The Must-Read Books of 2025

Amazon’s Best Books of 2025

Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person. It is about the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime. Discover the word-of-mouth hit hailed by Ann Patchett as “A cause for celebration” — an intimate novel about the transformative power of the written word and the beauty of slowing down to reconnect with the people we love.

Amazon’s Best Books of 2025

The soldiers of D Company could not believe their eyes as they came face-to-face with the human cost of Hitler’s evil: two teenage boys — survivors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald — who had escaped. The Boys in the Light follows the parallel journeys of Company D and Eddie Willner, the author’s father, as they are caught up on two sides of World War II. This extraordinary true story  is a testament to survival against all odds, the strength of the bonds forged during war, and the resilience of the human spirit.

The 2025 B&N Gift Book of the Year

With all the generosity of spirit that has endeared her to millions of fans, Samin Nosrat offers more than 125 of her favorite recipes — simply put, the things she most loves to cook for herself and for friends — and infuses them with all the beauty and care you would expect from the person Alice Waters called “America’s next great cooking teacher.”  Good Things captures, with Samin’s trademark blend of warmth, creativity, and precision, what has made cooking such an important source of delight and comfort in her life.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated with where you are, the problem isn’t you. The problem is the power you give to other people. Two simple words — Let Them — will set you free. In her latest groundbreaking book, The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins — New York Times bestselling author and one of the world’s most respected experts on motivation, confidence, and mindset — teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can’t control and start focusing on what truly matters: you.

2025 Books-A-Million Book of the Year

Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world — or just get to the next level — in a video game–like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. This ain’t your ordinary game show.

Amazon’s Best Books of 2025

From one of our most acclaimed chroniclers of the forces eroding America’s social fabric, her most personal and powerful work: a reckoning with the changes that have rocked her own beloved small Ohio hometown. Paper Girl is a gift of courage, empathy, and insight. Beth Macy has turned to face the darkness in her family and community, people she loves wholeheartedly, even the ones she sometimes struggles to like. And in facing the truth — in person, with respect — she has found sparks of human dignity that she has used to light a signal fire of warning but also of hope.

Amazon’s Best Books of 2025

In her long-awaited new memoir, the author of the New York Times bestseller and James Beard Award winner Blood, Bones & Butter tells the “raw and darkly humorous” (People) story of her family’s unexpected dissolution. Hamilton’s gift for pungent dialogue, propulsive storytelling, intense honesty, and raucous humor made her first book a classic of modern memoir. In Next of Kin, she offers a keen and compassionate portrait of the people she grew up with and the prevailing but soon-to-falter ethos of the era that produced them.

Amazon’s Best Books of 2025

A young woman must shake off a family curse and the widely held belief that she is the reincarnation of her dead cousin in this wickedly funny, brilliantly perceptive novel about love, female rivalry, and superstition from the author of the smash hit My Sister, the Serial Killer. Cursed Daughters is a brilliant cocktail of modernity and superstition, vibrant humor and hard-won wisdom, romantic love and familial obligation. With its unforgettable cast of characters, it asks us what it means to be given a second chance and how to live both wisely and well with what we’ve been given.

In her first nonfiction book in a decade, the #1 bestselling writer who taught millions of readers to live authentically (Eat Pray Love) and creatively (Big Magic) shows how to break free. All the Way to the River is a landmark memoir that will resonate with anyone who has ever been captive to love — or to any other passion, substance, or craving — and who yearns, at long last, for liberation.

Shot Ready is a powerful distillation of Stephen Curry’s transformative philosophy of success — centered on preparation, constant improvement, creativity, connection, mindfulness, and joy — delivered in his incomparable voice and style. Stunningly designed and illustrated with more than 100 gorgeous photographs, Shot Ready is an intimate narrative and a practical blueprint for any reader who wants to unlock their own potential.

From the bestselling author of Too Big to Fail, comes a spellbinding narrative of the most infamous stock market crash in history. With the depth of a classic history and the drama of a thriller, 1929 unravels the greed, blind optimism, and human folly that led to an era-defining collapse — one with ripple effects that still shape our society today.

Brené Brown returns with an urgent call to reimagine the essentials of courageous leadership. In a time when uncertainty runs deep and bluster, hubris, and even cruelty are increasingly framed as acceptable leadership, Brown delivers practical, actionable insights that illuminate the mindsets and skill sets essential to reclaiming focus and driving growth through connection, discipline, and accountability.

In this eagerly awaited new collection, Zadie Smith brings her unique skills as an essayist to bear on a range of subjects that have captured her attention in recent years. Throughout this thrilling read, Smith shows us once again her unrivalled ability to think through critically and humanely some of the most urgent preoccupations and tendencies of our troubled times.

