The best books of 2025

This list is part of the best books of 2025.

Join 1,277 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2025

Book cover of Pretty Things

Dianne Reeves Angel ❤️ loved this book because...

This book captivated me for personal reasons as well as literary ones. Much of the novel unfolds in Tahoe City, my tiny hometown. Seeing it rendered in a high-stakes thriller was electric. Brown’s prose is taut and accessible. I truly couldn’t put it down. It’s the kind of novel you devour in one snowy afternoon with a mug of hot cocoa or a hot toddy.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Story/Plot 🥈 Writing
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Janelle Brown ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

SOON TO BE A LIMITED SERIES STARRING NICOLE KIDMAN

'Pretty Things is awesome. Simple as that. I loved every page'
Harlan Coben

'It's Dynasty meets Patricia Highsmith'
Washington Post

'Will keep you turning pages till the end'
Attica Locke

'Outrageously entertaining'
Times Crime Club

Nina once bought into the idea that her fancy arts degree would lead to a fulfilling career. When that dream crashed, she turned to stealing from rich kids in L.A. alongside her wily Irish boyfriend, Lachlan. But when her mom falls ill, Nina puts everything on the line to help her, running her most dangerous scam…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2025

Book cover of Eve's Hollywood

Dianne Reeves Angel ❤️ loved this book because...

Eve's Hollywood by Eve Babitz was a tremendous influence on my own writing. Babitz understood that glamour is most interesting when it reveals something tender and human beneath the surface. Her Los Angeles feels intimate — restaurants, hotel rooms, swimming pools becoming stages where ambition and desire quietly unfold. I’ve always admired her light touch, her wit, and the way she observed without judging. She gave me permission to write about Hollywood — and myself — with style, honesty, and a little mischief.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Immersion 🥈 Character(s)
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Eve Babitz ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Eve's Hollywood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A legendary love letter to Los Angeles by the city's most charming daughter, complete with portraits of rock stars at Chateau Marmont, surfers in Santa Monica, prostitutes on sunset, and Eve's own beloved cat, Rosie. 

Journalist, party girl, bookworm, artist, muse: by the time she’d hit thirty, Eve Babitz had played all of these roles. Immortalized as the nude beauty facing down Duchamp and as one of Ed Ruscha’s Five 1965 Girlfriends, Babitz’s first book showed her to be a razor-sharp writer with tales of her own. Eve’s Hollywood is an album of  vivid snapshots of Southern California’s haute bohemians,…


My 3rd favorite read in 2025

Book cover of The Editor

Dianne Reeves Angel ❤️ loved this book because...

I enjoyed reading The Editor by Steven Rowley because it captures that intoxicating intersection of ambition, longing, and literary glamour so beautifully. The novel isn’t just about a young writer getting his big break — it’s about ego, vulnerability, and the quiet terror of having your work truly seen. The relationship between the aspiring author and his editor unfolds with warmth, wit, and emotional intelligence, revealing how mentorship can both challenge and transform us. I was especially moved by the way Rowley explores family secrets and artistic courage with such tenderness. It’s smart, funny, and deeply human.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Story/Plot 🥈 Outlook
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Steven Rowley ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus comes a novel about a struggling writer who gets his big break, with a little help from the most famous woman in America.

After years of trying to make it as a writer in 1990s New York City, James Smale finally sells his novel to an editor at a major publishing house: none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Jackie--or Mrs. Onassis, as she's known in the office--has fallen in love with James's candidly autobiographical novel, one that exposes his own dysfunctional family. But when the book's forthcoming publication threatens to unravel…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Every Restaurant Tells a Story: Tales of Film, Food and Fabulous Misadventures

By Dianne Reeves Angel ,

Book cover of Every Restaurant Tells a Story: Tales of Film, Food and Fabulous Misadventures

What is my book about?

Every Restaurant Tells a Story – Tales of Film, Food, and Fabulous Misadventures is a stylish, sharply observed collection of 18 interconnected stories set in the high-gloss, high-stakes world of the 1980s film industry. From Hollywood power lunches to candlelit dinners in London, Cannes, and Cape Town, each tale unfolds in an iconic restaurant or hotel where ambition, romance, illusion, and the occasional spectacular misstep collide. With wit, glamour, and unmistakable insight into the follies of human desire, Dianne Reeves Angel traces a young woman’s journey through an era of martinis, movie deals, and hard-earned self-knowledge — proving that sometimes the most revealing moments happen at the table.

Book cover of Pretty Things
Book cover of Eve's Hollywood
Book cover of The Editor

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