My 3 favourite reads in 2025

My third annual best books list for Shepherd.com is similar to my first: a fiercely clever Jonathan Coe novel, a fearsomely complex John le Carré novel (albeit, this time, not written by John le Carré but by his son), and the most enthralling non-fiction book I’ve read in the past year. And after posting these reviews on Bluesky last month, Jonathan Coe’s repost – ‘This does an excellent job of summarising a novel which is very hard to summarise’ – became the fourth favourite thing I’ve read this year!

As usual, I could have chosen three completely different books from the 40-odd I worked my way through over the last 12 months: among the fiction runners-up were You Are Here by David Nicholls and Godmersham Park by Gill Hornby, while among the non-fiction were Killing Thatcher: The IRA, the Manhunt and the Long War on the Crown by Rory Carroll and Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David by Lawrence Wright.

Here, then – along with a shameless plug for my own book, The Vetting Officer – are my 3 favourite reads in 2025…