The Best Books (Read By Me) in 2025
Welcome, Dear Reader, to the 2026 Johnny Bingo Awards, given
annually to the best books I read this year.
By now you know the drill, but in case you don’t here are some things to know about The JBs
- Eligible books are anything I read this year, regardless of when they were written. The oldest book I read this year was published in 1835, the newest in 2025. So hey, even if you’ve been dead hundreds of years, it’s not too late to win a JB!
- My categories are…inconsistent.
- While Nobel Prize winners receive over 11 million kroner, which is like a million bucks, winners of a JB win the pride that can only come with knowing some random guy with a blog likes your book.
On to the prizes!
Best History Book
Most of the history books I read this year were useful and
competent, but few thrilled me.
For example, Constantine the Great is arguably the most important historical figure most people don’t know, but Michael Grant’s somewhat academic treatment left me wanting more. And Tom Standage came up with a fascinating way of looking at world history, through the lens of six beverages that changed the world (Think “The Beer Age” [ancient Mesopotamia] and The Coke Age [the American century]) instead of The Iron Age, The Bronze Age, etc.). But this treatment cried out for wit, which was sorely lacking.
But one book did stand out.
Rick Atkinson is a modern-day Bruce Catton, a former journalist who has
written not one, but two brilliant historical trilogies (well, one and
two/thirds so far).
I gave a JB to Volume 2 of The Liberation Trilogy way back in 2007. Atkinson has now turned
his gifts to the American Revolution* and is 2/3s through his Revolution
trilogy. I eagerly await Volume 3.
* Atkinson also has a fine turn in Ken Burns’ documentary, The
American Revolution*, which I just finished watching this week. I hope to write a sort-of review of that but
need to finish this. Mini-preview-review:
5 stars!
· The title of Burns’ doc got me thinking about
what to call that war, or that period. Growing
up, it was always called The Revolutionary War, but there are other countries
with revolutionary wars, so that’s not descriptive enough. The Brits tend to call it The War for
American Independence, which is much more descriptive. But it only describes the war itself, and not
what came before and after. So, The
American Revolution is an apt name for the period.
Most Superfluous History Book
The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, andHeroism, Erik Larson
What? You think we just hand out trophies and
flowers here? Sometimes our job is not
just to give ideas about what to read, but warnings about what not to read.
Erik Larson has written some wonderful books, telling untold
stories in Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts. In The Splendid and the Vile, he turned
to fields that have been tilled many times before, focusing on Churchill during
the Blitz. But even here, he found a
unique angle, focusing on his family life.
But what was the point exactly of The Demon of Unrest? Larson decided to write a book about the
beginning of the Civil War, a topic that has been covered hundreds of times by
many great writers. And he brought
nothing new to it. It seemed at times
like he was a high school book report writer who knew he didn’t have enough
material to hit the required page limit, so padded it out with irrelevant
stories and facts. Mr. Larson, please,
don’t tell us about D-Day and Pearl Harbor in your next book– find that unknown
story.
Oh, and if you want to read a genuinely great book about the
start of the American Civil War, I recommend Volume I of Bruce Catton’s
trilogy, The Coming Fury. You may love
it so much you’ll read the whole darned trilogy.
Best Spy Series
The Gabriel Allon Series, Daniel Silva
Gabriel Allon, the art restorer turned assassin turned
master spy has been confounding Israel’s enemies and restoring renaissance
paintings for a quarter century.
Silva pulls off the tricky balance of mixing glamorous European
locales with the gritty horror of spywork.
More escapist than George Smiley but more realistic than Ethan Hunt.
He also manages to weave modern-day and historical politics
– from the 1972 Munich Olympics to the rise of ISIS.
Finally, he does something unusual in a series featuring a recurrent
protagonist…time moves on. Allon is
aging, and in his latest book you can sense retirement coming. I’m curious to see what Silva does with him
next, especially as Israel is in a more perilous place than it has been in half
a century.
The Book Most Likely to Make My Wife Kick Me Under the Table
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism,and Progress, Steven Pinker
If I may quote myself:
"There's a certain kind of book - non-fiction,
well-written, a colon in the title, and a Big Idea at its heart - that will make me talk about it for months
afterwards. Eventually, I'm out to
dinner with other people and am rambling on for entirely too long about how
ancient Romans used memory palaces to commit multi-hour speeches to memory and
- thwack! - my wife will deliver a well-placed blow to my shin."
For this year’s winner I would add this: I wish I could
inject the ideas and the data that support those ideas directly into the
brainstem of everyone on earth
We live in a cynical age.
We live in an age that rewards pessimism, embraces conspiracy theories,
and fears for the future. We live in
this age despite the massive and overwhelming evidence that we live in the
freest, wealthiest, safest, most comfortable age that has ever been.
Pinker divides this book into 3 parts. In Part I he outlines the ideas of the
Enlightenment; in Part II he showed their effectiveness over the past two
centuries; and in Part III, he defends them against its enemies on the Left and
the Right.
I’m not going to pretend it’s an easy read. Pinker’s prose is clear and his arguments
well-structured. But there is SO much
data to support his ideas, particularly in Part II, that it is a long journey.
The most important part of the book is Part III. Too many intelligent people fail to realize
how important the ideas of the Enlightenment have changed the lives of billions
of people, and how we need to defend these ideas.
