best in Genre

Spiritual Work: For the Love of Mary, by Fr. Daniel-Maria Klimek

Fiction (Fantasy): The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge

Fiction (Classic): To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Fiction (Realistic): The Sherlock Society, by James Ponti (audiobook)

Fiction (Historical): Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

Auto/Biography: My God and My All, by Elizabeth Goudge

Literary Criticism/Reference: Tending the Heart of Virtue, by Vigen Guroian

Book-Moir: One Beautiful Dream, by Jen Fulwiler (audiobook)

Nonfiction: Bandersnatch: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings, by Diana Pavlac Glyer (ebook)

Philosophy: Essays on Woman, by St. Edith Stein

Reread: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Monthly Winners

January: A Monastery Journey to Christmas

February: For the Love of Mary

March: Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination

April: The Edge of Extinction: The Ark Plan

May: One Beautiful Dream: The Rollicking Tale of Family Chaos, Personal Passions, and Saying Yes to Them Both

June: Bandersnatch: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings

July: Hannah Coulter

August: To Kill a Mockingbird

September: Light and Peace: Instructions for Devout Souls to Dispel Their Doubts and Allay Their Fears

October: The Cabin Faced West

November: Essays on Woman

December: The Last Unicorn

This is the first year in a while that I haven't reread Searching for and Maintaining Peace by Fr. Jacques Philippe, but it is the second year in a row that I've managed a full bracket.

Three monthly winners were spiritual works, five were fictional works (one fantasy, one science fiction), and one each of nonfiction, book memoir (book-moir), philosophical essays, and literary criticism. Overall, the bracket begins with a good variety of different types of books, especially with the understanding that I read or listen to so many works of fiction.

Determining this year's winner was just as hard as I thought it would be. I rearranged the bracket positions of some titles to reflect their greater (or lesser) value. Of course, some excellent books did not make it past the first round, such as A Monastery Journey to Christmas and Essays on Woman. Even though To Kill a Mockingbird deserves the distinction of being the best book I read this year, it just didn't hit me the way the ultimate winner, For the Love of Mary, did. I did a deep dive on that book and recall (after reviewing my notes) that I'd like to revisit it someday.

And, as always, some months had stronger competition than others, so books like Gilead and My God and My All should have had places in this yearly finale, but didn't have the chance because other books won their respective monthly brackets.

Other books or series to make note of include the Wilderking trilogy by Jonathan Rogers, Meditations Before Mass by Romano Guardini, Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt, and Screen Kids: 5 Relational Skills Every Child Needs in a Tech-Driven World, by Arlene Pellicane and Gary Chapman.