Summer Reading 2025

Greetings and welcome to a list of the books I read this summer! If this is your first time here—hiya! During this warmest of seasons, I try to read at least one nonfiction work, a "classic," and something I define as "quick," which may or may not differ from your definition of the term. I'll save you from the agonizing suspense and reveal that everything I picked up this summer was "quick."

Here are the links to my previous summer reading years: 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Let's take a look, shall we?

GabaGhoul: A Mafia Horror Anthology

Various

Ever wonder about a universe where Christopher Moltisanti followed up his feature hit "Cleaver" with a book of mafia-inspired horror stories? Was that a yes? Then "GabaGhoul: A Mafia Horror Anthology" might be for you! (Full disclosure: One of my stories is included in this anthology.)  

Looking for tales about organized crime and vampires? It's got 'em! What about the criminal underworld and zombies? Sure! Any yarns featuring syndicates and necromancy? You betcha! Plus loads more! Dark and comedic. Grim and disturbing. Slow burns and hard hitters. Like a mouthwatering antipasto, GabaGhoul offers a rich variety that's sure to stimulate your horror appetite. A few of my favorites include:

"The Corpse Box" by Max Booth III

A man guards a box for the mob that makes people "disappear." It's a pretty easy gig, for the most part. But when his fridge breaks down on the same day the boss asks him for a favor, things take a troubling turn.

"Open Books" by Brian Keene

Larry used to be a skilled thief, but he's left that life behind. One day, two former associates walk into his bookstore and ask him to steal the Daemonolateria, a rumored tome of spells, from someone in town. And Larry can't say no. Should be a piece of cake in this sleepy burg. Right?

"The Body Bag" by Jo Kaplan

Dante is driving to dump a body. No big deal. He's done it before. But there's something odd about the corpse in the back seat. Something that's taking him back to a night he can't forget.

"Closing Time at Caruso's" by Alex Rosenberg

Nick passes by Caruso's every Thursday on his way home from work. One night, he finally goes into the restaurant and meets a group of old-timers who remind him of his Italian roots. And they don't believe he's respecting his past.

An additional 22 stories round out this collection. So whether you take your horror regular, creamy, or al dente, this anthology has something to satisfy even the most discriminating taste.

This clocks in at 267 pages (not counting the editors' and authors' sections), so I'll mark this as a "quick" read.

The Quick and the Still

Michael Wertenberg

I came upon this author while fumbling around on YouTube. That all-knowing algorithm—which will probably play a prominent role in enslaving all of humanity one day—presented for my viewing pleasure Michael Wertenberg's ranking of Clive Barker novels. So, of course, I clicked "Play."

Since then, I've watched more of his videos. He offers insightful, articulate, and often quirky takes on topics ranging from horror listicles and book trends to writing tips and the state of publishing in today's God-forsaken world.

"The Quick and the Still" follows Jared, a recovering drug addict and ambulance driver, through the town of Stanhill, Texas, a place David Lynch would probably love to visit and perhaps call home. An alarming number of bodies keep piling up at St. Matthew's Memorial Hospital, which keeps Jared busy. But there's something off about everything. There's also this suspicious doctor who seems to know more than he lets on. Other intriguing characters include Tracey, a receptionist at the hospital with a sexual fetish that blurs the line between kinky and perverse, and Leo, a preacher at this weird church with a peculiar, well, let's call it an "irregularity" that Jared can't seem to resist.

Wertenberg weaves mystery, humor, body horror, and eroticism with a deft style that keeps the reader engaged and turning pages. The book also touches on themes of addiction, identity, memory, and loss while also delivering subtle commentary on religion, law enforcement, and healthcare.

There were moments I felt like I was riding in the ambulance with Jared, soaking in the bleak landscape and wondering if what was happening was real or just a figment of my imagination. (Yes, it's fiction, so technically none of it is real, but you get what I'm saying, right?) If you're a fan of Lynch, David Cronenberg, and Roland Topor, give this book a read.

Even though "The Quick and the Still" checks in at a muscular 383 pages (not counting the author page and afterword), the wide spacing and larger font make it read much faster. Another "quick" read.

The Possessor and the Stone Book II: The Legend of Bivatore

Brian Balogh

Looking for something filled with wondrous lands, enigmatic objects, colorful characters, and mind-expanding journeys aided by smoking wumpis? This epic fantasy adventure picks up where "The Possessor and the Stone" left off, a book I read last year and thoroughly enjoyed. Since this is a sequel, I don't want to spoil anything for potential new readers. But I will say that some of my favorite moments in "Book II: The Legend of Bivatore" include the introduction of Aurri-Kahl, the vivid imagery of Parpamarra Eve, and the events that follow the actions of a certain spurned Chaimis.

