David Malman

You just want to get to know him.

He's great.

It's a big book.

It's close to 700 pages, I think, or just over 600.

But it was probably my favorite novel of 2025.

And again, that was The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Kamary.

Yeah.

And it did make the New York Times top 10 this 2025.

Well, since you mentioned short stories, I'm going to mention my favorite short story collection of 2025, which got a lot of great reviews, but I don't think many people know about it.

It's called Are You Happy?

by Laurie Ostlund, O-S-T-L-U-N-D.

And these stories are for people who like the classic kind of Alice Munro story where

The stories are on the long side and they feel like miniature novels and you get into the lives of all the characters.

And I just could not stop reading this book.

At least a couple of the books have been featured in Best American Short Stories.

One of my favorite story collections in recent years.

And again, that's Are You Happy by Laurie Ostlund.

The last one I'll talk about from last year is Life and Death and Giants by Ron Rindo.

This was one of my favorite books of last year.

And also, full disclosure, the author, Ron Rindo, was my writing mentor when I was an undergraduate student.