books of the year (2025) 29 Dec 2025

solar storms by linda hogan

I knew that I had survived in the best of ways for I was filled with grief and compassion.

lucy by jamaica kincaid

The look on my face must have shocked her, for she said, “You are a very angry person, aren’t you?” and her voice was filled with alarm and pity. Perhaps I should have said something reassuring; perhaps I should have denied it. But I did not. I said, “Of course I am. What do you expect?”

fool’s fate by robin hobb

My dream was dead in my arms. I continued to walk.

the long transition toward socialism by torkil lauesen

To see the struggle for socialism as a long process of global transformation since the mid-nineteenth century is also somehow comforting on a psychological level for an old man. The struggle and suffering of millions of communists and socialists for the past two hundred years have not been in vain, but are contributions to this long process of creating a better world. To be part of this process—a tiny cogwheel in the machinery of transformation—and give it a little push in the right direction seems to be “the meaning of life.” Not founded in some religion or a belief in life after death, but founded in historical materialism and the meaning of life before death—to hand over a world more equal and in balance with nature to future generations. The problem for the next generation, however, is that we are running out of time.

always in tandem by taylor fitzpatrick

He still loves it, but now he loves it in the way you love something you know you could lose any minute. It’s different, that kind of love. Of course you only figure out, well down the line, that you should have loved everything like that, because there is nothing worth keeping that you can’t lose.

the pachinko parlour by elisa shua dusapin

Halfway along, I look back. My grandparents are rooted to the spot. The stewardess has closed the barrier. I freeze. My grandfather has his arm round my grandmother. She waves at me to say goodbye. I make a move in their direction, but I can see them mouthing: ‘Go, go.’

jamilia by chingiz aïtmatov (tr. james riordan)

I listened to Daniyar with my eyes half closed, and before me flashed strangely familiar scenes from childhood. First the delicate, smokey-blue, migratory spring clouds floating at crane’s height above the yurtas; then herds of horses racing across the ringing earth, neighing and pounding to their summer pastures, the young stallions with streaming forelocks and wild, black fire in their eyes proudly overtaking their mares; then flocks of sheep slowly spreading like lava over the foothills; now a waterfall gushing from the rocks with blinding, creamy-white, foaming water; the sun setting calmly in the thicket of needle-grass beyond the river, and the solitary distant rider on the horizon’s fiery margin dashing in pursuit - surely all he had to do was stretch out his hand and touch the sun and he too would vanish into the thickets and twilight.

honourable mentions: years and years by hwang jungeun (tr. janet hong), the compound by aisling rawle, a secret country by john pilger, the true true story of raja the gullible by rabih alameddine.

goals for the next are, as always, more translated fiction, more marxist theory, more books from countries i’ve never read a book from!