vr眼镜品牌性价比高 75 best books of 2025: Fiction, nonfiction, young adult, and more

Reading is a paradoxical act. We usually do it alone, but the words we read can profoundly connect us with other people. Books offer both a chance to escape from reality, and the tools required to understand the world as it is. Book lists are also contradictory in nature: your top ten list on a Monday will no doubt consist of different titles by Friday. Even as we present readers with 75 of the best books published in 2025, we are well aware that anyone viewing the list may feel we he left off their forite book or author. So let us know – which books would you add to the best of 2025 list?

fiction Tweet this list The Antidote By Karen Russell A mother stripped of her child becomes a prairie witch, carrying the burden of other people’s memories in Dust Bowl Nebraska, watching as families lose their farms and lives in the wake of extreme weather in this audacious novel. — Lauren LeBlanc Purchase book At Last By Marisa Silver Two temperamentally opposite mothers-in-law, Helene and Evelyn, bristle and cope with one another for decades across late 20th century America as their families evolve and expand, fall apart and contract again. This underexplored relationship is gracefully rendered and utterly compelling. — LL Purchase book Audition By Katie Kitamura A middle-aged woman encounters a handsome stranger at a Manhattan restaurant; he claims to be her long-lost son. But is he something more or less? Set in New York’s competitive theater world, Kitamura’s diamond-cut novel destabilizes our notions of narrative and family. — Hamilton Cain Purchase book The Book of Records By Madeleine Thien Three possibly magical storytelling neighbors blur history and time to provide a ballast for young Lina, adrift with her ailing father at the Sea, a refugee waystation. A sweeping look at migration and responsibility, Thien’s novel interrogates our notion of home. — LL Purchase book The Correspondent By Virginia Evans This unexpected breakout best-selling epistolary novel centers on Sybil, a prickly, isolated former lawyer who takes comfort in writing and receiving letters. Her retreat from the world is broken by unexpected twists of fate, forcing her off the page and back into life. — LL Purchase book The Director By Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin This crackling historical novel draws from the life of G.W. Pabst, an Austrian film director who returns to his homeland after a disastrous experience in Hollywood only to find himself trapped as a pawn in the Nazi regime’s propaganda machine. — LL Purchase book Endling By Maria Reva On the brink of conflict, Yeva, a Ukrainian scientist, chases down rare snails in her trailer while romancing foreign men for money. Two sisters hatch an activist scheme with Yeva as war erupts in this funny and gre metafictional novel. — LL Purchase book Exit Zero: Stories By Marie-Helene Bertino A father’s death is eclipsed by the needy unicorn he lees behind, vampires linger, ex-boyfriends fall from the sky, and balloons offer curious messages in these short stories that shimmer and linger in your consciousness like fairy tales for grownups. — LL Purchase book Flashlight By Susan Choi An American girl and her Korean father stroll along a Japanese beach at dusk when he vanishes, a loss that shapes her difficult relationships back in the US and well into adulthood. Choi’s svy blend of political espionage and personal tragedy unfolds in a signature dense lyricism. — HC Purchase book Gliff By Ali Smith Subject to surveillance and scrupulously controlling documentation, two siblings are alone and “unverified” in a fascist United Kingdom. With Smith’s remarkable wordplay and keen sense of mystery, Bri and Rose depend on their memories, names, imagination, and a horse to endure. — LL Purchase book Good and Evil and Other Stories By Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell A mother stranded in a bardo-like lake. A young husband tormented by nocturnal phone calls. The ghost of a cat. The Argentine virtuoso gathers six speculative tales that snap like traps around her characters, a gorgeous array of Gothic tales worthy of Poe and Lovecraft. — HC Purchase book Heart the Lover By Lily King With exquisite storytelling, King examines a love triangle over decades — from college to middle age — to consider the enduring arc of ambition and love. Though deeply fulfilled by family and