Here's the back cover synopsis: Following the Siege of New Stirlyng, the allies have become locked in a desperate struggle with the Chaimis for possession of the Stone. Queen Corrabela III embarks on a dangerous adventure of her own. Jo-Varr, still uncovering his past, meets a mysterious wayfarer who provides as many questions as answers. The Whools tragically lose a beloved leader. An ambitious new officer emerges, rising to the uppermost ranks of the Chaimis Horde. And New Stirlyng is beleaguered by inner turmoil on Parpamarra, the holiest day on the calendar for Believers.

The second act of a trilogy is usually the trickiest to pull off, regardless of medium. The story has already introduced most of the principal players, the action tends to slow a bit, and the payoff doesn't happen until the finale. But Brian Balogh does a masterful job of maintaining momentum with deepening character development and lyrical prose. For example, here's a part of a prayer offered to a departed companion:

"[W]e should remember he is now in the heavens, shining brightly. And that he is forever with us, for he is the sunlight and the moonlight, and the soil, the water, the wind, and the rain."

Two benchmarks for executing a middle installment correctly are "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" (book and film) and "The Empire Strikes Back," which also happens to be my favorite "Star Wars" movie. And like "Empire," I think "The Legend of Bivatore" is the front-runner in the series for me so far. I'm looking forward to reading "Book III."

Fantasy is a genre that I'm quite fond of but don't pick up nearly enough. And when I do, I always wonder why I don't read it more often. If you want to immerse yourself in a strange world filled with even stranger beings—ones that still reflect themes, motivations, and philosophies of our own—then "Book II" might be for you (after reading the first one, of course).

At 190 pages, I'll check this off as a "quick" read.

The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon's Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I

Lindsey Fitzharris

The year was 2018. I was wandering around Barnes & Noble, looking for something to read during my soul-crushing train rides home from work. On the shelf, a book called out to me just begging to be picked up: "The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine." That's when I first became acquainted with author Lindsey Fitzharris.

Needless to say, I loved the book. If you think the state of healthcare is in poor shape now, it has nothing on the 19th century.

Therefore, I was delighted to see "The Facemaker" appear on my radar a few years ago. It's the story of Dr. Harold Gillies, a man whose innovations in reconstructive plastic surgery helped the lives of countless Allied soldiers who suffered catastrophic facial wounds during World War I.

While Gillies is the main focus of the book, he was by no means alone. Dentists, artists, sculptors, photographers, surgeons, physicians, nurses, and others all contributed their respective talents to help reestablish form and function to those who gave their all during horrific, bloody combat. The advances of war in the early 20th century inflicted injuries never before seen on the battlefield. It took a collaborative effort to help these individuals return to a society that looked at facial disfigurement as something that should remain hidden in the shadows.

Through meticulous research and elegant narrative prose, Fitzharris shares Gillies's trials, tribulations, failures, and successes. Scenes of brutality are conveyed with an unflinching eye yet maintain grace and tact. The maimed soldiers are not depicted as broken subjects rounded up as fodder for this unusual new art. Instead, they are presented as real people with hopes and dreams.

Fitzharris recounts one instance in which a private had his jaw obliterated during the Battle of the Somme. After three painful surgeries, Gillies was able to reconstruct the private's face, although with some limitations, chiefly the length of his lips, which left him with a "whimsical, one-sided expression that ... was not entirely unpleasant." His fiancée, unable to accept this new reality, left him. But the soldier's spirit remained unbroken. He eventually married a more compassionate woman and raised a family.

"The Facemaker" is a powerful testament to a man who confronted the atrocities of war and, from its devastation, forged a field of study for the betterment of humanity. More people should know his name. But as Sir William Arbuthnot Lane put so succinctly near the end of the book: "Men [who] save life never get the same appreciation and reward as those whose business it is to destroy it."

I'll file this under "nonfiction" and a "quick read" since it comes in at 250 pages (excluding the extensive notes, acknowledgments, and index). Highly recommended.

The Turn of the Screw

Henry James

I'm usually good at following through on books I choose to read. I can count on one hand, and still have fingers left over, the number of books I've "DNF'd" (or, for you unhip cats out there, "did not finish") over my adult lifetime.

"The Turn of the Screw" was one of those books.

Not because it was bad, though. It was the dark days of taking the train to work (see above), and James's Victorian writing style just wasn't conducive to my ride home. There are lengthy paragraphs, some of which take up nearly the entire page (at least in my Dover Thrift Edition), and sentences that suffer from a lack of economy. For example:

I knew the next day that a letter containing the key had, by the first post, gone off to his London apartments; but in spite of—or perhaps just on account of—the eventual diffusion of this knowledge we quite let him alone till after dinner, till such an hour of the evening, in fact, as might best accord with the kind of emotion on which our hopes were fixed.

Add in the rumbling of the train car on my hour-plus commute that followed a sometimes nine- or 10-hour workday, and my eyelids were simply not equipped to handle it.

