Books I Read in 2025
Books are good company. Nothing is more human than a book.
Marilynne Robinson
These are the books I read in 2025. Perhaps something here will pique your interest and send you on a quest of reading in 2026.
Happy New Year, y’all—and happy reading.
Guide to Texas Etiquette, Kinky Friedman
In this quirky little book, part-time musician, one time gubernatorial candidate, and full-time jokester, Kinky “Kinkster” Friedman offers a Texas 101 for the uninitiated—or as he says in the subtitle: “How to Get to Heaven or Hell Without Going Through Dallas-Fort Worth.”
The Shootist, Glendon Swarthout
Glendon Swarthout isn’t a household name, certainly not now, if he ever was. But there was a time when he could have been. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, twice, for his fiction and came up short, twice—though he did win two Spur Awards (for The Shootists and The Homesman). If he’s known for a singular work, it’s probably his 1975 novel The Shootist, which became the basis of John Wayne’s final film. With minor exceptions, the script adheres closely to Swarthout’s novel. No surprise there, Miles Hood Swarthout, Glendon’s son, adapted the novel into the screenplay. Because the novel and the film are so closely aligned scenes from the film played in my mind’s eye of while reading the book. It’s in the characterization of Gillom (portrayed by Ron Howard) where the contrast between the novel and the film is set in stark relief. The young man in the novel is no Opie or Richie Cunningham, which, in the film, seems just a few steps removed from Howard’s Gillom—particularly at the end. The novel contains an edge not seen in the movie—a darker core with a melancholy ending, revolving mostly around the differences between the Gillom on the page and the Gillom on the screen.
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder
Deriving twenty insights from the tyranny of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, On Tyranny is a primer on how to spot and fight political despotism. Snyder’s writing is pithy and pointed, and while these lessons can be applied by citizens of any nation, Snyder is clearly writing a word of warning to the citizens of the United States of America.
The Book of Building Fires: How to Master the Art of the Perfect Fire, S. Coulthard
You only think you know how to build a fire, but you don’t—not until you read his little, informative book. Coulthard covers all you need to know about building the perfect fire: choosing the right wood, how to chop, stack, and store firewood, how to build the right fire for the right conditions, and the myriad of ways to start your fire. He also includes a chapter on building fragrant fires and a chapter on fire safety. A great read for any outdoorsman or indoorsmen who wants to build the perfect fire in a fireplace.
A Journey Through Texas; or a Saddle-Trip on the Southwestern Frontier, Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted, the architect of Central Park in New York City, was a man of adventure. Beginning in the early winter of 1852, on assignment for the New York Daily Times, he and his younger brother John Hull Olmsted left their home in Connecticut on a journey to ride through the newly adopted state of Texas and report on the state of the state. For six months they traipsed all over Texas, from Natchitoches, Louisiana, across East Texas to Austin, then south through San Marcos and New Braunfels to San Antonio. They took a side trip to Boerne and Sisterdale, and then down Indianola on the coast, returning to San Antonio. From there, they rode to Eagle Pass on the Rio Grande, where they made a foray into Mexico. Retracing their steps back to San Antonio, they headed east through LaGrange, Houston, and Beaumont, leaving Texas at Turner’s Ferry on the Sabine River in the early summer of 1853. Four years later he wrote A Journey Through Texas.
Giant Love: Edna Ferber, Her Best-Selling Novel of Texas, and the Making of a Classic American Film, Julie Gilbert
Until Larry McMurtry published his Texas epic Lonesome Dove in 1985, Edna Ferber’s 1952 Texas epic Giant was the quintessential Texas novel—at least in the eyes of most of the American reading public. But whereas McMurtry’s book was celebrated in Texas, by Texans, Ferber’s book was, by and large, criticized in Texas, by Texans. Giant was about as welcomed in Texas as beans in chili. All that changed, however, when her novel was adapted into the classic film by the same name. That George Stevens, the director of Giant, shot the Texas exteriors in Texas, on the Ryan Ranch outside of Marfa, opened the set to the citizens of Marfa, and hired a Texan as the dialogue coach (Robert Hinkle) went a long way in building goodwill among Texans. The story of how the novel and the movie came about is wonderfully captured in Julie Gilbert’s behind the scenes book Giant Love. Others have written about the making of the film, Don Graham’s Giant: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Edna Ferber, and the Making of a Legendary American Film (2018) comes to mind, but what makes Gilbert’s book unique is the fact that she had inside information someone like Graham didn’t have. Sitting from the perch of being Edna Ferber’s great-niece provided Gilbert’s exclusive access into the mind and character of Ferber—and it show in her work.