career, the novel’s main character must confront her past before it’s too late. — LL Purchase book Lonely Crowds By Stephanie Wambugu Ruth and Maria are childhood friends bound by trauma and their fierce desire to become artists. Their magnetic friendship endures despite tempestuous desire and the competitive New York City art world. This tremendous debut marks Wambugu as one to watch. — LL Purchase book Mona’s Eyes By Thomas Schlesser, translated by Hildegarde Serle As a Parisian schoolgirl gradually loses her eyesight, her grandfather guides her through the city’s museums — the Louvre, Orsay, and Beauborg —contemplating works from Renaissance masters to Impressionist innovators to American abstract upstarts, a luminous tale about art’s capacity to heal us. — HC Purchase book On the Calculation of Volume (Book III) By Solvej Balle, translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell Stuck in a time loop that has trapped her in a perpetual November 18th, Tara Selter copes with her fate in meditative fashion. In this spellbinding installment of an ongoing series, she finds others in her predicament and together they create a provisional community. — LL Purchase book An Oral History of Atlantis: Stories By Ed Park A lesbian spy in Seoul. An enigmatic Manhattan editor. Eighteen Tinas on an archeological dig. Park, a former finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, crafts his stories with quirky characters and protean forms, a merry prankster who sees straight to the core of our humanity. — HC Purchase book Paler By Bryan Washington An expatriate gay Black man in Japan reunites unexpectedly with his estranged mother, compelling both to revisit painful history in this noirish, dialogue-driven novel about old grievances and new beginnings, shared bonds laid bare amid Tokyo’s bistros and bars. — HC Purchase book The Pelican Child: Stories By Joy Williams One of our greatest stylists imbues her new collection with surreal twists, zany comedy, and meditations on mortality, brilliantly pared down to her poetic best, roaming from arid Arizona to coastal Florida; her characters cre intimacy while mustering the courage to reject it. — HC Purchase book Pick a Color By Souvankham Thammongsa Set in a nail salon, Thammongsa’s tensile, pitch-perfect novel traces a quartet of southeast Asian women as they tend to manicures and facials, mocking their clients’ casual racism amid bursts of compassion. Rarely has minimalism been used to such maximalist effect. — HC Purchase book Stone Yard Devotional By Charlotte Wood What began as a temporary retreat at a remote convent in Australia became a permanent departure from society for Sydney who abandons her marriage and career to struggle with an infestation of mice and ghosts in this chaotic, meditative parable. — LL Purchase book Shadow Ticket By Thomas Pynchon In Depression-era Milwaukee a detective falls into a conspiracy that skips across continents, featuring a missing dairy heiress, a submarine, and bombers dressed as Santa’s elves. The maestro delivers a screwball caper stuffed with politics and wordplay, a warning to a nation teetering toward fascism. — HC Purchase book Terrestrial History By Joe Mungo Reed With nods to science fiction, this elegant dystopian saga toggles between characters, timelines, and even Mars and Earth, as an astronaut from the future tumbles through a wormhole to 2025, shifting the fates of his family and planet, a journal of mathematical formulas his compass. — HC Purchase book Tom’s Crossing By Mark Z. Danielewski Utah, 1982: a pair of teenagers and their ghostly companion flee into the Isatch mountains with a couple of stolen ponies, embarking on an otherworldly adventure. In layered, lish prose, Danielewski reimagines the western as Homeric epic and ode to an imperiled natural world. — HC Purchase book What We Can Know By Ian McEwan In 2014 Britain’s leading poet reads an original “corona” at his wife’s birthday party; the single copy vanishes, sparking a mystery taken up a century later by a couple of scholars in a world raged by climate change. McEwan’s beguiling novel marks a return to form. — HC Purchase book The Wilderness By Angela Flournoy In tune with our fractured world, Flournoy follows four friends who maintain their bonds through loss, romance, shifting careers and economies, wrestling with motherhood and acceptance in a world that would prefer they smother their complexity. — LL Purchase book