But I digress.

The novella follows the first-person account of an unnamed governess hired to take care of Miles (age 10) and Flora (age 8) at a sprawling country estate called Bly. Unfortunate circumstances have left the children orphaned and placed in the care of their uncle, a charming and wealthy man who doesn't want the responsibility. In fact, he plans to stay in London and has no interest in the kids. He gives the governess complete control of their lives. His attitude is just the beginning of the curious actions that follow.

The governess arrives at Bly and develops a friendship with the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. She first meets Flora and is captivated by her angelic beauty and politeness. Later, Miles comes home from school for the summer. But before he returns, a letter announces that the boy has been expelled, stating that he's "an injury to the others." The governess and Mrs. Grose find it hard to believe, considering Miles is so well-behaved, so they dismiss it.

Life is good for a time. Then the governess begins seeing people she doesn't recognize, specifically a man and a woman whom we later learn have a sordid past. This sets off a series of mystifying encounters and run-ins between the governess and the children that ramps up the tension and builds to the story's climax.

"The Turn of the Screw" is often taught in school, and I can see why. It's classic Gothic fiction, featuring an isolated mansion, supernatural elements, and melodrama. Throw in the "creepy kids" troupe, and you have the hearty ingredients for scholarly analysis. The story also explores themes of paranoia, societal expectations, and the struggle between good and evil, among many others. And while I noted a rather chunky passage earlier, there are exquisite literary moments. For example:

The autumn had dropped upon Bly and had blown out half our lights. The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after the performance—all strewn with crumpled playbills.

The novella's structure is also unique in that there are multiple levels of narration. The story begins with an unnamed narrator describing a Christmas-time gathering where people are telling ghost stories. A man named Douglas, one of the guests, offers to share a particularly chilling tale. He goes on to read aloud the governess's written version about her experience at Bly. This construction enhances the unreliable nature of the story. Did this really happen, or is it the recollections of a woman who suffered a complete mental break? It's left to the reader to decide.

While I enjoy stories with endings open to interpretation, the conclusion to this one felt abrupt and fell short of delivering that emotional punch I was expecting. That said, there's a reason this story has been adapted multiple times for film and television. It does a fantastic job of creating an eerie atmosphere of deepening unease. In keeping with one of the story's central themes, I'll leave it up to you to decide if it's worth your time.

At a tidy 87 pages, I'll log this "classic" as another "quick" read.

Hiroshima

John Hersey

August 6, 2025, marked 80 years since the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in the closing days of World War II, an event that changed the world forever. In his riveting book "Hiroshima," John Hersey tells the story of that day through the eyes of six survivors who endured a harrowing hellscape beyond imagination.

Hersey brings the inconceivable into sharp focus with his punchy, detailed, and straightforward journalistic style. For example, here's his description of Mr. Tanimoto, a pastor who was about to unload some clothes when the bomb hit:

[He] was a small man, quick to talk, laugh, and cry. He wore his black hair parted in the middle and rather long; the prominence of the frontal bones just above his eyebrows and the smallness of his mustache, mouth, and chin gave him a strange, old-young look, boyish and yet wise, weak and yet fiery. He moved nervously and fast, but with a restraint which suggested that he was a cautious, thoughtful man.

Later on, Hersey would convey the unfathomable:

Under many houses, people screamed for help, but no one helped; in general, survivors that day assisted only their relatives or immediate neighbors, for they could not comprehend or tolerate a wider circle of misery.

First published in 1946, "Hiroshima" delivers a gut-wrenching chronicle of the human cost of war. The atomic blast spared nothing and no one: Men, women, children, animals, and the very landscape all suffered.

[R]ange on range of collapsed city blocks, with here and there a crude sign erected on a pile of ashes and tiles ("Sister, where are you?" or "All safe and we live at Toyosaka"); naked trees and canted telephone poles; the few standing, gutted buildings only accentuating the horizontality of everything else (the Museum of Science and Industry, with its dome stripped to its steel frame, as if for an autopsy.)

And amid the death and desolation came the aftereffects: the short- and long-term health issues, the depression, the psychological scars that lingered for decades. My edition (and, I would imagine, every one readily available) includes a final chapter titled "Aftermath," in which Hersey returns to Hiroshima 40 years later to reconnect with the people he wrote about. It's a bittersweet coda to an experience that, regardless of where you stand on the ethics of employing such a destructive weapon to hasten the end of the war, should give us all pause.

I'll reiterate the Saturday Review of Literature's praise quote on the front cover and say that "Everyone able to read should read it."

At 152 pages, I'll put this compelling "classic" down as a "quick" read.

There you go: two nonfiction books (one of which was also a "classic"), one fiction "classic," and—as written earlier—all six were "quick" reads.

Read any good books this summer?