Best Books of 2025

Huckleberry Finn retold from Jim's perspective — Jim who speaks educated English when no white person is listening, who has interior language the novel they're in refuses to give him. Everett's Pulitzer winner is the most important American novel in years: a radical reimagining of a canonical text that asks who the literature was actually about.

A young woman follows her brother to Vietnam as a combat nurse and returns to an America that refuses to acknowledge her service. Hannah's most ambitious novel: a WWII-style women's historical applied to Vietnam, where the homecoming is the worst part. Her female characters have never been more fully realized.

A middle-aged woman sets out on a solo road trip from Los Angeles to New York — and stops after forty miles. July's novel about perimenopause, desire, and identity was 2024's most discussed literary novel. Strange, funny, and genuinely unlike anything else published in recent years.

A girl disappears from an elite Adirondacks summer camp in 1975 — and someone at the camp knows it's connected to another girl who vanished thirteen years before. Fox's novel is a summer gothic with impeccable atmosphere and a family secret that earns its reveal.

A young woman in 16th-century Spain is the only one who can save a powerful man from the Inquisition — if she's willing to use the dark gift she's been hiding. Bardugo's first adult historical fantasy: atmospheric, propulsive, and with her signature moral complexity fully intact.

Inspector Gamache's seventeenth novel — a conspiracy that reaches from Three Pines to the highest levels of government. For readers who have spent years in Three Pines: this is the book where the long-running threat finally arrives. For new readers, start with Still Life (book 1).

Book three of the Empyrean series — Violet and Xaden face consequences that the first two books built toward. Yarros's most politically complex Empyrean novel, with more world-building and higher stakes than Iron Flame. The series continues to justify its massive readership.

Daphne's fiancé leaves her for his childhood best friend — who is also the roommate of Daphne's new neighbor. Henry's most situationally comedic novel; lighter than her best work but with the same sharp emotional intelligence. The funniest of her five adult novels.

Two brothers in Dublin — one a 32-year-old lawyer, one a 22-year-old chess prodigy — grieve their father and fall into complicated relationships. Rooney's fourth novel: more overtly emotional than her previous work, with the same clean prose applied to male interiority for the first time. Her most accessible book.

Harari's history of information networks — from prehistoric storytelling to artificial intelligence. His most urgent and focused book since Sapiens, written as AI begins to reshape how information moves. Dense but accessible; the most important non-fiction of 2024.

Captain Cook's final voyage — the third and fatal one. Sides is the best narrative non-fiction writer working in English, and Cook's last journey (Hawaiian murder, unraveling myth of the benevolent explorer) is perfectly suited to his gifts. Reads like the best historical fiction.

A posthumous Crichton novel completed by Eric Gorder from an unfinished manuscript — a thriller about a volcanic eruption threatening Hawaii. Crichton fans who want his techno-thriller format in new material will find this satisfying; others should temper expectations for a completed-by-committee novel.

Book five of the Stormlight Archive — the conclusion of the first arc. Sanderson delivers the payoffs that readers have been building toward since 2010. At 1,300 pages, it is one of the longest novels ever published, and it earns most of them.

The first book in a new series by the Expanse authors — humanity has been conquered by alien beings who conduct research on them. Corey brings the same hard sci-fi rigor and ensemble cast construction that made The Expanse essential. The most anticipated sci-fi debut of 2024.

Already listed above in thriller — Bardugo defies categorization. The Familiar is simultaneously the year's best historical fantasy and one of its most propulsive thrillers. Essential regardless of your preferred genre.