Our Readers’ 25 Favorite Books of 2025

From Jose Saramago, the Nobel Prize-winning author of Blindness, this must-have anthology brings together his most celebrated works. 

With an introduction from Ursula Le Guin, move from his spellbinding early works, like Baltasar & Blimbunda, to his later tales of politics and history, including All the Names and Death With Interruption. 

For the first time, in Collected Poems 1947-1997, all of the infamous poet’s published verse is gathered in one volume. The leading figure of the Beats, Allen Ginsberg’s raw tone and shattering insights captured the voice of a generation, solidifying his place as a fixture in American culture and history. 

In this moving debut, Ghita Schwarz follows a group of Holocaust survivors as they work to find their places in the world, while coping with the profound impact of Nazi terror. These “displaced persons” were at once ordinary people, but have been transformed by extraordinary circumstances. 

After the death of his friend, mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself in the manufactured paradise that is Hollywood. There, he learns that death can be profitable, wrapped up in a shiny bow, when he becomes entangled in a love triangle with a corpse beautician and an embalmer. 

Satirizing 1940s California, The Loved One is “fiendishly entertaining” (New York Times). 

Considered one of American literature’s most celebrated works, A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, draws on his experience in the First World War, volunteering as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross. 

Described by the New York Times as “a moving and beautiful book,” this timeless tale captures the horrors and injustices of combat, including the memories that follow those impacted when they return home. 

In this captivating translation, translator “Kurt Beals makes this 1927 classic of psychedelic dreams sparkle in new technicolor splendor” (Martin Puchner, author of The Language of Thieves). 

After living in isolation for most of his life, Harry ventures out only to become enamored with the mysterious Hermine. Soon, she exposes him to the darkness of bourgeois society, and he becomes divided between what he desires and what he knows is right. 

A Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year, 98 of J.G. Ballard’s stories are brought together in this sparkling showcase. 

Spanning five decades and covering topics such as singing orchards, cannibalism, and the overlooked history of World War III, this work demonstrates why the author is unparalleled in twentieth-century literature. 

Night is falling for the Prince of Darkness, that is, until he’s offered a deal: be guaranteed a spot in Heaven for eternity, in exchange for living out a docile existence in a human body on earth.

It’s an opportunity Lucifer can’t pass up, in what is described by The Times (London) as “a fiendishly sharp, intelligent examination of modern human life that is as funny as hell.”

Praised by the New York Review of Books as “the best of Russia’s younger generation of writers,” Sergei Lebedev’s debut novel follows an unnamed young man as he journeys to discover the truth about his mysterious neighbor who saved his life. 

Travelling in the obscurity of the Far North, this tale showcases both the ruin and beauty of a land, forever impacted by the memory of the Soviet century. 

Still, after two hundred years, the Brothers Grimm’s tales manage to captivate modern audiences. 

Gathered in one volume, take a look back at forty of the world's most famous stories, including “Cinderella” and “Little Red Riding Hood,” as well as lesser-known stories like “The Seven Ravens”—all translated and edited by Maria Tatar, a leading professor of folklore. 

A Civil War epic, Jacob’s Ladder chronicles a love story pitted against the tragic horrors of racism, slavery, and war, through three characters: Duncan Gatewood, heir to a plantation who falls in love with Maggie, a mulatto enslaved person, and Jesse, an enslaved person whose love for Maggie goes unrequited. 

From a Vicksburg brothel to a Confederate hospital and the trenches of the battlefields, sink into a deeply layered story of America. 

A mix of “cutting-edge science and lost history,” The Genesis Code kicks off when two scientists uncover a secret code hidden in human DNA (James Rollins, New York Times-bestselling author). 

And when Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Josh Ambegris is found dead, it will be up to his protege to decipher scientific facts and ancient texts, in a discovery that will alter the course of human history. 

Between Christmas and New Year’s, ten successful ladies come together at a spa retreat. 

