2025 Reading Feflections Part I: Why I Love Historical Fiction

 Looking back at my 2025 reading list, I realized something about my reading habits: even if my reading life isn’t organized, my taste absolutely is.

So instead of posting one long list of everything I read last year, I’m breaking it down by theme. Apparently, I read in categories without realizing it.

The first, and probably most obvious, is historical fiction.

I was a history major, and I’ve always believed the best history is really about people. Not just presidents and generals, but ordinary individuals navigating extraordinary circumstances. History lives in kitchens and classrooms, in letters and friendships, in small acts of courage and kindness that never make it into textbooks.

That’s why I love historical fiction. It takes the events we think we know and lets us see them through human eyes.

This year, I read several that stayed with me long after I finished them.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr was probably the most beautiful. Set during World War II, it follows a blind French girl and a German boy whose lives slowly converge as the war unfolds around them. It’s quiet and reflective and devastating in the way the best war stories often are, not because of the battles, but because of the humanity.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak also explores World War II, but from the perspective of an ordinary German family. What struck me most was the way it reminds us that history is complicated. Even in dark times, people are still just people. They are capable of cruelty, yes, but also courage, tenderness, and love. This one really touched me.

I found another kind of courage in The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes, which tells the story of the traveling librarians of Appalachia during the Depression. A British woman moves to rural Kentucky and ends up delivering books on horseback to remote communities. Librarians, mountains, and a bit of rebellion against expectations… it was pretty much guaranteed to be a book I’d love.

And then there was The Magic of Ordinary Days by Ann Howard Creel, a quieter wartime story about an arranged marriage on the American plains during World War II. I spent half the book frustrated with the heroine and the other half remembering that none of us really knows how we would behave if we were living someone else’s life in another time.

That’s the magic of historical fiction for me. It reminds us that history isn’t abstract. It’s made up of individual lives, complicated choices, and imperfect people trying to do the best they can with the circumstances they’ve been given.

And when it’s done well, it doesn’t just teach us about the past.

It helps us understand ourselves a little better, too.

a view of a mountain range with trees in the foreground
Photo by Sean Foster on Unsplash

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