The Best Books of 2025: 12 Absolute Must-Reads for Your TBR

Reading Instruction

As the year comes to a close, I’m excited to share the best books of 2025! This is always one of my favorite posts to write.

To my mind, there are few gifts better than a stack of new books (or gently used but new-to-me) books. I hope these recommendations can provide some reading or gift-giving inspiration for you!

While these are the best books of 2025, they didn’t all come out this year; this is just when I read them for the first time.

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Favorite Book: Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams drew my attention because the title alludes to Tom and Daisy’s actions in The Great Gatsby. Part memoir, part expose, Wynn-Williams tells the story of her time working at Facebook. Wynn-Williams’ story is jaw-dropping, darkly humorous, and unsettling. Each page seems to contain another horrifying revelation about Facebook, its leaders, and consumer complicity. When I was putting together the best books of 2025, there was no question which book would come out on top!

Best Surprise: Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kristen Miller is the highest-rated fiction book on my list. The premise is a bit of a highwire act: a small-town bigot named Lula Dean wants to pull “questionable” books from the local library and school. To provide “approved” alternatives, Dean starts a little free library in her front yard, but the titles are swapped for banned books. What follows is a little like reading a woke Hallmark movie! On the surface, this might seem a little sugary, but it touches on a host of important topics about censorship. Of the best books of 2025, this one was the best surprise!

Best Anthology: For the Rest of Us: 13 Festive Holiday Stories to Celebrate All Seasons*, edited by Dahlia Adler, was another delightful surprise. This anthology takes readers through holiday celebrations throughout the year; some holidays like Valentine’s Day were familiar to me, but some like Eid were less familiar. It was interesting to read about different cultures and celebrations. Some of the characters were so charming that I wanted them to have their own standalone novels. In particular, the chapter about the Winter Solstice captured a diverse cast of chosen family characters in a touching manner. The closing chapter about Kwanzaa made me sob (and it was told epistolary-style, and you know how I feel about a good epistolary read!).

Best Mystery: Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman remains at the top of my mystery list. I am more of a cozy mystery fan than anything, and this series continues to fit the bill. I actually read the entire series for the first time this year, just in time for the newest title. This series does a delightful job building colorful but familiar characters, and a character who appears small in one novel may move into centerstage in the next.

Best Memoir: Apart from Careless People, Private Equity by Carrie Sun was my favorite memoir of the year. Sun shares her experience working at a Wall Street firm. In many ways, it’s a story that’s too familiar: a young woman of color expected to do demeaning tasks outside of her job description without appropriate compensation or working hours. On the other hand, Sun lets the story unfold in such an interesting way. Each time you think you understand the archetypal plot, Sun reveals another piece of herself and her story.

Best Series: Royal Gambit by Daniel O’Malley is the fourth book in the Checquy Files. The series follows a secret branch of the British government charged with investigating supernatural “manifestations.” While there are elements of action and mystery, O’Malley’s humor is the highlight. Without losing the plot or the magic, O’Malley captures the comedy of bureaucracy. In different hands, this could be a charmless drudge, but each book follows a different agent. In this fourth novel, O’Malley focuses on the overlap between the supernatural and Buckingham Palace. Of the best books of 2025, this series remains a favorite for me.

Best Supernatural Read: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton is part classic Victorian mystery and part time-travel thriller. Each night, the main character wakes up in a new body, each of whom visits a country estate where a ghastly murder takes place. The plotting is what makes this book work; if this was a linear novel, it wouldn’t be special, but the back-and-forth plotting keeps readers on the edge of their seats.

Best Beach Read: The Social Climber by Amanda Pellegrino came with me on vacation, and it was a perfect summertime read. While moment strain credulity, the details and pacing in the story kept me hooked. The main character Eliza Bennett (not that one, thank you very much) takes readers along as she plans an elaborate, old money East Coast wedding. Flashbacks to her college years help readers understand all the work she has done to reach this point and explain why she chose this fiance and this family.

Best Sports Read: The Club by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg explores how Premier League Soccer became “the wildest, richest, most disruptive force in sports.” I am not a soccer fan, and I still tore through this book. The personalities, egos, and paychecks in this book are larger-than-life. Robinson and Clegg even make some of the regulatory minutiae engaging. If you plan to watch any of the World Cup this summer, this one’s for you.

Best Nerdy Deep Dive: Science Fictions by Stuart Ritchie was another book I took with me on vacation, but it’s far from a beach read. Ritchie discusses the replication crisis in academic publishing, attributing it to fraud, negligence, hype, and bias. Like The Club, Private Equity, and Careless People, Science Fictions is an expose. It lays bare the not-so-secret truths of academic publishing and research, culminating with Ritchie’s sprawling suggestions for reform.

Best Young Adult: Through our Teeth* by Pamela N. Harris covers a lot of horror-thriller tropes in one quick read. There’s a storm, limited communication, a bonfire, Halloween costumes, and a “haunted” house of sorts. While this was not a favorite book for me, my students have enjoyed it; it never stays in the classroom library for long.

Best PD Title: On Close Reading* by John Guillory is a recent read. Guillory traces the development of close reading and the difficulty of nailing down its practice. For me, the most interesting portion discussed the difference between close reading in high school and in higher education. Also, Scott Newstok provides an incredible annotated bibliography, which you can access here for free. It’s such a comprehensive resource that I’m still working through it. Nevertheless, this is by far and away the best PD book I read this year.

Books I’m Looking Forward to in 2026

While these are the best books of 2025, I have to admit that these are the titles I’m excited about for 2026:

Everyone in This Bank is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson is the fourth book in the Ernest Cunningham series. These are cozy mysteries that play with the tropes of mystery writing. The first book even includes Cunningham’s discussions of the ways his life intersects with the traditional elements of mystery writing.
Gone Before You Knew Me* by Renate Wildermuth is a middle-ages adventure. I received an advanced reader copy, and I flew through this during a snow day. The story is told in redacted files or snippets, which leaves readers guessing as they literally try to fill in the blanks. This is a fun read because it has a little bit of everything, so all readers get what they need.
The Silent Appeal by Janice Hallett is a sequel to The Appeal, which is another book I read on vacation. I love Hallett’s writing style; she unfolds her novels in epistolary style. Each letter, email, flyer, or text exchange gives readers just enough info to think they know what’s happened, but Hallett has a knack for pulling out a third act twist.