My Favorite Books of 2025 - Agustin Rivera - Zenda

Agustin Rivera picks the list of his favorite books of 2025.

Of course, there are many friends and nice people.I would like the conditions of Ramón González Férriz (reasonable, considerate and reasonable) to enter the annual list of El Confidencial, so that he does not have friends or acquaintances "so as not to appear misunderstanding".But if my favorite book of the year coincides with a book written by someone close to me, I don't want to stop revealing to the readers' preferences that there are things that I will remember from 2025. Some of them (essays rather than novels) are already part of my life.

In most of the lists of books published every year, it is a list of works or photos of the cover or spines. Many others have reviewed or explained what they read. For years I have tried to sum up in one sentence what this book is and why it is important to me. I do not rule out returning to this choice, but now I prefer to choose a phrase or a passage that explains the beauty or the harshnessof the work. I focus on style and tone, trying to capture the essence of what is being said. I have also included the page it appears on so that readers can go directly to the selected text if they wish.

These are my favorite books from 2025:

"The hallway of the classroom is a place where years and time always collide, bitter and sweet things mix and are reborn in heirloom flowers" (p. 77).

- These Eternal Nights by Silvia Grijalba

"The strange tribes of Torremolinos have become destitute with no place to end those eternal nights. But it will be for a little while" (p. 116).

- Barbara Guntz, Rafael Maldonado

"I'm sadness and will, a little more" (Page 43).

- Martiete kralja sjene, by Raúl Quinto

"And music played that no one could hear. And the end of the pain was all his" (p. 167).

- We stepped on puddles - Roman Pina Waltz

"I was once heard a writer say, that people need to know about the past, because they could arrive in nostalgia. How not to enjoy the nostalgic. Why don't you enjoy the nostalgic. Why don't you enjoy the nostalgic. Why don't you enjoy the nostalgic. Why don't you enjoy the nostalgic. Why don't you enjoy the nostalgic. Why don't you enjoy the nostalgic. Why don't you enjoy the nostalgic. Why are you wearing is not another form of nostalgia" (p. 271).

- The Last Redskins, by Juan Jose Telles

"I have the face of your soul written on my mainsail.

They call me by the name that was on that occasion

And only the sea will be heard at the end of days” (p. 86).

- The best book in the world by Manuel Vilas

"I must have realized this when I was thirty or thirty-five, but then I didn't know anything and spent my days trying to understand James Joyce's Finnegans Wake" (page 538).

- Learn to write, by Alvaro Coloma

"Héctor Abad Faciolince has a secret that he did not reveal even in his diaries: Ritalin. A psychiatrist ordered him to increase his ability to concentrate and, since he takes it, he writes as if possessed by the devil" (page 100).

- Learn to live, by Clarice Lispector

"We passed beautiful horses that stood waiting for the dawn. I did not know the childhood of others. But this daily journey made me a child full of joy. And it served as a promise of happiness for the future. My capacity for happiness was revealed. During a very sad childhood, I attached myself to that magical island that was a daily journey" (page 20).

- Or you will see Cervantes, by Antonio Muñoz Molina

"But in Úbeda in a large room during the hot July of my vacation, when I really understood the power of writing without writing for the first time. All arrangements, drawings, physical events disappeared in the process of simple writing. The book came out of my creation "(p. 231).

- This is Vicente Luis Mora on the voice line

"Sometimes when you want to be alone, that one will appear in the mirror without permission" (p. 87).

- Portrait of Jazz, by Haruki Murakami and Makoto Wada

"Nothing, however, pleases me more than to make the reader feel part of the pleasure I get when the record player starts, the needle drops on one of my old jazz LPs and, sitting comfortably in my easy chair, I listen to the music that spreads in the air, in the fires of my hole" (p. 13).

- Correspondence, by Rafael Pérez Estrada and Carlos Edmundo de Ory

"I invent a product to dye starlight" (page 41).

- The Spaniard Who Loved the World: The Life of Julio Iglesias, by Ignacio Peyró

"Every unhappy couple is unhappy in its own way, and there are some who are always lucky" (p. 129).

- Kingdom and Power by Gay Talese

"Most journalists are relentless followers of the world's problems, the world's imperfections, and the people" (p.

- The more people dieThe more I want to live, by Maruja Torres

"I'm only productive every day, I could write chronicles without stopping, but a book is something else, and it's really scary. It's scary to start, scary to continue, scary to finish, and even scarier to forget.

On my awakening page, I never remember the book.My report, yes. "That must mean something, right?" (page 228).

There are books that I didn't include that were about to appear on this list, so subjective, so imperfect, so personal.In some cases I was excited by their beginnings and style, but I haven't reached the end yet.Perhaps they will be part of the 2026 list, a year about to debut and discover new worlds.Reading is an adventure.

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