Five Books for 2025

A collection of recommended reading

Dec 15, 2024

I read a lot. It gets me through, keeps me sane, lights me up, opens my brain. I spent time with a lot of books I loved this year, but these are five that really stuck with me. I’m sharing them here so you can add them to your reading list or your Christmas stocking or share the bounty with a reader near you…

Girlhood by Melissa Febos

[nonfiction; essays]

This book absolutely blew my hair back. I don’t know if I’ve ever underlined a text as ferociously as I inked the pages of this one. Girlhood is a collection of essays by the brilliant Melissa Febos. Each essay explores the narratives we are raised on as girl children, and what it takes to free ourselves from them. Febos’ writing is not only sublime, it’s also incredibly smart. She weaves themes and worlds together with such a deft touch it made me want to throw the book across the room because how could I ever write anything as good as that!? (This is the highest compliment I can give, btw.)

From the essay “Thank You for Taking Care of Yourself”:
What we are taught as a practice of beauty, of femininity, is also a practice of submission. A trans woman friend of mine recently explained to me how the technique for training your voice to sound more feminine has a lot to do “with speaking less or asking more questions or deferring to other people more.” We must not exhibit creases in our faces that indicate any critical emotion, because we should not express any critical emotion. Remember: women have been burned to death for as much. We must constantly grimace like cowed dogs, make ourselves ever smaller and more childlike, while dribbling a constant stream of apology. It is not a coincidence that the apex of feminine beauty is nearly identical to that of physical powerlessness.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

[fiction; scifi / time travel]

I had no expectations when I picked up Kaliane Bradley’s debut novel, other than I thought the cover looked promising. Buying a book for its cover is not always a strategy that pays off, but this time it did—in dividends. Bradley writes with engaging confidence and a unique voice. Her characters are as complicated as real people, and the world she creates is both awful and exhilarating. I don’t want to drop any spoilers, as this is the kind of book best read by going in cold. If you enjoy history, if you enjoy scifi, if you enjoy getting lost in a world built of words, this book is for you.

From page 177:
When I first joined the Ministry and they’d pressed me through HR, a woman ran her finger down the column with my family history. “What was it like growing up with that?” she asked. She meant it all: Pol Pot Noodle jokes on first dates, my aunt’s crying jags, a stupa with no ashes, Gary Glitter, Agent Orange, we loved Angkor Wat, regime change, not knowing where the bodies are, Princess Diana, land mines, the passport in my mother’s drawer, my mother’s nightmares, fucking Chink, you don’t look it, dragon ladies, fucking Paki, Tuol Sleng was a school, Saloth Sar was a teacher, my grandfather’s medals, the firing squad, my uncle’s trembling hands, it’s on my bucket list, Brother Number One, I’ve got a thing for Latinas, the killing fields, The Killing Fields (1984), Angelina Jolie, Do you mean Cameroonian? Do you mean Vietnamese? Will you say your name again for me?
I considered.
“I don’t know,” I said. “What was it like growing up without it?”

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

[nonfiction; essays]

This was supposed to be a book about writing, but in the writing of it, it became a book about how our stories expose and distort our realities. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ message is powerful in part because he is unafraid to turn his gaze to his own writing, to the responsibilities he bears for stories he has told that redirected a narrative. This is an essential book to read at this particular moment in American history because it is necessary for each of us to reckon with uncomfortable truths so we can move forward into collective liberation.

From page 29:
It may seem strange the people who have already attained a position of power through violence invest so much time in justifying their plunder with words. But even plunderers are human beings whose violent ambitions must contend with the guilt that gnaws at them when they meet the eyes of their victims. And so a story must be told, one that raises a wall between themselves and those they seek to throttle and rob.
From page 107:
The arts tell us what is possible and what is not, because, among other things, they tell us who is human and who is not.
From page 148:
Journalists claim to be hearing “both sides” as though a binary opposition had been set down by some disinterested god. But it is the journalists themselves who are playing god—it is the journalists who decide which sides are legitimate and which are not, which views shall be considered and which pushed out of the frame. And this power is an extension of the power of other curators of the culture—network execs, producers, publishers—whose core job is deciding which stories get told and which do not. When you are erased from the argument and purged from the narrative, you do not exist.

A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers

[fiction, scifi-ish]

Becky Chambers writes delightfully weird scifi that is striking in its hopeful vision of the future. I’ve read all of her previous books, but her most recent Monk & Robot series—A Psalm for the Wild Built and its sequel A Prayer for the Crown Shy are something truly special. One reviewer described the books as “a literary hug.” They are feel-good reads, that’s for certain, but they are also smart and thoughtful and, as with all of Chambers’ books, they leave me feeling hopeful about humanity. In light of, well, everything bleak and cruel about our current reality, that sense of hopefulness, that vision of an entirely different kind of future, is no small feat.

