25 Favorite First-Time Reads of 2025

One per author, chronologically organized.

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen (1817)
The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins (1868)
The Island of Dr. Moreau, by H. G. Wells (1896)
What Maisie Knew, by Henry James (1897; 1908 New York Edition)
The House of Souls, by Arthur Machen (1906)
Widdershins, by Oliver Onions (1911)
Summer, by Edith Wharton (1917)
Tales of the Jazz Age, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1922)
The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett (1930)
Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith (1950)
The Nothing Man, by Jim Thompson (1954)
A Severed Head, by Iris Murdoch (1961)
Aura, by Carlos Fuentes (1962)
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, by Joan Didion (1968)
Sula, by Toni Morrison (1973)
The Coherence of Gothic Conventions, by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1980)
Bad Behavior, by Mary Gaitskill (1988)
Ancient Images, by Ramsey Campbell (1989)
Blonde, by Joyce Carol Oates (2000)
Border Crossing, by Pat Barker (2001)
These Truths: A History of the United States, by Jill Lepore (2018)
The Best of Both Worlds, by S. P. Miskowski (2020)
Hi, It’s Me, by Fawn Parker (2024)
Dark Matter, by Kathe Koja (2025)
Wreckage / What Happens in Hello Jack, by Peter Straub (2025)