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Nonfiction Tweet this list

American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback By Seth Wickersham A book that helps explain why quarterbacks are held in an esteem unmatched in the sports world. Lords of their realm, they’re raised to believe they will rule, and a lucky, gifted few actually do. — Chris Vognar Purchase book Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream By Megan Greenwell If you’ve ever noticed the rising costs and falling standards that seem to be endemic in industries like healthcare, housing, and formerly beloved retail stores, you he seen what private equity does. Greenwell’s sharp and humane reporting exposes a rapacious new way of doing business that harms everybody but the investors. — Kate Tuttle Purchase book Baldwin: A Love Story By Nicholas Boggs Here we view the great essayist and novelist through the prism of those he loved most, and come to understand how love itself sed him from prejudices suffered as a gay Black man whose stepfather took every opportunity to call him ugly. — CV Purchase book Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State By Caleb Gayle Dreaming of true freedom and self-determination, Edward McCabe sought to establish an all-Black state in the American West. Gayle’s voluminous research and vivid prose make this a fascinating story. — KT Purchase book Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts By Margaret Atwood Atwood has always been cheeky and charming, ambitious and a bit swashbuckling, and this memoir (of sorts!) abundantly proves that yes, she’s always been this way. A bracing delight in these tough times. — KT Purchase book Bright Circle: Five Women in the Age of Transcendentalism By Randall Fuller Everybody knows about Emerson and Thoreau, but more of us ought to pay attention to the women who met in the backroom of Boston bookstore (including Margaret Fuller and the Peabody sisters) to hash out ideas about liberty, religion, politics, and how to make a better world. — KT Purchase book The Broken King: A Memoir By Michael Thomas Thomas is a prose stylist known for painful honesty and here he digs into the family and childhood that made him. By turns raw and exquisitely lyrical, this is a very compelling memoir about American manhood. — KT Purchase book Captain’s Dinner: A Shipwreck, An Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial That Changed Legal History By Adam Cohen Cohen, a Harvard Law School graduate, looks at how the 1884 shipwreck of the Mignonette led to an unprecedented legal case focused on a squeamish question: When is it OK to eat another person? — CV Purchase book Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life By Dan Nadel The underground comics master comes to vivid life, bearing the scars and flaws that made him one of the 20th century’s most vital artists. This is a portrait of not just a man, but a movement that brazenly reflected ‘60s and ‘70s culture. — CV Purchase book Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley By Jacob Silverman How did a formerly left-leaning (if also libertarian) ethos among the tech industry morph into hardcore right-wing attitudes among many of the industry’s most notable founders? Silverman, a veteran tech reporter, breaks it down in this fascinating if chilling narrative. — KT Purchase book Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves By Sophie Gilbert Gilbert explores how the porn-mad ‘90s and early-2000s turned back the clock on feminist advancements, masking sexual objectification in mainstream calls for “girl power” (see: The Spice Girls) and leading to our present manosphere state. — CV Purchase book The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story By Brandy Schillace Between the wars, Germany was home to a thriving clinic that sought to understand and help people whose sexual identities and orientations set them outside the mainstream. In this brilliant, accessible history, Schillace tracks its progress and then its end, in Nazi flames. — KT Purchase book Languages of Home: Essays on Writing, Hoop, and American Lives, 1975-2025 By John Edgar Wideman Wideman’s essays carry traces of poetry and jazz, jagged and layered in quicksilver turns, as he explores subjects including LeBron James and Richard Wright, the American justice system, and family tragedy. He’s still an essential voice at age 84. — CV Purchase book Magic in the Air: The Myth, the Mystery, and the Soul of the Slam Dunk By Mike Sielski A history of basketball’s most kinetic, high-flying play, told through its primary artists and with an emphasis on a particular sports culture war between those who sored life above the rim and those who found the dunk too street. (Spoiler: the dunkers won.) — CV Purchase book A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck By Sophie Elmhirst One of the year’s most jaw-dropping true narratives, told with elegance and charm by Elmhirst, this book chronicles a somewhat mismatched couple’s adventures as they try to survive a disastrous sailing trip. — KT Purchase book The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-of-the-Century America By Did Baron A compulsively readable history by an accomplished science writer, explaining how and why a sizable chunk of educated Americans were once convinced that an advanced civilization dwelled on the red planet. — CV Purchase book Memorial Days By Geraldine Brooks Brooks has always been a thoughtful and soulful writer, no more so than here, where she writes of the love story she and her husband, fellow writer Tony Horwitz, shared until his sudden death. A gorgeous and moving memoir. — KT Purchase book One Day, Everyone Will He Always Been Against This By Omar El Akkad El Addad is an Egyptian-born journalist and an immigrant, and his subject here is the heartsick realization that the dreams of freedom and peace he believed he could find in the West were illusory. A heartfelt moral reckoning. — KT Purchase book Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur By Jeff Pearlman In his first non-sports book, Pearlman delivers a suitably complex portrait of a man who has been steadily turned into myth since his still-unsolved 1996 murder. Honest but never condescending, expansive rather than reductive. — CV Purchase book Raising Hare: A Memoir By Chloe Dalton An exquisite meditation on human connection to, and responsibility for, the natural world, this memoir begins when Dalton encounters a leveret (a baby hare) and becomes its friend. — KT Purchase book Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America By Clay Risen The past is prologue in this meticulously researched history of the American red-baiting and character assassination that transformed politics and entertainment, and led us down our current perilous path. — CV Purchase book Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America By Michael Luo Chinese people were initially welcomed by white settlers in the US as helpful workers on the railroad and other industries. Luo tracks a fairy tale that turned into a nightmare when anti-immigrant sentiment burgeoned. — KT Purchase book Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford By Carla Kaplan An absolutely delicious biography of the best Mitford sister. Decca (her lifelong nickname) shared her sisters’ beauty, wit, and charm but none of their fascist tendencies, instead working her entire life for other people’s civil rights. — KT Purchase book We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution By Jill Lepore This isn’t just a timely study of the country’s founding document, now trampled upon so openly, but a series of questions about why the Constitution has become so difficult to amend — even though it was designed with amendments in mind. — CV Purchase book When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World By Jordan Thomas The author, a Los Padres Hotshots firefighter who happens to be an exceptional writer, explores the economics, ecology, and indigenous cultural practices related to fire — and the tormenting rush of battling monster blazes. — CV Purchase book

