Books of 2025 🌞
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Reading
The Feminine Mystique
Betty Friedan · 2013
<b>"If you’ve never read it, read it now." —Arianna Huffington, <i>O, The Oprah Magazine</i> </b><br><p>Landmark, groundbreaking, classic—these adjectives barely do justice to the pioneering vision and lasting impact of <i>The Feminine Mystique</i>. Published in 1963, it gave a pitch-perfect description of “the problem that has no name”: the insidious beliefs and institutions that undermined women’s confidence in their intellectual capabilities and kept them in the home. Writing in a time when the average woman first married in her teens and 60 percent of women students dropped out of college to marry, Betty Friedan captured the frustrations and thwarted ambitions of a generation and showed women how they could reclaim their lives. Part social chronicle, part manifesto, <i>The Feminine Mystique</i> is filled with fascinating anecdotes and interviews as well as insights that continue to inspire. This 50th–anniversary edition features an afterword by best-selling author Anna Quindlen as well as a new introduction by Gail Collins.</p>
East of Eden (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)
John Steinbeck · 1952
Finished
Didion and Babitz
Lili Anolik · 2024
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Named a Best Book of the Year by Time, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Air Mail, Harper’s Bazaar, The Washington Post, and more! Joan Didion is revealed at last in this “vivid, engrossing” (Vogue), and outrageously provocative dual biography “that reads like a propulsive novel” (Oprah Daily) revealing the mutual attractions—and antagonisms—of Didion and her fellow literary titan, Eve Babitz. Could you write what you write if you weren’t so tiny, Joan? —Eve Babitz, in a letter to Joan Didion, 1972 Eve Babitz died on December 17, 2021. Found in the wrack, ruin, and filth of her apartment, a stack of boxes packed by her mother decades before. The boxes were pristine, the seals of duct tape unbroken. Inside, a lost world. This world turned for a certain number of years in the late sixties and early seventies and centered on a two-story rental in a down-at-heel section of Hollywood. 7406 Franklin Avenue, a combination salon-hotbed-living end where writers and artists mixed with movie stars, rock ‘n’ rollers, and drug trash. 7406 Franklin Avenue was the making of one great American writer: Joan Didion, a mystery behind her dark glasses and cool expression; an enigma inside her storied marriage to John Gregory Dunne, their union as tortured as it was enduring. 7406 Franklin Avenue was the breaking and then the remaking—and thus the true making—of another great American writer: Eve Babitz, goddaughter of Igor Stravinsky, nude of Marcel Duchamp, consort of Jim Morrison (among many, many others), a woman who burned so hot she finally almost burned herself alive. Didion and Babitz formed a complicated alliance, a friendship that went bad, amity turning to enmity. Didion, in spite of her confessional style, is so little known or understood. She’s remained opaque, elusive. Until now. With deftness and skill, journalist Lili Anolik uses Babitz, Babitz’s brilliance of observation, Babitz’s incisive intelligence, and, most of all, Babitz’s diary-like letters—letters found in those sealed boxes, letters so intimate you don’t read them so much as breathe them—as the key to unlocking Didion. And “what the book makes clear is that Didion and Babitz were more alike than either would have liked to admit” (Time).
The Metamorphosis: And Other Stories (The Schocken Kafka Library)
Franz Kafka · 1995
Eve's Hollywood
Eve Babitz · 2015
Dearly: New Poems
Margaret Atwood · 2020
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston · 2006
Sunrise on the Reaping
Suzanne Collins · 2025
<p> </p> <p>“Sunrise on the Reaping is a propulsive, heart-wrenching addition to The Hunger Games, adding welcome texture to the cruel world of Panem . This is the project of dystopian fiction: to shine a light in tyranny's greasiest corners and show how people - ordinary, determined human beings - might take it apart” - New York Times</p> <p>“Collins is an excellent writer, and there are moments of surprising lyricism . Sunrise on the Reaping contains enough both to snare new readers and to satisfy the most bloodthirsty fan” - Guardian</p> <p> When you've been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for? </p> <p>As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honour of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.</p> <p>Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.</p> <p>When Haymitch's name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He's torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who's nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town.</p> <p>As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he's been set up to fail. But there's something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.</p> <ul> <li>Four books, five films and one worldwide phenomenon, The Hunger Games original trilogy changed the face of global YA and <i>The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes</i> was an instant number one bestseller (Nielsen Bookscan, May 2020).</li> <li>All four of the Hunger Games novels have been made into major feature films, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth and Peter Dinklage.</li> <li>A feature film for Sunrise On the Reaping - the fifth book in the Hunger Games series - is slated for November 2026</li> </ul> <p> </p> <p>OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES</p> <ul> <li>The Hunger Games</li> <li>The Hunger Games illustrated edition released in October 2024</li> <li>Catching Fire</li> <li>Mockingjay</li> <li>The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes</li> </ul> <p> </p>
The Stepford Wives
Ira Levin, Peter Straub · 2002
The internationally bestselling novel by the author of A Kiss Before Dying, The Boys from Brazil, and Rosemary's Baby With an Introduction by Peter Straub<br/>For Joanna, her husband, Walter, and their children, the move to beautiful Stepford seems almost too good to be true. It is. For behind the town's idyllic facade lies a terrible secret -- a secret so shattering that no one who encounters it will ever be the same.<br/>At once a masterpiece of psychological suspense and a savage commentary on a media-driven society that values the pursuit of youth and beauty at all costs, The Stepford Wives is a novel so frightening in its final implications that the title itself has earned a place in the American lexicon.
