The best books of 2025

This list is part of the best books of 2025.

Join 1,210 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2025

Book cover of Glorious Exploits

❤️ loved this book because...

Set after the disastrous Athenian campaign in Sicily, the novel follows two Syracusan layabouts who roam the stone quarries offering wine and food to Athenian prisoners able to recite Euripides by heart. Their half-drunken idea of staging “Medea” right in the quarries turns into a bittersweet tragicomedy about friendship, humiliation, and the stubborn need for art when everything else has been destroyed. With contemporary, rough language and very human characters, the book finds comedy in horror and then reveals the pain behind the laughter, asking what culture can still do in a world shattered by war.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Emotions 🥈 Writing
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Ferdia Lennon ,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Glorious Exploits as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2024

'One of the most original and brilliant debuts in years' Irish Times

'Bold and totally unexpected ... I was hooked from the first page' Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain

'Brilliant ... Hilarious, moving, and profound' R. F. Kuang, author of Yellowface

***

Ancient Sicily. Enter GELON: visionary, dreamer, theatre lover. Enter LAMPO: lovesick, jobless, in need of a distraction.

Imprisoned in the quarries of Syracuse, thousands of defeated Athenians hang on by the thinnest of threads.

They're fading in the baking heat, but not everything is lost:…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2025

Book cover of Careless People

❤️ loved this book because...

This experimental book is a collaboration across centuries: a street artist takes a classic edition of Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” and systematically blacks out letters, words, and lines with a marker. Instead of simply vandalizing or censoring the text, the resulting “blackout poem” builds a new absurd, playful, yet sharply contemporary narrative out of what remains on the page. Against the backdrop of today’s visible book censorship, the project turns the censor’s instrument into an artistic tool and enters into a cheeky, polemical dialogue with the Russian literary canon.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Originality 🥈 Thoughts
  • Writing style

    👍 Liked it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Sarah Churchwell ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Careless People as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ebook edition includes full text of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby has become one of the world's best-loved books. Careless People tells the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, exploring in newly rich detail its relation to the extravagant, scandalous, and chaotic world in which the author lived.

With wit and insight, Sarah Churchwell traces the genesis of a masterpiece, mapping where fiction comes from, and how it takes shape in the mind of a genius. Careless People tells the extraordinary tale of how F. Scott Fitzgerald created a…


My 3rd favorite read in 2025

Book cover of Lorne

❤️ loved this book because...

Morrison’s biography portrays Lorne Michaels, the creator and long‑time producer of “Saturday Night Live”, as an exacting showrunner whose life is inseparable from the weekly chaos of live television. Drawing on extensive access to Michaels and his collaborators, the book blends biography and cultural history to show how he built SNL into a central institution of American satire, navigating egos, network politics, and shifting social norms over five decades. It explores themes of creative leadership, institutional power, and the tension between nurturing talent and protecting the brand, suggesting that Michaels’ true legacy lies in his ability to keep reinventing the show while remaining obsessed with the next broadcast.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Immersion 🥈 Writing
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Susan Morrison ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lorne as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The definitive biography of Lorne Michaels, the man behind America's most beloved comedy show

“The kind of biographical monument usually consecrated to founding fathers, canonical authors and world-historical scientific geniuses.”—The New York Times (Editors' Choice)

“Readers are treated to the Holy Grail for any journalist hoping to crack the show: a warts-and-all week in the life of SNL, where Morrison gets to see the real process of putting the thing together.”—Variety

LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, The New Yorker, Kirkus Reviews, Denver Public…


Book cover of Glorious Exploits
Book cover of Careless People
Book cover of Lorne

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