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Picture books Tweet this list Cat Nap Written and illustrated by Brian Lies Kitten chases a mouse into a framed poster from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This pursuit takes the duo through nine disparate pieces in the Met’s collection, which Lies, using media ranging from acrylic to wood to plaster, expertly re-creates by hand. A prodigious achievement. — Kitty Flynn Purchase book Fireworks Written by Matthew Burgess, illustrated by Cátia Chien Two siblings enjoy an eventful day that ends with an epic fireworks display, depicted, in all its splendor, in a thrilling gatefold. Burgess’s poetic text is bursting with sound effects, while Chien’s evocative, childlike mixed-media illustrations pop and soar. — KF Purchase book How Elegant the Elephant: Poems About Animals and Insects Written by Mary Ann Hoberman, illustrated by Marla Frazee Frazee’s delightfully energetic illustrations bring Hoberman’s verses together into a cohesive whole by setting them at an animal hotel. The deftly constructed poems are full of witty and wonderful wildlife observations. A hotel worth checking into — and a collaboration worth checking out. — Shoshana Flax Purchase book How Sweet the Sound Written by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Charly Palmer Alexander’s homage to Black American music — “the soundtrack of America / a symphony / of refuge and redemption” — begins in Africa and flows jubilantly through eras and genres, from hymns to hip-hop. Palmer’s vibrant paintings burst with color and movement. — SF Purchase book Island Storm Written by Brian Floca, illustrated by Sydney Smith “Now take my hand / and we’ll go see / the sea before the storm.” Two children embark on a small adventure before an ominous gathering rainstorm. Visually stunning and varied illustrations convey the awesome power of nature … and the comforts of home. — Elissa Gershowitz Purchase book Measuring Up: How Oliver Smoot Became a Standard Unit of Measurement Written by Jenny Lacika, illustrated by Anna Bron A nonfiction picture book with local appeal. In the mid-twentieth century, MIT students calculated the length of the Mass Ave. Bridge using nonstandard measurement: the height of one Oliver Smoot! Amusing text and playful illustrations reflect creative mathematical thinking. — SF Purchase book Moon Song Written and illustrated by Michaela Goade After a day spent fishing, clamming, and scouting for deer, an Indigenous girl begins a story to ease her cousin to sleep. The tale unfolds as a dreamlike nature walk, with wonderous accompanying illustrations and a reassuring refrain: “Come! Haagú! Follow the light.” — EG Purchase book Night Light Written and illustrated by Michael Emberley When a blackout interrupts a little monster’s bedtime read-aloud, the resourceful child-parent duo turns to the stars — with unintended consequences for the moon. With whimsical illustrations and an imaginative storyline, this early-reader comic is perfectly pitched for emerging readers and bedtime sharing. — EG Purchase book Your Places Written and illustrated by Jon Klassen Each of these board books for the youngest listeners/viewers introduces features of the titular places (farm, island, and forest) and adds them to the scenes, mimicking a toddler’s drawing activity. Brief, straightforward stories; spare illustrations; and expressive-eyed characters put Klassen’s minimalist style on full display. — KF Purchase book