The Cannibal Owl, Aaron Gwyn
Gwyn’s novella about a young orphan boy in the forests of Arkansas by the name of Levi, who is taken in by his aunt and uncle in Texas but runs away from his uncle’s abuse and finds himself with a tribe of Comanches reads like a mini version of Philipp Meyer’s The Son—whom Gwyn has praised as a favorite modern writer. Because of the similarities in plot and even the names of the two protagonists, I found it difficult to separate the narrative of Levi (from The Cannibal Owl) from the narrative of Eli (from The Son). For me, Meyer’s better written and longer story kept crowding out Gwyn’s well-written but shorter story.
Bit and Spur Makers in the Texas Tradition: A Historical Perspective, Ned and Jody Martin (with Kurt House)
This volume and their first, Bit and Spur Makers in the Vaquero Tradition, are the quintessential works on the Texas (and vaquero) craftsmen who make bits and spurs for working cowmen. Both volumes are filled with photographs of these artisans’ work, as well as the history of each one. A must have for anyone interested in the Texas cowboy tradition.
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
On the evening of November 14, 1959, in the western town of Holcomb, Kansas four members of the Clutter family were brutally murdered—in cold blood. The murders, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, were under the false belief that Mr. Clutter, a well-to-do and well known farmer, had a house full of cash stashed away in a safe. He didn’t. Hickock and Smith left the Clutter home with nothing more than $40, a portable radio, and a pair of binoculars. They left behind four victims—shot with a shotgun blast to the head, and Mr. Clutter’s throat sliced—and two bloody bootprints. Alvin Dewey, the chief investigator, and his men had nothing else to go on. The story is told in Truman Capote’s fascinating and magnificently crafted classic, In Cold Blood—the last book he finished before his death in 1984, twenty-two years after the publication of In Cold Blood. (Three films have been produced about the Clutter murders: In Cold Blood (1967), told from the murders’ point of view, Capote (2005), told from Capote’s point of view while doing research for his book, and Infamous (2006), based upon George Plimpton’s 1997 biography of Capote.)
The Legend of the Bluebonnet: An Old Tale of Texas Retold and Illustrated, Tomie dePaola
In this delightful children’s book, dePaola tells the tale of the most well-known legend of the bluebonnet—the story of a Comanche girl sacrificing her blue-feathered doll to end a devastating drought.
Education of a Wandering Man, Louis L’Amour
The subtitle of L’Amour’s highly readable nonfiction is “A Memoir.” It is that, of sorts, but approached in a unique way. He focuses on his hoboing days in the late 1920s through the 1930s to the end of his service in the Army during World War II. The center of that focus revolves around L’Amour’s voracious reading—the self-education he received while wandering the country as a laborer and the globe as a seaman. He ends his memoir with a list of books read between 1930–1935 and 1937. On average, he read one hundred books a year. This volume is filled with intriguing stories of his adventures and interesting insights about life in general and the writing life in particular.
On Freedom, Timothy Snyder
On Freedom is the direct opposite of Snyder’s On Tyranny, not just in subject matter but in length and approach. Whereas On Tyranny is a short, punchy book, written with an everyman style, On Freedom is a long, comprehensively complex philosophical look at the nature of freedom. You need to put on your thinking cap, as an old high school teacher use to say, to delve into the depths of Snyder’s five-sided definition of freedom: sovereignty, unpredictability, mobility, factuality, and solidarity. It’s worth the dive for anyone concerned with the nature of freedom in a world that isn’t as free as we might imagine.
Still Wild: Short Fiction of the American West, Larry McMurtry (ed.)