Honorable Mention: The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life, David Robson
The Unexpected Pleasure Award
The Celtic World, by Morgan Llywelyn
Earlier this year I was reading a novel by Nelson DeMille
called Cathedral. It’s a pretty good thriller about Irish terrorists taking
over Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Saint Patrick’s Day. The charming rogue in
charge goes by the nom de guerre of Finn Mac Cool.
I was vaguely aware of this name from Irish legend. I googled the name and learned a bit more. I found
an eponymous novel and saw it’s part of a whole series called The Celtic World.
I’m three books in and it’s a fine way to learn Irish
mythology and some of the historical truth of the Celtic's journey. The first book is called The Horse
Goddess and finds the Celtic people in Eastern Europe. The follow-up, Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish
follows the Celts from Spain to Ireland.
And the third is the story of Finn MacCool himself.
The characters are flesh and blood people who would
eventually become the mythic figures of Irish legend, many of which are written
about in one of the prize possessions of my library, a 17th century
work called Keating’s History of Ireland.
The Peter Wimsey Novels, Dorothy L. Sayers
Everyone knows Agatha Christie. But this year I discovered her wonderful
contemporary, Dorothy Sayers, and her noble protagonist, Peter Wimsey. If you like English mysteries that are
charming, witty and intelligent, you should read the whole series.
Oh, and if you saw the new Knives Out movie, it mentioned the first book in the series, Whose Body?
Best Book Sent to Me By the Author
The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere, Pico Iyer
This short book is a reminder of the importance of doing
nothing, something so rare in our helter-skelter world.
Best Music Book
The Uncool: A Memoir, by Cameron Crowe
I read biographies of R.E.M. and Tom Petty this year, and
thoroughly enjoyed them both. Though the
Petty book left me a little sad…if someone as cool and accomplished as Tom
Petty can’t find happiness, who can?
Perhaps the answer is being uncool. Many know the movie Almost Famous is a roman-à-clef
about Cameron Crowe, who toured with The Allman Brothers band as a teenager and
wrote about it for Rolling Stone magazine.
In fact, Crowe’s story is far more interesting than this. While still in high school he wrote cover stories about Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, and more. He spent nearly a year with David Bowie. He lived with Don Henley and Glenn Frey as they wrote the Eagles' fourth album. He went fishing with Ronnie Van Zandt. I enjoyed reading this book so much it should get its own category, Book I Was Most Disappointed to Finish.
Congratulations to all the winners! If you each send me your Venmo, I'll send you 10 kroners!
2025 Book Log
1 Camino Island: Camino Series #1 John Grisham
2 The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War Erik Larson
3 Democracy in America: Volume I Alexis de Tocqueville
4 Camino Winds: Camino Series #2 John Grisham
5 The Book of Life (All Souls #3) Debora Harkness
6 The Dreadful Lemon Sky (Travis McGee #15) John D. MacDonald
7 The Fury Alex Michelides
8 The Golden Ocean Patrick O'Brian
9 Cathedral Nelson DeMille
10 The Name of This Band Is R.E.M.: A Biography Peter Ames Carlin
11 The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life David Robson
12 The Horse Goddess (Celtic World 1) Morgan Llywelyn
13 The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur Lev Grossman
14 Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish (Celtic World 2) Morgan Llywelyn
15 The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance Paul Strathern
16 The Long Lavender Look (Travis McGee #12) John D. MacDonald
17 The Wanted (Elvis Cole #19) Robert Crais
18 How to Stop Time Matt Haig
19 House of Spies (Gabriel Allon #17) Daniel Silva
20 London Rules (Slow Horses #6) Mick Herron
21 Holmes, Marple, & Poe James Patterson & Brian Sitts
22 The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 (Volume Two of the Revolution Trilogy) Rick Atkinson
23 The Man Who Saw Seconds Alexander Boldizar
24 Finn Mac Cool (Celtic World 3) Morgan Llywelyn
25 Dark Voyage (Night Soldiers 8) Alan Furst
26 Constantine the Great: The Man and His Times Michael Grant
27 The Key to Rebecca Ken Follett
28 Razor Girl Carl Hiaasen
29 Whose Body (Peter Wimsey #1) Dorothy L. Sayers
30 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created Charles C. Mann
31 Clouds of Witness (Peter Wimsey #2) Dorothy L. Sayers
32 A History of the World in 6 Glasses Tom Standage
33 Unnatural Death (Peter Wimsey #3) Dorothy L. Sayers
34 Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) Sarah J. Maas
35 The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (Peter Wimsey #4) Dorothy L. Sayers
36 Stars in their Courses: The Gettysburg Campaign Shelby Foote
37 Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg James M. McPherson
38 Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass #2) Sarah J. Maas
39 The Killer Angels: A Novel of the Civil War Michael Shaara
40 A Tan and Sandy Silence (Travis McGee #13) John D. MacDonald
41 Sharpe's Company (Sharpe #13) Bernard Cornwell
42 Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress Steven Pinker
43 The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere Pico Iyer
44 Petty: A Biography Warren Zanes
45 The Assassin's Blade (Throne of Glass prequel) Sarah J. Maas
46 Void Moon Michael Connelly
47 The Uncool: A Memoir Cameron Crowe
48 Espana: A Brief History of Spain Giles Tremlett
49 Lord Peter Views The Body (Peter Wimsey Short Stories) Dorothy L. Sayers
50 Sharpe's Command (Sharpe #14) Bernard Cornwell
51 The Mask of Apollo Mary Renault
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