Middle Grade Tweet this list

Coach By Jason Reynolds Fans of Reynolds’s Track series will especially welcome this standalone volume. Who was Coach Brody as a kid? How did he grow up to be so committed to his athletes’ lives? A thoughtful and entertaining entry that provides backstory for an inspiring leader. — EG Purchase book The Forest of a Thousand Eyes Written by Frances Hardinge, illustrated by Emily Grett Feather’s isolated walled community is under constant threat from the surrounding invasive Forest. The quest to retrieve a stolen spyglass takes our protagonist outside the wall. This short, suspenseful story is told through a skillful blend of fairy-tale-like prose and atmospheric art. — KF Purchase book The Gate, the Girl, and the Dragon Written and illustrated by Grace Lin In Lin’s folklore-tinged adventure, Stone Lion cub Jin accidentally knocks the Sacred Sphere into the human world, then must join forces with a girl and a tiny dragon to retrieve it. Embedded narratives provide background while gorgeous color-saturated illustrations enhance appeal — SF Purchase book Oasis Written and illustrated by Guojing In a futuristic world, two siblings find an abandoned robot, which they activate to play the role of mother. They develop a loving relationship, but how will it compare with their real mother? An empathetic and unforgettable graphic novel. — EG Purchase book Rebellion 1776 By Laurie Halse Anderson In 1776 Boston, on the eve of revolution, a smallpox epidemic rages. Thirteen-year-old maid Elsbeth Culpepper nurses a Patriot spy’s household through inoculation while searching for her missing father. Elsbeth’s spirited narration makes for an especially compelling Revolutionary War tale. — EG Purchase book The Winter of the Dollhouse by Laura Amy Schlitz The lives of an eleven-year-old girl, an elderly woman, and an antique doll intertwine in an innovatively told novel full of domestic drama and suspense. A fresh take on a doll story that respects children’s emotions. — KF Purchase book A World Without Summer: A Volcano Erupts, a Creature Awakens, and the Sun Goes Out Written by Nicholas Day, illustrated by Yas Imamura Day’s gripping nonfiction narrative jumps across time and around the world, chronicling how the 1815 Tambora volcano’s eruption in Indonesia changed the climate, influenced literature, and altered the course of history. Direct-address questions inspire reader engagement, as does Imamura’s lively black-and-white art. — SF Purchase book Your Turn Marisol Rainey Written and illustrated by Erin Entrada Kelly Shy Marisol worries about sharing a haiku-writing assignment with the class, which, in turn, triggers writer’s block and increases her anxiety. With its honest portrayal of a sensitive Filipino American girl, this generously illustrated chapter-book series entry has much to offer. — KF Purchase book

