Favorites of 2025


Looking back over what I have read in 2025 (you can see the entire reading list HERE), the following are some favorites (in no particular order).


Novels (favorite 7 of 30)

The Mysteries of Udolpho, Ann Radcliffe (1794)

Titus Groan, Mervyn Peake (1946)

The Ghost Pirates, William Hope Hodgson (1909)

Conquer, Edward Erdelac (2020)

The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty (1971)

The Charwoman's Shadow, Lord Dunsany (1926)

The Three Imposters, Arthur Machen (1895)


Short Stories (favorite 46 of 393)

Walking Aunt Daid, Zenna Henderson

Spettrini, Matthew Bartlett

No Abiding Place on Earth, Matthew Bartlett

Window, Bob Leman

Loyalty, Matthew M. Bartlett

Bellow of the Steamship Cow, Aaron Dries

The Death of Odjigh, Marcel Schwob

My Sad Dead, Mariana Enriquez

The Happy Children, Arthur Machen

Frontier Death Song, Laird Barron

The Tower, Marghatina Laski

New England Gothic Part 2, Matthew M. Bartlett

It Doesn't Do What You Think It Does, Brian Evenson

The Strange Design of Master Rignolo, Thomas Ligotti

The Willows, Algernon Blackwood

The Room in the Tower, E. F. Benson

The Derelict, William Hope Hodgson

Return to the Midnight School, Attila Veres

The Amber Complex, Attila Veres

Sky Filled with Crows, Attila Veres

The Black Maybe, Attila Veres

Haak, John Langan

Jaws of Saturn, Laird Barron

American Remake of a Japanese Ghost Story, Laird Barron

Shambleau, C.L. Moore

Old Virginia, Laird Barron

Shiva, Open Your Eye, Laird, Barron

Lustre, Sebastian Gray

Five Views of the Planet Tartarus, Rachael K. Jones

Oscar Returns from the Dead, Prophesizing, John Langan

Rangel, Matthew M. Bartlett

Gaspar, Matthew M. Bartlett

Hallucigenia, Laird Barron

Orchard Fruit, Joe S. Pulver

My Name is Ellie, Ben Rebelein

Apartment 205, Mark Samuels

The White Hands, Mark Samuels

Vrolyk, Mark Samuels

The Wolves of Cernogratz, Saki

Ingwa-banashi, Lafcadio Hearn

'John Gladwin Says . . .', Oliver Onions

The Rope in the Rafters, Oliver Onions

A Visit, or The Lovely House, Shirley Jackson

The Shadow in the Corner, Sarah Elizabeth Braddon

The Massachusetts State Trooper, Matthew M. Bartlett

Lucky's Grove, H. R. Wakefield


Other

The Man Whom the Trees Loved, Algernon Blackwood, Novella

The Imago Sequence, Laird Barron, Novella

The Appalling Hospitalization of Hildred Castaigne, Futurist, Jason Bowers, Flash Fiction

Providence, Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows, Graphic Novel

The Sage of Swamp Thing Book 2, Alan Moore, Graphic Novel

Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age, Vol 1, Len Wein, Graphic Novel

That Saga of Swamp Thing, Book 5, Alan Moore, Graphic Novel

Saga of Swamp Thing, Book Six, Alan Moore, Graphic Novel

Creepy #63 (July 1974), Comic

Beowulf, Seamus Heaney (trans.), Epic Poem






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