Best Books of 2025

Intermezzo — Sally Rooney

Two brothers — one a chess prodigy, one a successful lawyer — grieve their father in entirely different ways, and find themselves in relationships that confound everyone around them. Rooney's most emotionally direct novel: less irony, more feeling. Her best book.

Creation Lake — Rachel Kushner

An American spy operating in rural France infiltrates a radical agrarian commune. Kushner writes literary espionage with intellectual depth and genuine suspense — the Booker shortlist entry that many readers felt should have won. One of the sharpest literary novels of the decade.

The God of the Woods — Lauren Fox

A girl disappears from an Adirondack summer camp in 1978 — and her disappearance exposes a family secret connected to a previous vanishing. One of the best dual-timeline literary mysteries in years. Dominated summer 2025 reading lists as the paperback reached a wider audience.

Small Things Like These (Film tie-in) — Claire Keegan

A coal merchant in 1980s Ireland discovers a girl imprisoned in the local convent. Keegan's 120-page novella about moral courage in the face of communal silence became required reading when the Cillian Murphy film brought it to international audiences. One of the finest short fictions in English.

Onyx Storm — Rebecca Yarros

Book 3 in the Empyrean series. Violet and Xaden's arc deepens while the Navarre War reaches new stakes — and the world-building opens up to reveal a mythology much larger than the war college suggested. The fastest-selling fantasy-romance of the year. Read Fourth Wing and Iron Flame first.

House of Salt and Sorrow (series entry) — Erin A. Craig

Craig's gothic fairy-tale fantasy continues to find new readers in 2025. Her atmospheric horror — inspired by Twelve Dancing Princesses — sits at the intersection of dark academia and folklore-fantasy that dominated 2025's genre charts.

The Familiar — Leigh Bardugo (paperback)

Bardugo's standalone historical fantasy set in 1505 Spain found its largest audience in paperback. A converso woman with secret power navigating the Spanish Inquisition — her most literary and mature work. If you only read one Bardugo book, this or Six of Crows.

Great Big Beautiful Life — Emily Henry

Henry's fifth novel — two journalists compete for access to a reclusive heiress while navigating their own complicated history. Henry's most structurally ambitious book. Confirmed her as the dominant voice in contemporary romance fiction for the third consecutive year.

The Women (paperback) — Kristin Hannah

Hannah's Vietnam War nurses novel moved into paperback and onto every book club list of 2025. If you missed it in hardcover, this is the year. Her most historically researched and emotionally powerful novel.

The Housemaid Is Watching — Freida McFadden

The third Housemaid book — McFadden's domestic thriller series continues to dominate bestseller lists with the most reliably twisty plots in commercial fiction. Each book functions as a standalone despite the connecting character thread.

The Thursday Murder Club: We Are Not Alone — Richard Osman

Book 5 in the Thursday Murder Club series. The four retirement village detectives face their most unusual case yet. Osman's wit and warmth remain the most reliable comfort read in British crime fiction. Read from Book 1 for full character payoff.

The Anxious Generation (paperback) — Jonathan Haidt

The 2024 argument about smartphones and adolescent mental health continued to dominate conversation in 2025. In paperback, it reached its widest audience — and legislative responses to its recommendations in multiple countries made it required reading for parents, educators, and policymakers.

Nexus — Yuval Noah Harari

Harari's follow-up to Sapiens examines the history of information networks — from early writing to AI — and asks what happens when machines become part of our information ecosystem. Less sweeping than Sapiens but more urgent. The AI nonfiction book of the year.

The Waiting — Michael Connelly

Connelly introduces Maddie Bosch — Harry Bosch's daughter — as a new LAPD detective protagonist. For Connelly fans, this is the seamless passing of a torch. For new readers, it's an excellent entry into his Los Angeles crime universe.

Intermezzo — (additional debut to note)