I don’t make a reading round-up post an annual occurrence on The Invisible Event, but particularly wanted to do one today if only because I read 164 books in 2025, which is the most in a single year in the existing archives.
The broad numbers, then, are as follows:
That might be the smallest dent made in my TBR ever, but the superb library system has really stepped up and provided a lot of books for me this year, a relationship I intend to pursue going forward. Use your libraries, people — they’re wonderful spaces, and deserve your custom. Did not realise I bought so many books this year, probably a result of increased ebook usage (see below).
The month-by-month and book-by-book format of those 164 books looks like this:
I read a lot of books on Kindle this year, with slightly over a quarter of all my reading coming in that format; no idea why, presumably the books being cheaper and available were key drivers here, but lovely to still be getting good use out of it.
Those 164 books — or, at least the 154 which weren’t multi-author anthologies — were written by 117 distinct authors, counting collaborators individually and not including translators. In terms of gender and authors I’d read before 2025 and those who were new to me this year, the breakdown is:
That’s not a great gender balance, but it’s also not like I’m going out of my way to avoid books by women. I guess I’ve just read most of the obvious ones — Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Gladys Mitchell, Ngaio Marsh, etc. — and need to find more to replace them, despite the sterling work of Charlotte Armstrong, Christianna Brand, Celia Fremlin, Craig Rice, and others who prove so enjoyable.
Also, no, you’re not imagining it, one of those charts has one more person in that the other; I could speculate about the gender of the mysterious A. Carver, but prefer to respect their desire to remain as shadowy as possible. A rare thing in this age, and not to be dismissed lightly.
The 10 multi-author short story collections I read accounted comprised 109 short stories, which broke down in gender terms and authors new to me in 2025 in the following way:
I have nothing to say about this, except that I really like the cross-hatching effect MS Excel provided for the shading of these pie charts.
Despite the loss of Locked Room International, I still managed to read 12 books in translation and so benefit from the hard work of those excellent people who carry foreign language books into English for those of us too lacking in intelligence to learn a second tongue. I was going to make a pictogram to ilustrate this, but I didn’t because my rule is that any graphic that takes more than 10 minutes is taking too long, and after 10 minutes I was only halfway done. So imagine one here; ooo, I’m so creative.
I’m always interested in the focus of my reading by decade, and so — excluding collections where the publication date does not represent the contents, like the anthologies put out by the British Library — that looks like this:
This might be the first time that the current decade has been the largest contributor, no doubt influenced by my ongoing Minor Felonies posts looking at predominantly modern crime and detection stories for younger readers. And I did also have a genre break here and there a couple of times to read a couple of novels on the Booker shortlist (you weren’t expecting that, eh?) including eventual winner Orbital (2025) by Samantha Harvey. Which was fine.
All that reading translated into a posting schedule in 2025 that looks like this:
Clearly I took Tuesdays off in January and February — I don’t remember that myself, I’ll be honest — but other than that I’m pretty pleased with my consistency. These 151 posts comprise 179,641 words, meaning I could write The Red Death Murders (2022) sequel a damn sight quicker if I didn’t keep giving away free opinions on things all the time.
But, good lord, that really is a lot of opinions, isn’t it? Who knew?
In terms of the blog, my five favourite books that I read for the first time this year would probably be…
5. The Man Who Slept All Day (1942) by Craig Rice
The wonderful Craig Rice had a very experimental 1942, and the pnnacle of her achievements therein is probably this novel of slight plot and wonderful, heart-breaking character work. A houseful of guests wake up the morning after a party to discover that their host’s odious brother has been murdered in the night…and since practically everyone in the house had a motive, they’re all rather keen that no-one else find out about his demise. Should descend into farce, but Rice has her eye set on really exploring these people and their relationships, and it’s a simply gorgeous time watching little moments of intimacy and trust flicker through their interactions. Hard not to predict where it’s going, but also hard not to love. [My review]
4. The Man Who Died Seven Times (1995) by Yasuhiko Nishizawa
A creative and enjoyable setup sees a teenager suffer from a condition that finds him, at random, repeating days eight times on a loop, with only the final version being what becomes reality for everyone else. When his grandfather is murdered, he must try to unpick the unusual events and stop the murder, while working out how he caused it to happen in the first place. The idea doesn’t feel fully exploited, with each day being a simple variation on the previous ones, but there’s a very clever idea here that I defy you not to be impressed by in the final reveal. Wonderful to see the detective novel used in such a creative space, and an excellent choice for Pushkin Vertigo to bring into English. More of this, please! [My review]
3. The Hours Before Dawn (1958) by Celia Fremlin