Love in the Time of Cholera (Vintage International)
Gabriel GarcÍA MÁRquez · 2014
Everything Is Tuberculosis
John Green · 2025
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
Jia Tolentino · 2020
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “From The New Yorker’s beloved cultural critic comes a bold, unflinching collection of essays about self-deception, examining everything from scammer culture to reality television.”—Esquire<br/><br/>Book Club Pick for Now Read This, from PBS NewsHour and The New York Times • “A whip-smart, challenging book.”—Zadie Smith • “Jia Tolentino could be the Joan Didion of our time.”—Vulture<br/><br/>FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE’S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY AND HARVARD CRIMSON AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • Chicago Tribune • The Washington Post • NPR • Variety • Esquire • Vox • Elle • Glamour • GQ • Good Housekeeping • The Paris Review • Paste • Town & Country • BookPage • Kirkus Reviews • BookRiot • Shelf Awareness<br/><br/>Jia Tolentino is a peerless voice of her generation, tackling the conflicts, contradictions, and sea changes that define us and our time. Now, in this dazzling collection of nine entirely original essays, written with a rare combination of give and sharpness, wit and fearlessness, she delves into the forces that warp our vision, demonstrating an unparalleled stylistic potency and critical dexterity.<br/><br/>Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly through a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Tolentino writes about a cultural prism: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the advent of scamming as the definitive millennial ethos; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the punitive dream of optimization, which insists that everything, including our bodies, should become more efficient and beautiful until we die. Gleaming with Tolentino’s sense of humor and capacity to elucidate the impossibly complex in an instant, and marked by her desire to treat the reader with profound honesty, Trick Mirror is an instant classic of the worst decade yet.<br/><br/>FINALIST FOR THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD FOR THE ART OF THE ESSAY
Unlikeable Female Characters
Anna Bogutskaya · 2023
The Story of the Lost Child: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 4)
Elena Ferrante · 2015
The “stunning conclusion” to the bestselling saga of the fierce lifelong bond between two women, from a gritty Naples childhood through old age (Publishers Weekly, starred review).<br/><br/>The Story of the Lost Child concludes the dazzling saga of two women, the brilliant, bookish Elena and the fiery, uncontainable Lila, who first met amid the shambles of postwar Italy. In this book, life’s great discoveries have been made; its vagaries and losses have been suffered. Through it all, the women’s friendship remains the gravitational center of their lives.<br/><br/>Both women once fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. But now, she has returned to Naples to be with the man she has always loved. Lila, on the other hand, never succeeded in freeing herself from Naples. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect her neighborhood. Yet, somehow, this proximity to a world she has always rejected only brings her role as unacknowledged leader of that world into relief.<br/><br/>“Lila is a magnificent character.” ―The Atlantic<br/><br/>“Everyone should read anything with Ferrante’s name on it.” ―The Boston Globe
Lady Chatterlys Lover
Lawrence, D H
The Story of a New Name: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 2)
Elena Ferrante · 2013
A novel in the bestselling quartet about two very different women and their complex friendship: “Everyone should read anything with Ferrante’s name on it” (The Boston Globe).<br/><br/>The follow-up to My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name continues the epic New York Times–bestselling literary quartet that has inspired an HBO series, and returns us to the world of Lila and Elena, who grew up together in post-WWII Naples, Italy.<br/><br/>In The Story of a New Name, Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighborhood that she so often finds stifling. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and a source of strength in the face of life’s challenges. In these Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante, “one of the great novelists of our time” (The New York Times), gives us a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging, a meditation on love and jealousy, freedom and commitment―at once a masterfully plotted page-turner and an intense, generous-hearted family saga.<br/><br/>“Imagine if Jane Austen got angry and you’ll have some idea of how explosive these works are.” ―The Australian<br/><br/>“Brilliant . . . captivating and insightful . . . the richness of her storytelling is likely to please fans of Sara Gruen and Silvia Avallone.” ―Booklist (starred review)
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics)
Eric Hoffer · 2010
Bright Young Women
Jessica Knoll · 2023
January 1978. Tallahassee. When sorority president Pamela Schumacher is startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she's shocked to encounter a scene of implausible violence - two of her friends dead and two others, maimed
My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels Book 1)
Elena Ferrante · 2012
The Tall Woman
Wilma Dykeman · 1982
Lydia Moore grew up in the Appalachian region before the Civil War and married Mark McQueen shortly after it began. Her husband went off to fight for the Union while her father and brother fought for the Confederates. While the men were gone, outliers raided Lydia's mother's home, assaulting her and stealing the livestock. A pregnant Lydia returned to her old home place to tend to her mother and brothers and sisters. When her labor began, the doctor was too inebriated to come, so Lydia's Aunt Tildy delivered the baby, who was turned the wrong way, causing brain damage. After the war, when Mark returned, Lydia learned he had been imprisoned. Her Mark was a changed man who dealt with demons from the war and harbored a deep hatred for the men who had raided Lydia's mother's home, blaming his son's mental problems on them. Through the years, Lydia had more children while dealing with her husband's alienation and cynicism, hoping that through her love, he would become the man he used to be. Times were rough in their mountain region, but Lydia worked hard, trying to do her best for her children and their small community.