Larry McMurtry was a novelist, not a short story writer. But he could identify good writing whenever he saw it and in whatever formate he saw it in. He’s most famous for his literary western Lonesome Dove, but despite his other westerns, McMurtry didn’t consider himself a western writer in the traditional sense. The West, in McMurtry’s view, had been too long rutted in the mythos championed by more standard western writers like Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, and J. Frank Dobie. Even in his own westerns, McMurtry attempted to break the mold—to move the western along a more progressive rut. So, when it came to picking the authors and stories for the collection in Still Wild, it’s no surprise that his selections were atypical. Some I liked very much, others I abandoned.
The Cavalry Trilogy: John Ford, John Wayne, and the Making of Three Classic Westerns, Michael F. Blake
Michael Blake claims that “At least thirteen of John Ford’s films are considered classics that still stand the test of time.” Three of those thirteen are the trilogy of cavalry films he made with John Wayne: Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Rio Grande (1950). A veteran of the film industry, Blake dives deep into each of these films—from scripts, stars, stunts, and scores—with insights on the creative genius of Ford. This volume belongs in every Ford, Wayne, and/or Western aficionados library.
99 Poems: New & Selected, Dana Gioia
I’ve said before collections of poems are not my favorite books to read. But I’m making a concerted effort to sit with more poetry because it’s good for me and good for my writing. And Dana Gioia’s fine volume of previously published verse, along with some new one, was just that: good for me. (We’ll see if it was good for my writing.) Gioia is one of our best loved poets writing today and, I predict, will one day will be ranked with the greatest American poets.
The Good Old Boys, Elmer Kelton
Elmer Kelton is one of those jewels who is little known but greatly appreciated by those who know him. Most folks believe his second novel, a modern-day western, The Time It Never Rained (1973), is his greatest. But his third, The Good Old Boys (1978) ranks equally as high in my estimation. Actor Tommy Lee Jones agrees with me, since he brought Kelton’s words to the screen in 1995. Kelton’s words drip with authenticity and for those who have ears to hear, the dialogue is straight out of West Texas. It’s a magnificent novel.
Our Civilizational Moment: The Waning of the West and theWar of the Worlds, Os Guinness
I’ve read Guinness for years—and nearly (if not) all of his books. He has proved to be a deliberate and incisive thinker, and has shape much of my own thinking. So, I opened his latest offering with excitement and hope. I closed it with disappointment. Though there are many well-written passages, I found the content to be a rehash of things he’s said before or were commonly known and believed by conservative thinkers: warnings against the dangers of leftism in the guise of radical Marxism (“The Red Wave”), the sexual revolution (“The Rainbow Wave”), and radical Islamism (“The Black Wave”). Only his forth topic, corrupt elitism (“The Gold Wave”) offered something new. Nevertheless, even here Guinness coached his warning from the leftist perspective, without addressing any notable dangers from the radical right-wing.
You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful, Karen Swallow Prior
In this punchy, little volume Prior has cut to the essence of calling: that all of us have more than one calling, that work is not bad but part of God’s design for human beings, that passion doesn’t necessarily lead you to your calling but can lead you away from your calling, and that whatever your calling it should produce that which is good, true, and beautiful. That’s a good reminder for us all, but especially for those still trying to tune their ear to their calling. This little book would be a wonderful graduation gift for high schoolers and university students.
Owen Wister Out West: His Journals and Letters, Owen Wister (ed. Fanny Kemble Wister)
The author of what is considered the first true Western novel (as opposed the dime store novels that proceeded it) was not a man of the West. He was an eastern dude, born and breed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a wealthy family, who attended Harvard University and befriended Theodore Roosevelt, and who studied classical piano and became a successful attorney. And yet, he was captivated by the West—Wyoming especially—after his first visit at the age of twenty-five. On that visit in 1885, and over the next decade, Wister kept a series of journals about the people he met, the game he hunted, and the experiences he had in the West—along with a dawning realization that he no longer wanted to practice law but wanted to write Western stories. His journals and letters became the source of the short stories he wrote for Harper’s magazine, as well as his most famous novel, The Virginian. A must read for every serious reader (and writer) of Westerns.