The hugely anticipated new book from Charlie Mackesy, revisiting the much-loved world of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse — the internationally bestselling book, with over ten million readers around the world. Mackesy’s four unlikely friends are wandering through the wilds again. They’re not sure what they are looking for. They do know that life can be difficult, but that they love each other, and cake is often the answer. When the dark clouds come, can the boy remember what he needs to get through the storm?

In a thrilling race through the dual worlds of futuristic science and mystical lore, symbology professor Robert Langdon uncovers a shocking truth about a secret project that will forever change the way we think about the human mind. The world’s most celebrated thriller writer and author of The Da Vinci Code returns with his most stunning novel yet — a propulsive, twisty, thought-provoking masterpiece that will entertain readers as only Dan Brown can do.

#1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham is the acclaimed master of the legal thriller. Now, he’s back with his first-ever whodunit, even more suspenseful than his courtroom dramas, as a small-time lawyer accused of murder races to find the real killer to clear his name.

In seven days, Jet Mason will be dead. But first, Jet is going to solve her own murder. The author of the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series — now a hit Netflix series — returns with her first novel for adults: An “irresistible” (The Washington Post) thriller about a young woman trying to solve her own murder, “full of the writer’s signature twists and turns” (People).

A guide to the art of journaling — and a meditation on the central questions of life — by the bestselling author of Between Two Kingdoms, with contributions from Hanif Abdurraqib, Jon Batiste, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem, George Saunders, and many more. Whether you’re a lifelong journaler or new to the practice, this book gives you the tools, direction, and encouragement to engage with discomfort, ask questions, peel back the layers, dream daringly, uncover your truest self — and in doing so, to learn to hold the unbearably brutal and astonishingly beautiful facts of life in the same palm.

From the Academy Award-winning actor and author of Greenlights comes an inspiring, faith-filled, and often hilarious collection of personal poetry and prayers about navigating the rodeo of life and chasing down the original dream, belief.

Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize
Amazon’s Best Books of 2025

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years — an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the author of The Inheritance of Loss.

Amazon’s Best Books of 2025

Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong’s writing — formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness — are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: A second chance.

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Prairie Fires comes a terrifying true crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. It’s a gripping investigation of how a new strain of psychopath emerged out of a toxic landscape of deadly industrial violence.

Alice lives behind a lens. As a photographer, she’s most comfortable letting other people shine. Lately though, she’s been itching for something more, and returns to the lake where she spent a magical summer when she was seventeen. Then she runs into Charlie Florek. Sun-slanted days and warm nights out on the lake with Charlie are a balm for Alice’s soul, but when she looks up and sees his piercing green gaze directly on her, she begins to worry for her heart. Because Alice sees people — that’s why she is so good at what she does — but she’s never met someone who looks and sees her right back.

From bestselling author Martha Beck, a new path to overcoming anxiety by awakening the creativity within. Beck provides instructions for engaging the “creativity spiral,” in a process that not only shuts down anxiety but leads to innovative problem solving, a sense of meaning and purpose, and joyful, intimate connection with others — and with the world. The opposite of anxiety, it turns out, is a wonderful new way of life — one that can calm and inspire us as individuals and help us become a source of healing for everything around us.

The award-winning authors and podcasters Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle created We Can Do Hard Things — the guidebook for being alive — to help fellow travelers find their way through life.

It was meant to be a harmless prank. What had they done? From the New York Times bestselling author of The Better Sister and The Wife comes a suspenseful story about a vacation in the Hamptons that goes terribly wrong for three friends with a complicated history.

From New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis, an utterly addictive new novel that will transport you from New York City’s most glamorous party to the labyrinth streets of Cairo and back.

Han Kang’s most revelatory book since The Vegetarian, We Do Not Part tells the story of a friendship between two women while powerfully reckoning with a hidden chapter in Korean history. Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, We Do Not Part powerfully illuminates this forgotten chapter in history, buried for decades — bringing to light the lost voices of the past to save them from oblivion. Both a hymn to an enduring friendship and an argument for remembering, it is the story of profound love in the face of unspeakable violence — and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be.

A publishing event ten years in the making — a searing, exquisite new novel by the bestselling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists — the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires. A trenchant reflection of the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations of the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.

Maya Killgore is 23 and still in the process of figuring out her life. Conor Harkness (her brother’s best friend) is 38, and Maya cannot stop thinking about him. Maya should just get over him – as Conor loves to remind her, the power dynamic is too imbalanced for a relationship to ever happen. But when Maya’s brother decides to get married in Sicily, she and Conor end up stuck together in a romantic villa for a week. And Maya decides that a summer fling might be just what she needs — even if it’s a problematic one.

