END OF 2025 NEW READS posted - 12/11/25

Though I've been spending most of my reading time devouring ARCs of 2026 release, including Ann Patchett (oh boy!!!), Eileen Garvin, and Kate Quinn, I managed to sneak in new releases and one older read this past month. All these books are treasures that I'm happy to share with you. Some even make perfect holiday gifrts for some of the people on your list.

Living In the Present With John Prine   -   Tom Piazza

A short and sweet memoir of the late great John Prine, as lovingly told through conversations between the singer/songwriter and writer/musician Tom Piazza over the two years prior to Prine's 2020 death during Covid. The friendship the two developed makes this homage to John Prine a treasured read for Prine fans, from the deep-dive retelling of Prine's career to the joys the two had making music together with their beloved Martin guitars. A must-read for fans of the singer/songwriter icons of American roots music and the beloved musician who left a hole in the music world much too early.

The Safekeep   -   Yael van der Wouden

This debut novel is a remarkably well-written story . . . really surprising that it is a debut . . . that runs the gamut of emotions. At first the book is ice cold, so cold I wondered why I was continuing to read it. But . . . I knew it had received lots of attention, including being selected winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction as well as the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction. I had to find out why. The characters are dull-ish, a sister and her two brothers, young adults who do their best to hide themselves, their feelings and truth, from each other. Both parents are dead. The sister, Isabel, lives in the Dutch countryside family home by her very lonesome and angry self. As the story unfolds, it moves from bitter cold to red-hot heat . . . . . .  sexual heat, emotional heat . . . that turns the book from chilly to a can't-put-it-down page-turner with a what-the?? surprising unveiling about the house and the horrible things that occurred in their community during and post-WW II. Read this book. Thank the world for gracing us with writers as talented as Yael van der Wouden.

Dog Show   -   Billy Collins

My all-time favorite poet honor's his favorite companion in this sweet collection of 25 poems about dogs. Lovely watercolor portraits of the many varieties of canines he writes about accompany each poem. Collins cleverly puts his finger on the pulse, or rather paw, as he depicts the wide-ranging personalities of our beloved pets and the joys and heartaches that come with owning them.

Bread of Angels   -   Patti Smith

Yes Patti Smith is a rock 'n roll queen, one of the early icons in the New York punk rock scene, but she's also an artist, a poet, and a heavy-thinker intellectual whose larger-than-life personality has made her famous in all kinds of circles. Smith dedicated her life to art through her music, writing, and photography after having been raised in poverty in Chicago and suffering from the tuberculosis that was rampant in her childhood neighborhood. She writes of that childhood, of her parents, and then about her escape from that world to New York, where she met the early icons of folk and blues, and the 60s art scene. A woman with a vast imagination and talent to match, Patti Smith has yet to disappoint with every new piece of writing she gifts to her public. Says William Burroughs: "Not only is she a great artist, she is a magician, that is, someone in touch with other levels of reality." 

The Lake, the River, and the Other Lake   -   Steve Amick

Michigan author Steve Amick provides an honest look at the dichotomy between the townies, young and old, and the wealthy summer inhabitants, "The Fudgies," of a fictional small northern Lake Michigan town near Traverse City. In many ways, the novel is a comedy of errors as local characters react to the changes impacted on their town by the summer outsiders, by carrying out ill-conceived bumbling acts in their attempts to keep the status quo of their community. 

Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club   -   Martha Hall Kelly

I was sure this was not my kind of a read when I saw the book's cover, but I was compelled to read it when I wanted an easy novel in which to get lost. Boy was I wrong about my first impression; this was not a fluffy love story. Yes there is an entangled love story but the story is really more about the intrigue and impact of the presence of the US Army's take-over of the island's beachfront during WW II as well as the enigma of the wealthy non-native islanders. Two nearly 20-year old curious and daring sisters who are holding together their island family farm become peeping toms of the army men who are doing damage to their beach, as well as snooping the coastline for German U-boats. They put their very existence at risk when they discover  — and hide — a man washed on to the beach from the U-boat, who turns out to be a German soldier attempting to escape the boat. The little book club they begin during this time becomes the meeting place for conspiring their plans for keeping the man hidden. Being from the midwest, it never occurred to me that American coastlines were under the watch of the German army, which made this story compelling and informative to me. A fun read and definitely not fluffy! 

Queen Esther  -    John Irving

In his 16th - and first novel after a 40-year break from publishing - John Irving returns to the St. Cloud, Maine orphanage featured in his classic "The Cider House Rules." In "Queen Esther" the orphanage's doctor takes in a Viennese-born baby, whose Jewish father died aboard ship from Vienna to Portland, Maine and whose Jewish mother was murdered by anti-semites after she debarked in Portland in the early 1900s. Adopted by a non-Jewish family, typically idiosyncratic in the Irving-style, Esther, as she was named by her mother, grows up obsessed with her Jewish identity and the anti-semitism inherent worldwide. Her obsession leads her back to Vienna and eventually to Israel, where she becomes a hero, revered for being a warrior for Jewish rights. Irving's unique voice is as strong as ever, as well as his skill at creating delightfully quirky characters he manages to pull from his brilliant mind.