Best Books of 2025 for AdultsLike this list

30 items

• My Friends

  a Novel

  Backman, Fredrik, 1981-

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  Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. But eighteen-year-old Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Cursed Daughters

  a Novel

  Braithwaite, Oyinkan,

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  When Ebun gives birth to her daughter, Eniiyi, on the day they bury her cousin Monife, there is no denying the startling resemblance between the child and the dead woman. So begins the belief, fostered and fanned by the entire family, that Eniiyi is…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Sunrise on the Reaping

  Collins, Suzanne,

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  It's the 50th annual Hunger Games and as the games begin, District 12 tribute Haymitch Abernathy realizes he's been set up to fail, but something in him wants to fight, in the fifth book in the Hunger Games series.

• King of Ashes

  a Novel

  Cosby, S. A.,

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  When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home to Jefferson Run, Virginia after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Enshittification

  Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It

  Doctorow, Cory,

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  When Cory Doctorow coined the term "enshittification," he was not just finding a funner way to say “things are getting worse.” He was making a specific diagnosis about the state of the digital world and how it is affecting all of our lives (and not…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

  El Akkad, Omar, 1982-

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  An award-winning novelist and immigrant to the West, after reporting on the War on Terror, Black Lives Matter protests, and the slaughter in Gaza, concludes that much of what the West promises is a lie--that there will always be groups outside the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Marriage at Sea

  a True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck

  Elmhirst, Sophie,

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  Maurice and Maralyn couldn't be more different. He is as cautious and awkward as she is charismatic and forceful. It seems an unlikely romance, but it works. Bored of 1970s suburban life, Maralyn has an idea- sell the house, build a boat, leave…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The River Has Roots

  El-Mohtar, Amal,

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  In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family. There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Poppy Field

  a Novel

  Erlick, Nikki,

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  A high-concept speculative novel about heartache, hope, and human resilience, this book explores the path of grief and healing, a journey at once profoundly universal and unique to every person, posing the questions: How do we heal in the wake of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Correspondent

  a Novel

  Evans, Virginia, 1986-

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  At 73, retired lawyer and devoted letter writer Sybil Van Antwerp navigates her daily life and reflects on her past, but when unexpected letters open old wounds, she must confront a painful chapter that reshapes her understanding of herself and her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Great Big Beautiful Life

  Henry, Emily,

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  Alice Scott and Hayden Anderson are on Little Crescent Island to write the biography of the octogenarian who claims to be Margaret Ives - heiress, tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most scandalous families of the 20th century. Margaret…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

  Jones, Stephen Graham, 1972-

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  A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice. A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Heart the Lover

  a Novel

  King, Lily,

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  Decades after a tangled college love triangle shaped her life, a woman is forced to confront her old choices and hidden truths in this intimate novel of friendship and desire from the bestselling author of Writers & Lovers.

• Audition

  Kitamura, Katie, 1979-

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  Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Names

  a Novel

  Knapp, Florence,

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  Cora’s hesitation to name her son triggers three alternate paths over thirty-five years, revealing the lasting impact of domestic abuse and the complexities of family in her search for autonomy and healing.

• Katabasis

  a Novel

  Kuang, R. F. (Rebecca F.),

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  Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi in this dark academia fantasy, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul--perhaps at the cost of their own.

• A Guardian and a Thief

  Majumdar, Megha,

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  In a near-future Kolkata, India, which has been ravaged by climate change and food scarcity, two families seeking to protect their children must battle each other.

• A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping

  Mandanna, Sangu,

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  After resurrecting her great-aunt and befriending a half-villainous talking fox, Sera Swan is exiled from the magical Guild and loses her magic, but an old spell book mentioned by a handsome historian may hold the key to restoring her power.

• The Girls Who Grew Big

  Mottley, Leila, 2002-

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  Banished to her grandmother's small Florida town after becoming pregnant at sixteen, Adela finds an unlikely sisterhood among a group of young mothers who, despite societal judgment, support each other through friendship, love, and the complexities…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Automatic Noodle

  Newitz, Annalee, 1969-

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  You don't have to eat food to know the way to a city's heart is through its stomach. So when a group of deactivated robots come back online in an abandoned ghost kitchen, they decide to make their own way doing what they know: making food -- the…Read moreRead more of this annotation