Catholic World Report contributors and editors share and reflect on their favorite reads from the year.
December 12, 2025
CWR Contributors
Books, Essay, Features
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With this list, we enter a third decade of the “Best Books I Read…”, which is both difficult to comprehend and heart-warming to ponder.
This yearly feature began with the simple belief that you, the reader, still love to read good books. I wish we could take such things for granted, but I’m not sure we can.
I began reading at age four, and I’ve not stopped since. But I also know that there’s so much more to read. So many great books, so little time.
Of course, it’s not a contest. It’s better to read one or two good books, with a deep and abiding appreciation, than to storm through a stack of banal best-sellers.
But it’s also good—and encouraging—to learn what others have read. One of the powerful and abiding qualities of reading is sharing what we read, learn, and understand with others.
In that spirit, here are over forty lists of books read and appreciated during 2025. Happy reading!
Dale Ahlquist
Mary Jo Anderson
Dawn Beutner
Bradley J. Birzer
Joanna Bogle
David Bonagura, Jr.
Casey Chalk
Susan Ciancio
Richard Clements
Shawn Phillip Cooper
David P. Deavel
Deacon David Delaney
Conor B. Dugan
John Echaniz
John M. Grondelski
Ronald L. Jelinek
Christopher Kaczor
James Kalb
Timothy D. Lusch
Daniel J. Mahoney
Joseph Martin
Filip Mazurczak
Fr. R. McTeigue, S.J.
J.C. Miller
Eleanor Nicholson
Sam Nicholson
Carl E. Olson
Jared Ortiz
Rhonda Ortiz
Joseph Pearce
S. Kirk Pierzchala
Matthew Ramage
Paul Seaton
Piers Shepherd
Edward Short
Carl R. Trueman
John Tuttle
Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap.
Amy Welborn
Chilton Williamson
Tod Worner
Like most people who read, I keep two or three books going at the same time. So while I was reading Father Joseph Fessio, S.J.: California Blackrobe by Cornelius Michael Buckley, S.J., the Father Fessio biography, I happened to pick up the so-called modern American classic On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I’d been putting off reading that book for several decades. I only wish I had put it off several more decades. However, it provided an interesting companion volume to California Blackrobe. First of all, both books take place partly in California. Jack and Joe have similar stories in how different they are. Both raised Catholic, both reckless, both thinkers, both travelers. But one is going nowhere while he seems to be focused on breaking all the previously mentioned Ten Commandments. The other is going everywhere, trying to do God’s will. One is devoted to losers as mentors, the other to saints. Both experience regular defeats, but the one leaves you disheartened while the other inspires you. I’m not sure why there are Catholics who admire Kerouac, but I really can’t figure out why there are Catholics who criticize Father Fessio.