Kick the Latch, Kathryn Scanlan
This quirky little book is charming. Episodically, it tells the story of Sonia, a horse trainer, and the life she spent as a racetracker. At first glance it doesn’t seem the episodic nature of the story should work, but it does beautifully.
Cowboy Lore, Jules Verne Allen
Allen was known as “The Singing Cowboy,” which is why this volume is filled with cowboy songs, making up more than half of the content. The remaining portion of the book is an assortment of cowboy stories, customs, and phrases. A good introduction to cowboy linguistics and identifying cattle brands.
History Matters, David McCullough
Writing is thinking. Writing well is thinking well. Though he didn’t write many books, twelve in total, David McCullough was one of our greatest thinkers and writers—at least in the realm of history. He treated his subjects not has subjects to be studied under a microscope but as red-blooded men and women who lived in the present and who didn’t know how things would turn out in their lives. Nor did they know how things would turn out in the times in which they lived. McCullough’s death was a great loss to American letters, which is why when his daughter and literary agent Dorie McCullough Lawson and longtime research assistant Michael Hill came out with a collection of essays and speeches from McCullough I jump like a duck on a junebug to purchase a copy and consume it in one gulp. Like his histories and biographies, it’s a treasure of well thought and well written pieces.
Home Waters: A Chronicle of Family and a River, John N. Maclean
A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean has become a favorite, especially the last chapter, so I looked forward to reading Norman’s son John’s book about his family and fishing the Blackfoot River in Montana. It did not disappoint. Like his father, John is an avid fisherman and a fine writer. Home Waters provides much of the backstory for A River Runs Through It, which is semi-autobiographical and semi-novelesque. If you’re a fan of Norman’s book, you’ll be a fan of John’s book too.
Shane, Jack Schaefer
I’m not much of a reader of pop-Westerns written in the vain of Louis L’Amour or Zane Grey. I did read a number of mass-market paperback G. Clifton Wisler Westerns if for no other reason than he had been my Junior High English teacher—the first novelist I had known. Though Jack Schaefer’s Shane isn’t rightfully categorized as pop-Western, it has elements of that genre—its tropes and cliches. The language is tight and the action moves along at a nice pace, but I found the last two chapters unsatisfying. This probably has to do with my affection for the 1953 film adaptation, starring Alan Lad. In my mind, the film is better—the ending certainly is. Schaefer’s 1949 novel doesn’t end with Shane riding off into the night after killing the hired gunman, but with a meditation by Bob, the narrator, on the almost mythical character of Shane, which belies the gritty realism of the novel’s early chapters.
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Michael Ondaatje
This quirky little volume was recommended to me. It’s a collection of poems, short stories, and tall tales about the life of William Bonney—Billy the Kid—cobbled together in an effort to paint “a portrait of the man behind the legend,” as the front flap tells it. Though the book has received much praise, to be honest, I’m not sure what I think of this odd duck of a novella.
Stores for Late at Night, Alfred Hitchcock, ed.
Before there were slasher films, with their gore and guts, horror stories were more sophisticated and psychological. Such is the case with this 1961 volume of spooky short stories, a novella, and novel. I have been a fan of 1958 movie The Fly for years (the 1986 remake starring Jeff Goldblum is more graphic but lacks the charm of the original), so it was enjoyable to read (for the first time) the novella on which it was based—and the twist, which the movie doesn’t include, was a startling one. Of the short stores, I particularly liked Ray Bradbury’s “The Whole Town’s Sleeping.” It reminded me of ghost stories my friends and I used to tell as kids. When the killer clears his throat at the end was genius—and unnerving.