Young Adult Tweet this list

I Wish I Didn’t He to Tell You This Written and illustrated by Eugene Yelchin Tension builds alongside Yelchin’s political and artistic coming-of-age in this graphic memoir set in 1980s USSR. Varying degrees of sharpness in the black-and-white panel illustrations reflect the author’s changing understanding, from naiveté to awareness, in a high-stakes environment that resonates today. — SF Purchase book The Rose Field By Philip Pullman This Book of Dust trilogy-ender, set after the events of “His Dark Materials,” finds twenty-year-old Lyra and her dæmon, Pan, still separated and attempting to se their own and every other world. As always, Pullman’s storytelling is lush and expansive, and his characters compelling and true. — EG Purchase book Run Away with Me Written and illustrated by Brian Selznick In summer 1986, a sixteen-year-old American boy in Rome is swept into a swoony love story with an enigmatic Italian teen boy. Selznick’s first young adult book is full of mystery, romance, and artistic expression, including atmospheric illustrations in his inimitable style. — SF Purchase book Sisters in the Wind By Angeline Boulley Following a bomb blast, Lucy, eighteen, wakes up in the hospital to visitors: a man she thinks has been following her, and Daunis Fontaine (from “Firekeeper’s Daughter”), who reveals details about her Ojibwe heritage. Boulley’s pulse-pounding thriller intertwines mystery with quest for identity. — EG Purchase book Somadina By Akwaeke Emezi Fifteen-year-old Somadina undertakes a dangerous journey to rescue her kidnapped twin while learning to harness the magical gift she fears. Drawing on their Igbo heritage, Emezi crafts an immersive world in this haunting and exciting coming-of-age story. — KF Purchase book Song of a Blackbird Written and illustrated by Maria van Lieshout This poetic graphic novel with dual timelines illustrates the heroic actions of Dutch people resisting the Nazis and reverberations in later generations. Remarkable black-and-white photographs, many from actual resistance group Underground Camera, are integrated into expressive print-block style illustrations. — SF Purchase book The Strongest Heart By Saadia Faruqi Wisecracking, sensitive thirteen-year-old Mohammad puts on a tough-boy act to cope with a complicated family situation, including his father’s mental illness. Staying with his warmhearted aunt and cousin allows this indelible protagonist’s interests in boxing, art, and South Asian folktales to flourish. — SF Purchase book Titan of the Stars By E. K. Johnston The spaceship Titan (reminiscent of the Titanic) is on its maiden voyage to Mars. Dire opening vignettes warn of trouble; smart, deliberate pacing ratchets up the urgency. Readers will be riveted by the detail and intensity of this sci-fi/horror adventure. — KF Purchase book

Hamilton Cain is a freelance critic.

Shoshana Flax, associate editor of The Horn Book, Inc., is a former bookseller and holds an MFA in writing for children from Simmons University.

Kitty Flynn is reviews editor for The Horn Book, Inc.

Elissa Gershowitz is editor in chief of The Horn Book, Inc. She holds an MA from the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College and a BA from Oberlin College.

Lauren LeBlanc is a Board Member of the National Book Critics Circle.

Kate Tuttle edits the Globe’s books section. You can reach her at kate.tuttle@globe.com.

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Chris Vognar can be reached at chris.vognar@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram at @chrisvognar and on Bluesky at chrisvognar.bsky.social.