From page 54:
Dex frowned, opened their mouth, then shook their head. “What—what are you? What is this? Why are you here?”
The robot, again, looked confused. “Do you not know? Do you no longer speak of us?”
"We—I mean, we tell stories about—is robots the right word? Do you call yourself robots or something else?”
"Robot is correct.”
"Okay, well—it’s kid stories, mostly. Sometimes, you hear somebody say they saw a robot in the borderlands, but I always thought it was bullshit. I know you’re out there, but it’s like…it’s like saying you saw a ghost.”
"We’re not ghosts or bullshit,” the robot said simply. “Rare sightings have certainly occurred, in both directions. But there hasn’t been actual contact between your kind and mine since the Parting Promise.”
Dex’s frown deepened. “You’re saying that you and I…are the first human…and the first robot…to talk to each other since…since everything.”
"Yes.” The robot beamed. “It’s an honor, truly.”
Dex stood stupidly, rumpled towel wrapped around them, burned dinner in hand, uncombed hair weeping down their cheeks. “I…I’m gonna go get dressed.” They started to walk toward the wagon, then turned around.
"You said your name is Mosscap?”
"Technically, I am Splendid Speckled Mosscap, but our remembrance of humans is that you like to shorten names.”
"Splendid Speckled Mosscap,” Dex repeated. “Like…the mushroom.”
The robot’s metal cheeks rose. “Exactly like the mushroom!”

Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha

[poetry]

I first became aware of poet Mosab Abu Toha when he disappeared in November of 2023. Along with his wife Maram and their three children, he was fleeing his home in Beit Lahia, in the north of Gaza. The Israeli army had dropped flyers on their neighborhood instructing residents to evacuate. So the family did as ordered. On their way south along the route of so called “safe passage,” Israeli soldiers pulled Abu Toha away from his family and imprisoned him. He was only released because of swift and loud international outcry. Last December 25, The New Yorker published the first essay in a series from Abu Toha called “Letter from Gaza” in which he wrote about his experiences as a Palestinian. He continues to write from his exile in Egypt. His parents, brother, and other relatives remain trapped in Gaza. Every day he checks his phone to see if they’re still alive. Forest of Noise, published this year, is his latest book of poems. Even if poetry is not your cup of tree, this book feels like an important way to honor and bear witness to the ongoing horror and pain of Palestinians in Gaza, in Jerusalem, in the West Bank, and throughout the diaspora.

For a Moment
Her small body rides in my arms
as I run to the hospital.
There is no electricity
and the inner hallways are
a forest lined with cots.
The girl I carry
is dead,
I know that.
The pressure of the explosion
tore apart her thin veins.
I know she is dead,
but everyone who sees us
runs after us.
You are alive
for a moment,
when living people
run after you.

Take the Fruit: An Anthology of Religious Trauma

[a little bit of everything—fiction; nonfiction; poetry; prose]

I know I said this was a list of 5 and then I upped it to 6 by adding the sequel to the Monk & Robot book. And now here we are with a bonus #7, because what is math anyway. This anthology, edited by Stina French & Erica Hoffmeister and published by Listen to Your Skin Press, includes an essay I wrote a few years ago called “With Fear and Trembling.”

The book features 38 different writers telling stories about the social and personal effects of all different brands of high-control religion. My own essay is a chapter from a memoir I’ve been writing for awhile about my own experience growing up in a sect of Independent Fundamental Baptists.

Take the Fruit is a slim volume packed full of punches. Absolutely worth a read.

An excerpt from my essay:
For nearly a year in elementary school, I slept with a shoebox beside my bed, within easy reach in the dark. In it, I placed my most precious possessions: my doll Nellie, a battered Narnia paperback, a particularly regal rooster feather, a King James Bible with my name inscribed in flaking gold.
I wanted to be prepared—for the thief in the night stealing souls, or the Communists parachuting in from Russia to knife a seven-year-old sleeping in a Midwest farmhouse. Both scenarios were of equal concern to me. Around the time I started kindergarten at Faith Baptist Christian School, I exchanged my after-dark fear of a witch crouched beneath my bed, slavering for my soft and tasty child-sized bones, for the much more plausible dread of Satan and socialism.
According to the Scriptures and every single adult in my small life, holiness and fear were inextricably entwined. I was fearfully and wonderfully made to serve a just and holy God, to tremble at his word. The fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom, after all.
On Sundays, as instructed, I dressed in my fullest skirt, my puffiest sleeves, my most shiny patent leather, and showed up in the sanctuary at Faith Baptist Church, ready to belt out a hymn or five, to proudly drop a quarter in the offering plate (and then repent of that pride shortly thereafter). I was a good girl. I wanted to please them all: God, my parents, my pastor, my Sunday School teacher, every single person who shared those hard-backed pews.
Together, we opened our mouths to sing of our blessed assurance, to savor that foretaste of glory divine. But shivering just beneath the blare of the organ, the laborious congregational Hallelujahs, I could feel the heat of the hellfire—banked and ready to burn.

If you want to support my work…

You can choose from a couple of tiers of paid subscriptions. In addition to my undying gratitude for your support, you’ll get more of my writing, which is what (I assume) you’re here for! Once a month for paid subscribers only, I will post an excerpt from my memoir-in-progress. The first one is here, for free, if you want a preview.
OR
If you’re not into paid subscriptions, but you’d still like to show support every once in a while, you can leave me a tip via Venmo or Tipeee.
OR
If you want to carry on reading these posts for free because you can’t or shan’t pay, that’s perfectly fine. I do not hide Long Scrawl essays behind a paywall.

NO MATTER WHAT: Thank you for reading. Thank you for telling me when my writing means something to you. That matters most of all.

The Long Scrawl

Discussion about this post