Florence Grimes, a 31-year-old party girl, must clear her son Dylan’s name after Alfie Risby, his bully and heir to a frozen food empire, vanishes during a class trip. The only problem? Florence has no useful skills, let alone investigative ones, and all the other school moms hate her. Oh, and Florence has a reason to suspect Dylan might not be as innocent as she’d like to believe …

Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize
Barack Obama’s 2025 Summer Reading List

One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love. Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.

A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical quest when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike fantasy novel.

To find a missing young woman, the new tribal marshal must also find herself. Ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr returns to her roots as a tribal marshal after her daughter’s death. On the reservation, she investigates the disappearance of Chenoa Cloud, haunted by memories and the mysterious Deer Woman. Starr must find the missing woman and herself amidst the tribe’s struggles.

Barack Obama’s 2025 Summer Reading List

An instant New York Times bestseller, this is the electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits. Taut, propulsive, and dazzling, A Marriage at Sea pairs an adrenaline-fueled high seas adventure with a gutting love story that asks why we love difficult people, and who we become under the most extreme conditions imaginable.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, three young people come of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university with new swagger and ambition. Fauzia glimpses in him a chance at escape from a smothering upbringing. The two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all. As tourism, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils reach their quiet corner of the world, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands.

Two women haunted by their sisters’ unsolved disappearances band together in this captivating mystery from the author of All Good People Here and host of the #1 true crime podcast Crime Junkie.

Who works for the government and why does their work matter? An urgent and absorbing civics lesson from an all-star team of writers and storytellers including Casey Cep, Dave Eggers, John Lanchester, Geraldine Brooks, Sarah Vowell, and W. Kamau Bell.

From the New York Times-bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones, a propulsive and heart-wrenching story of a young woman entrusted with a boy’s life as WWII rages in Italy. A remarkable tale of friendship, romance, motherhood, and survival, One Good Thing reminds us what is worth fighting for — and that love, even amidst a world in ruins, can triumph.

Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping novel from Emily Henry.

In this collection of one novel and three stories, bestselling author Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing. In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the strongest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition. Acidly funny and breathtaking in its scope, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles, and delights.

Cece is in love. She has arrived early at her future in-laws’ lake house in Montana to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a young doctor with a brilliant life ahead of him. Charlie has asked Garrett, his best friend from college, to officiate the ceremony, though Cece can’t imagine anyone more ill-suited for the task. But as Cece spends time with Garrett, his gruff mask slips, and she grows increasingly uncertain about her future and must decide between the life she’s dreamed of and a life she’s never imagined. The events of that summer have long-lasting repercussions, not only on the three friends caught in its shadow but also on their children, who struggle to escape their parents’ story. Written with humor, precision, and enormous heart, Dream State is a thrillingly ambitious ode to the power of friendship, the weird weather of marriage, and the beauty of impermanence.

An explosive, deeply reported exposé of Johnson & Johnson, one of America’s oldest and most trusted pharmaceutical companies — from an award-winning investigative journalist. Filled with shocking and infuriating but utterly necessary revelations, No More Tears is a landmark work that lays bare the deeply rooted corruption behind the image of babies bathing with a smile.

A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey towards peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse. “Brooks tracks the geography of grief with patience and grace as she comes to terms with the ongoing nature of outliving the ones you love most … Her memoir is certainly a testament to her own unique loss, but it’s moreover a lifeline to others who will find themselves in this familiar, shattered landscape of grief” (Los Angeles Times).

Amazon’s Best Books of 2025
Target Book of the Year

From the author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits. Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: Transporting readers to iconic times and places, creating complex protagonists, and telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love — this time among the stars.

A revealing personal life story like no other — enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering — and a testament to the world-making power of Black motherhood. This is a page-turning chronicle of family love and heartbreak, of loss and perseverance, and of the kind of creativity, audacity, and will it takes for a girl from Galveston to change the world. It’s one brilliant woman’s intimate and revealing story, and a multigenerational family saga that carries within it the story of America — and the wisdom that women pass on to one another, mothers to daughters, across generations.

Barack Obama’s 2025 Summer Reading List

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, Mark Twain. Today, more than one hundred years after his death, Twain’s writing continues to be read, debated, and quoted. In this brilliant work of scholarship, a moving tribute to the writer’s talent and humanity, Chernow reveals the magnificent and often maddening life of one of the most original characters in American history.

In the wake of a catastrophic storm, Cora sets off to register her son’s birth. Her husband, Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to name the infant after him. But when the registrar asks what she’d like to call the child, Cora hesitates … Spanning thirty-five years, what follows are three alternate and alternating versions of Cora’s and her young son’s lives, shaped by her choice of name. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing.