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 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

Steve Herman ❤️ loved this book because...

This writing style is gritty and realistic. A welcome relief from all that James Bond nonsense. And the ending is stunning.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Story/Plot 🥈 Originality
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By John le Carré ,

Why should I read it?

20 authors picked The Spy Who Came in From the Cold as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the New York Times bestselling author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Our Kind of Traitor; and The Night Manager, now a television series starring Tom Hiddleston.

The 50th-anniversary edition of the bestselling novel that launched John le Carre's career worldwide

In the shadow of the newly erected Berlin Wall, Alec Leamas watches as his last agent is shot dead by East German sentries. For Leamas, the head of Berlin Station, the Cold War is over. As he faces the prospect of retirement or worse-a desk job-Control offers him a unique opportunity for revenge. Assuming the guise of an embittered…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2025

Book cover of The Day of the Jackal

Steve Herman ❤️ loved this book because...

The mechanics of how an assassin goes about plotting his kill.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Character(s) 🥈 Originality
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Frederick Forsyth ,

Why should I read it?

14 authors picked The Day of the Jackal as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of the struggle to catch a killer before it's too late.

It is 1963 and an anonymous Englishman has been hired by the Operations Chief of the O.A.S. to murder General De Gaulle. A failed attempt in the previous year means the target will be nearly impossible to get to. But this latest plot involves a lethal weapon: an assassin of legendary talent.

Known only as The Jackal, this remorseless and deadly killer must be stopped, but how do you track a man who exists in name alone?


My 3rd favorite read in 2025

Book cover of To Jerusalem and Back

Steve Herman ❤️ loved this book because...

Excellent writing style from a Nobel Prize winner about his travels in an always-fascinating, brave, turbulent city and country.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Writing 🥈 Originality
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Saul Bellow ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Here you sit at dinner with charming people in a dining room like any other. Yet you know that your hostess has lost a son, that her sister lost children in the 1973 war...in the domestic ceremony of passed dishes and filled glasses the thoughts ofa destructive enemy are hard to grasp. What you do know is that there is one fact of Jewish life left unchanged by the creation of a Jewish State: 'You cannot take your right to love for granted...'


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Where the Bones Lie

By Steve Haberman ,

Book cover of Where the Bones Lie

What is my book about?

A famous American woman journalist goes missing in 1946 post-war Berlin. Her equally famous lover, a former Winston Churchill spy, sets out in the smashed capital of Germany to find her.

Book cover of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
Book cover of The Day of the Jackal
Book cover of To Jerusalem and Back

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