The Log of a Cowboy, Andy Adams
Charles A. Siringo’s A Texas Cow Boy, or Fifteen Year on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony (1855) was the first published cowboy memoir, which Will Rogers called “the cowboy’s Bible.” E. C. “Teddy Blue” Abbott’s We Pointed Them North (1939) is the best known cowboy memoir among those who know. But Andy Adams’s The Log of a Cowboy (1903), though not strictly a cowboy memoir—even if based on real events in Adam’s life as a puncher—is the best of the bunch. It recounts a three thousand mile drive from the tip of Texas, where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico, to the Blackfoot Agency in Montana, at the headwaters of the Missouri River. Adams wrote it in response to the unrealistic portrayal of cowboy life in modern fiction and the burgeoning film industry which heavily featured cowboys. It contains all the elements you’d expect in a cowboy narrative: roping, branding, and driving cattle to market, along with stampedes, river crossings, and a shootout in Wyoming. It is a must read for cowboys and want-to-be-cowboys alike.
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Stephen King
As a fan of the movie Shawshank Redemption, I thought I ought to read King’s novella upon which the film is based. I’m glad I did. Told in first person from Red’s perspective, the novella includes details that didn’t make the film—though there are things in the film that aren’t in the novella, or at least significantly changed. The greatest surprise was how Andy come into the money he used after his escape and move to Zihuatanejo, Mexico—it’s not what you think.
A Texas Cowboy’s Journal: Up the Trail to Kansas in 1868, Jack Bailey
This short journal of going up the trail from Texas to Kansas at the beginning of the great cattle drives is not as engaging as Charles A. Siringo’s A Texas Cow Boy, or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony or E. C. “Teddy Blue” Abbott’s We Pointed Them North, but it is an important first hand account of early cowboy history and ought to be in the library of ever serious cowboy historian.
The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, Walter Isaacson
After a brief background on the editorial changes to the second sentence in the Declaration of Independence, Isaacson writes, “It has become the greatest sentence ever crafted by human hands.” I’m grateful for the clarification with the addition of “human.” I’d hate to have to point him to Genesis 1:1 or John 3:16 or John 14:6 or Romans 8:28 or Philippians 4:13—or any other of the myriad sentences in the Bible which were crafted by human hands under divine inspiration. But even still, some might take umbrage with Isaacson’s assertion that the second sentence in the Declaration of Independence is the greatest sentence ever crafted by human hands. Shakespeare and Austen and Dickens and Hugo and Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy and Faulkner and Hemingway—and many other I could name—had been know to craft some pretty great sentences. Isaacson’s claim rests on the word great, which he doesn’t define. But his implied meaning of great is that the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence has had a greater impact on human history than any other single sentence written by a singular human. Perhaps that’s so, I don’t know. I will say, however, the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence is the greatest sentence ever crafted by a human committee, since it wasn’t the product of merely one mind. Regardless of what you think about Isaacson’s claim about greatness, this short volume is worth reading and thinking about as we prepare to celebrate the 250 anniversary of not only this particular sentence but the whole document in which it is found.
Stores in His Own Hand: The Everyday Wisdom of Ronald Reagan, Kiron K. Skiner, Annalise Anderson, and Martin Anderson, eds.
Ronald Reagan was known as the Great Communicator. This small volume of stories he used in speeches and letters confirms that Reagan was indeed a great communicator. A companion to the much larger collection of Reagan letters by the same editors—Reagan in His Own Hand—this volume of stories is a rich source not only of Reaganisms but also of how to communicate a story.
Night of Camp David, Fletcher Knebel
I was told about this novel, published in 1965, by someone who mentioned it’s eery connection to our present-day political situation. The plot revolves around the junior senator from Iowa who has been tagged as a possible vice presidential running mate to the sitting president. The young senator is overjoyed at the prospect of becoming vice president to a man whom he idolizes—that is, until he has a midnight meeting with the president at Camp David. What was said during that meeting and the manner in which the president comported himself planted a kernel of concern in the senator’s mind that the president might be losing his mind.
They Came From the Sky: The Spanish Arrive in Texas, Stephen Harrigan
This small volume serves almost like a reading copy of the first chapter of Harrigan’s magnum opus, Big Wonderful Thing. In fact, the volume is touted as “A Preview of a Forthcoming History of Texas.” It lives up to that designation. In it, Harrigan surveys the arrival of the Spanish in what became known as Texas. It’s a story of hardship and heartache, heroism and heartlessness. But it set the stage for what Texas became.
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