A young mother struggles with sleep deprivation and a general sense of failing to come up to the expected standards where her newborn is concerned, and as the various stresses tell on her she begins to wonder if she might be losing her mind. Long on suspense, this really should not be my sort of thing at all, but Celia Fremlin tells her story with such effortless elan, making your heart break for the various miscommunications in the central marriage and the indignities suffered by our heroine, not least of which involves falling asleep in a park at night only to wake up and find her baby and pram have been stolen. A little too convenient in its closing stages, this is nevertheless a nightmare of terrifying relatability. [My review]
2. Cat and Mouse (1950) by Christianna Brand
The queen of the twisty, surprise-packed puzzle plot turns in something so unexpected here that still somehow manages to conform to every expectation you have about it: brilliant reversals, an edge of horror, and a growing sense of isolation and panic as a young woman visits an isolated Welsh village and discovers…well, read it for yourself and find out what she discovers. Uses its setting in a way that informs proceedings marvellously, and highlights a side to Brand that it’s obvious she always had but which you wouldn’t quite ever suspect was there before reading it. One of the very best additions to the British Library Crime Classics range, Cat and Mouse (1950) really does deserve a huge readership. [My review]
1. The Return of Moriarty (2025) by Jack Anderson
Jack Anderson’s The Return of Moriarty (2025) is my discovery of the year. This sees Professor James Moriarty survive his descent into the Reichenbach Falls in the grip of Sherlock Holmes, and follows him as a final insult from his nemesis spurs a new mission in him. But how do you rebuild your life after everything you had has been taken from you? And what if someone starts to suspect there’s something dark in your past? Simply put, this is the Holmes pastiche I was searching for, and starts off a series that I dearly hope runs for a good many years yet, so fascinating is its handling of the central villain and the unsuspecting mooks who surround him. Deserves to be huge, so get it now and say “I read it before it was huge…”. [My review]
Interesting to note that, given my much-vaunted love of detection and impossible crimes, not a single one of my top five novels is a traditional detective novel and none contain an impossible crime. What’s that feeling? Am I…growing? Make it stop!
And then the five most popular things by me that people have been reading this year — allowing for the fact that, like Puzzle Doctor, I was the focus from an incomprehensible amount of traffic from China this year — seem to be…
1. My extended look at Hallowe’en Party (1969) by Agatha Christie
Possibly inspired by the recent A Haunting in Venice (2023) film, which I understand loosely adapts this late Christie title
2. My 10 Favourite Impossible Crime Novels
A podcast episode from April 2018 which still largely stands, though I’d probably do a couple of swaps having revisited some of those titles since.
3. The Edward D. Hoch Best Impossible Crimes List: Titles 5 to 1
Another podcast, another list of impossible crime titles, this top 5 aptly making my own top 5. Again, not perfect, but some entertaining ideas on here and always a good way to get people talking.
4. A bit of a ramble about clues and clewing
From 2019, when I was full of Thoughts as well as Opinions, and had something to say about actively involving the reader in the game. If you like that post, you may also like this one on a similar theme.
5. A Locked Room Library – 100 Recommended Books
An evergreen post, my one thousandth, in which I selected 100 books that I’d recommend if you want to read strong examples of the impossible crime in print. Good to know this is getting traffic still, even if most of it is bots scouring the web for financial information.
And…that’s The Invisible Event Wrapped 2025. Thank-you for reading this post, for visiting this blog, for commenting, for lurking, for listening to my podcasts, and generally doing whatever it is you do to humour me in this endeavour. I know I’m not saving lives or changing the world — and I’m acutely aware that I’m not making any money while doing so — but I love this little community we have, and I’m grateful to every single one of you for engaging in whatever way with my little project.
I hope 2025 has been kind to you, and I hope 2026 gets off to an excellent start. I wish you good health, clear skies, happy reading, and a reprint or five to get excited about at some point.
See you soon…!
The Invisible Event 
Got the Nishazawa for Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed the premise, the writing, and the final reveal. Hoping for more translations of him very soon. Was also very impressed by the Fremlin—as you say, she’s such an amazingly fluid writer. The Rice and the Brand are both new titles from them for me, and I look forward to checking them out, along with the Anderson.
Looking forward to the new year—whether in or out of locked rooms!
(And intriguing to imagine a Sino GAD revival leading to at least a few new authors providing some balance to Knox’s Fifth Commandment.)
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Got the Nishazawa for Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed the premise, the writing, and the final reveal. Hoping for more translations of him very soon. Was also very impressed by the Fremlin—as you say, she’s such an amazingly fluid writer. The Rice and the Brand are both new titles from them for me, and I look forward to checking them out, along with the Anderson.
Looking forward to the new year—whether in or out of locked rooms!
(And intriguing to imagine a Sino GAD revival leading to at least a few new authors providing some balance to Knox’s Fifth Commandment.)
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