
Essential Reading of 2025
Some years are easy to summarize. 2025 wasn’t one of them, and these books show why. Across fiction and nonfiction, this year’s most defining reads felt restless, intimate, and sharply tuned into the moment. They wrestled with identity, memory, desire, power, grief, ambition… sometimes quietly, sometimes head-on.
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Books

Fake Skating
Lynn Painter · 2025

Fearless
Lauren Roberts · 2025
Paedyn Gray and Kai Azer return to the Kingdom of Ilya... And Paedyn has a life-altering choice to make. Whatever she decides will determine her fate--and the fate of those around her--forever. In the ultimate battle of love and loyalty, who wins?

Are You Mad at Me?
Meg Josephson · 2025
<p><b>'A cure for chronic people-pleasing' Adam Grant, author of <i>Think Again</i></b><br> <br> <b>Are you constantly worried about what people think of you? Psychotherapist Meg Josephson explores the common survival instinct <i>fawning</i> and offers explanations, comfort and solutions.</b><br> <br> If you ever:<br> <br> <b>* Leave social situations overthinking something you've said</b><br> <b>* Overlook your own boundaries to make other people happy</b><br> <b>* Struggle to say what you really want - even to yourself</b><br> <br> You might be fawning.<br> <br> In <i>Are You Mad at Me?</i> Meg challenges the idea that people-pleasing is a personality trait, exposing it to be an instinct learned in childhood to become more appealing to a perceived threat in order to feel safe. Yet many people are stuck in this way of being for their whole lives.<br> <br> Weaving her own moving story with case studies and thought-provoking exercises, Meg will show you how to identify your needs, rethink conflict and build stronger connections: empowering you to stop focusing on what others think and start living for you.<br> <br> <b>'This book will feel like coming up for air. Read it and get free' Katherine Morgan Schafler</b><br> <br> <b>Reader Reviews:</b><br> <br> <b>'Feels like a comforting hand on the shoulder'</b><br> <b>'Gives me strength to continue to make changes in my life'</b><br> <b>'This book changed my life'</b></p>

No More Tears The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson
Gardiner Harris · 2025

The Book of Lost Hours
Hayley Gelfuso · 2025

When the Wolf Comes Home
Nat Cassidy · 2025

Hungerstone
Kat Dunn · 2025

Shield of Sparrows
Devney Perry · 2025

The Bright Years
Sarah Damoff · 2025

Isola: Reese's Book Club A Novel
Allegra Goodman · 2025

Death of the Author
Nnedi Okorafor · 2025

Memorial Days A Memoir
Geraldine Brooks · 2025

Awake A brutally honest memoir from New York Times bestselling author, Jen Hatmaker
Jen Hatmaker · 2025

The Emperor of Gladness: Oprah's Book Club A Novel
Ocean Vuong · 2025

Alchemised
SenLin Yu · 2025

Wild Dark Shore
Charlotte McConaghy · 2025

Not Quite Dead Yet
Holly Jackson · 2025

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
V. E. Schwab · 2025

Heart the Lover
Lily King · 2025

One Golden Summer
Carley Fortune · 2025










