21 books I look forward to in 2025+

 

Before I get depressed about finishing a draft of a post on the state of this blog or the state of my reading, I decided to list books to be published this year (or beyond) that I want to read. And this cheers me up. I'm still reading "books-books". But ever since enrolling in a doctorate program, my reading fare lately consists of peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters from academic books. The worrying thing is that, since these texts are made up of words and they somehow contain narratives and storylines, I am quite enjoying the academic drudgery and all talk about "framing", "worldviews", "contestations", and "navigating complex, uncertain, and unsustainable societies". The arguments in some of those readings somehow resemble some concepts in the short stories of Borges. Academic reading and writing replaces time spent on reading and blogging. Yet I find I can still manage to squeeze the time to finish the quasi-philosophical ramblings of Clarice Lispector. In her A Breath of Life (Pulsations), for example, I discovered I can no longer distinguish the boundaries between reading and imaginary transcendence, between sense and sensemaking.

AUTHOR: I looked for you in dictionaries and couldn't find your meaning. Where is your synonym in the world? where is my own synonym in life? I'm unequalled.

After encountering four Lispector novels in the span of two years, I came to the conclusion that novels are instruments and vehicles for unearthing found meanings and found feelings. 

I have thoughts I cannot translate into words — sometimes I think a triangle. But when I try to think I get worried about trying to think and nothing comes up. Sometimes my thought is only the whispering of my leaves and branches. But for my best thought words are not found. 

 

I discovered that I need to not know what I’m thinking — if I become conscious of what I’m thinking, I can no longer think, I can only see myself think. When I say “think” I’m referring to the way I dream words. But thought needs to be a feeling. [tr. Johnny Lorenz]

The cumulative effect of passages like this is indescribable. I sometimes think I stumbled upon a comedy bar with a breakthrough artist performing a monologue in laughter and tears. It is alright to be sometimes all over the place. To think with a straight face can be difficult.

I've digressed.

 

1. Wildcat Dome by Yūko Tsushima, translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda

2. No Man River by Dương Hương, translated by Quan Manh Ha and Charles Waugh

3. Women, Seated by Zhang Yueran, translated by Jeremy Tiang

4. The Aesthetics of Resistance: Volume III by Peter Weiss, translated by Joel Scott. - the end of a trilogy to end all trilogies.

5. Silent Catastrophes by W. G. Sebald, translated by Jo Catling - John Banville said this will "diminish" Sebald's reputation as a master of Central European high literature. I'm not bothered by this pronouncement. It's now more than two decades after Sebald's death. I very much look forward to see Sebald diminish in my fanboy eyes. 

6. Vastlands: The Crossing by João Guimarães Rosa, translated by Alison Entrekin - Coming in 2026, actually. That Cormac McCarthy-inspired subtitle, though.

7. A Suitable Girl by Vikram Seth - may be out next year, or the year after that.

8. Borges by Adolfo Bioy Casares, translated by Valerie Miles. - what, 700 more pages about Borges?

9. Yñiga by Glenn Diaz - Tilted Axis Press, 2026.

10. Out of the World by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Martin Aitken - 2027 or thereabouts.

11. Into the Sun by C. F. Ramuz, translated by Olivia Baes and Emma Ramadan

12. Schattenfroh by Michael Lentz, translated by Max Lawton

13. Unusual Fragments: Japanese Stories by Taeko Kono, Nobuko Takagi, and others, translated by Lucy North, Margaret Mitsutani, and others. From Two Lines Press.

 

From locally published books, I look forward to reading

14. I Am a Voice by Genoveva Edroza-Matute, translated by Soledad S. Reyes - One of the books I bought last Thursday, Day 1 of 2025 Philippine Book Festival (PBF), from the booth of Ateneo de Manila University Press.

15. The Compendium of Impossible Objects by Carlo Paulo Pacolor, translated by Soleil David. This received a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship. I bought the original Filipino (and some other goods) in the PBF booth of the publisher, Everything's Fine PH.

16. Narkokristo, 1896 by Ronaldo S. Vivo Jr. - I finished it in one sitting yesterday.

17. The Twentieth-Century Philippines in Ten Novels: Literature as History (1913-1975) by Soledad S. Reyes

18. Sa Ibang Kariktan (Another Beauty) by Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles - The poet's latest nonfic from The University of the Philippines Press. I also managed to snag his triptych on sonnets, which is part of a septology on a poetry movement Ayer calls "Sonetoismo": Laging Patúngo (Always on the Way), Monstruo, and "Not the Stuff of Sonnets": Ilang Talâ sa Sonetoismo (Notes on Sonnetoism).

19. Pagkamangha sa Parang-Katapusan-ng-Mundo (Awe at the Apocalyptic-ish) by Genevieve L. Asenjo - Not yet on the shelves when Rise dropped by the PBF booth of Balangay Books. 

20. Pitumpung Patnubay sa Paglikha ng Palagiang Panahon (Seventy Guideposts on Creating a Stable World) by Edgar Calabia Samar

21. Cerco un Centro di Gravità Permanente by RM Topacio-Aplaon - the second installment in the Southern Quartet. And to think I haven't started yet anything from his Imus Novels, a projected septology, and am still in the middle of At Night We Are Dancers, which might be the first book in a trilogy. 

Perhaps I want to collect all of these books so that when I see any of them online I can say, just like Borges, "What a pity I can't buy that book because I already have a copy at home."