While lounging in the Jacuzzi and sipping bubbly, they divulge the stories of their lives, in what The Times (UK) described as “Immensely entertaining […] The entire gamut of the female experience is covered.”

Considered to be the first literary detective, meet Edgar Allan Poe’s creation, C. August Dupin. In these three classic stories—“The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” and “The Purloined Letter”—Dupin’s intellect and problem-solving skills are on full display. 

Considered to be “one of the most significant novelists of her generation,” Irish Murdouch routinely dealt with themes of morality and love (The Guardian). 

Winning numerous awards throughout her career, including the Man Booker Prize and Whitbread Literary Award, these three novels are windows into the storyteller extraordinare. 

Centering around Chloe Bathurst, the unemployed Victorian actress, heads off for Charles Darwin’s estate, combining “rollicking adventure and sly, bawdy humor with attention to ideas” (Library Journal, starred review). 

When she learns of a contest sponsored by the Percy Bysshe Shelley Society, she submits Mr. Darwin’s materialist theory. What follows is an adventure of a lifetime, from Brazil to the Andes, and beyond. 

Centered around an unconventional family from New York’s Upper East Side, After the Fall begins one day, when Pops, a self-made millionaire, comes home to realize he no longer possesses a cent to his name. 

Even more shockingly, the next day, their furniture is taken and arranged in Central Park. With beautiful illustrations, follow along on this wild tale as the children work to put their family back together again. 

A New York Times-bestselling “masterpiece,” this World War II novel chronicles the experiences of three soldiers from very different backgrounds. Including Christian Diestl, a Nazi sergeant, Noah Ackerman, a Jewish American infantryman, and Michael Witacte, an idealistic urbanite, The Young Lions paints a brutal, realistic portrait of what it means to be consumed by war.

Leaving the mountains of New Mexico, Santa Fe Cameron heads north to 1870s New York, with the decadent offerings of the Astors, and eventually to a cell in the Tombs. She will search for happiness in the wrong places—only to realize it was within her all along. 

The Turquoise demonstrates that, “Seton, at her best, has a gaudy vitality all her own, and a sure sense of theatre” (New York Times). 

In today's New York City, animals have taken over, and yet they still live in a world of soul-consuming jobs, rising sea levels, and a pervasive sense of doom. 

Fueled by “Joni Murphy’s inventive and beautiful allegory,” Talking Animals “depicts a city [...] blinded to the signs of its imminent destruction by petty hatreds and monstrous greed: that is, the world we are living in now” (Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick and After Kathy Acker). 

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton, uncover “an engrossing picture of middle-aged infatuation,” in which a bachelor on a transatlantic cruise crosses paths with a group of runaway children (The Times). 

The Wheater siblings, running away from their parents, long to live in a world where they are never parted—and Martin Boyce will do whatever he can to make that happen. 

When the Nazis set forth across Germany and unleashed a wave of terror against Jewish people, the Japanese Imperial Army in China tightened its grip on Shanghai, which would become a haven for thousands of European Jews. 

This is the setting of The Far Side of the Sky, an “amazing novel” in which renowned surgeon Dr. Franz Adler does everything within his power to protect the people he loves (Huffington Post). 

From the National Book Award-winning author: a young British bride in the years following the Civil War relocates to the American South. There, as she attempts to come to terms with her new life, Stella learns she is vulnerable to forces all around her—including her family's recently unearthed secrets. 

The winner of the 1930 Pulitzer Prize, Laughing Boy portrays Navajo culture in the American Southwest, with vivid descriptions of the land and its people. 

Described by the New York Times as “[a novel of] lucid beauty, vital artistic imagination, and a clear, almost hypnotic style,” it is a love story between two young Navajos, navigating past and present, as well as the larger American world and their dwindling community. 

In this “highly personalized adventure, ultra-romantic” novel, Daphne Du Maurier, author of Rebecca, tells the story of an English woman who falls in love with a criminal (New York Times). 

Together, they embark on a journey with danger at every turn, leading Dona to the ultimate choice: sacrifice her lover or risk her life.