Best Books of 2025: 15 Top Picks From the ‘Best of’ Lists
Truth be told, end-of-year “best of” book lists make us a little queasy. Sure, it’s helpful to have a shortcut to your holiday shopping. And yet the horse race inevitably leaves incredible books behind. We weep for the books that might be overlooked, underrated, or under the radar.
And whose list do you trust? Are you more Time or Oprah or Publishers Weekly? For PEN America, choosing literary award winners with panels of experts takes months of reading, thought, and consensus. A best-of list feels far more subjective.
When you look at the lists as a whole, though, you can find some points of agreement. PEN America examined repeat mentions on 15 of the year’s top “best of” lists (The New York Times, NPR, Amazon, Kirkus, Oprah Daily, Time, Publishers Weekly, Book Riot, The Washington Post, Debutiful, Barnes & Noble, the New York Public Library, Electric Lit, Esquire, Marie Claire.)
There’s no science in book ranking, of course. And many of these lists lean toward fiction, so nonfiction titles may be less likely to appear here. It’s also worth noting that the vast majority of books appearing on these lists were mentioned by only one publication. Art truly is subjective.
But if you’re wondering which books are buzzing this year, here are the books most frequently cited on “best of” lists of 2025. (They’re full of PEN America members!)
2025 ‘Best of’ Books
Audition, by Katie Kitamura. 10 mentions.
The most frequently mentioned book on the “best-of” 2025 lists we examined, Audition begins with an accomplished actress meeting a young man for lunch and unspools competing narratives about the roles we play every day.
Kitamura is a former PEN America Literary Award judge and appeared at the PEN World Voices Festival in 2023.
The Wilderness, by Angela Flournoy. 8 mentions.
This bestseller, longlisted for the National Book Award, follows five Black women through 20 years of friendship. As they navigate early adulthood, they must find their places together in a turbulent world.
Flournoy was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize for debut work in 2016.
A Guardian and a Thief, by Megha Majumdar. 7 mentions.
An Oprah’s Book Club pick and National Book Award finalist, A Guardian and a Thief tells two stories: that of Ma, whose immigration papers are stolen before a planned journey from India to the United States, and that of Boomba, the thief whose desperation drives him to the crime.
Heart the Lover, by Lily King. 7 mentions.
The instant bestseller from the author of Writers & Lovers brings the heady days of youthful passion crashing into the wisdom of later life.
Lily King has participated in PEN America advocacy for writers at risk.
The Antidote, by Karen Russell. 6 mentions.
Set in a fictional Nebraska town buckling amid the Great Depression and dust bowl drought, The Antidote follows several characters reckoning with memory and the town’s secrets.
Flashlight, by Susan Choi. 6 mentions.
Susan Choi’s epic novel, long-listed for the National Book Award and short-listed for the Booker Prize, traces a father’s disappearance and its ripples across time and continents.
Choi won a PEN/W.G. Sebald Award in 2010 and was a PEN America board member.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, by Kiran Desai. 6 mentions.
Kiran Desai’s first book since The Inheritance of Loss in 2006, Sonia and Sunny landed on the Booker Prize short-list and was a Kirkus Prize finalist. It tells the story of an aspiring novelist returning to her family in India and a struggling journalist escaping his family.
Desai will appear at a PEN Out Loud event next month.
Atmosphere, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. 5 mentions.
From the author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo comes an unlikely love story set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program. A Good Morning America pick.
Flesh, by David Szalay. 5 mentions.
This year’s Booker Prize winner is a spare, propulsive novel that follows an emotionally detached man buffeted by forces beyond his control.
A Flower Traveled in My Blood, by Haley Cohen Gilliland. 5 mentions.
The most frequently mentioned nonfiction book on the list is the true story of a group of Argentinian grandmothers whose daughters were “disappeared” and their children secretly given to other families. The grandmothers turn detective to find their missing grandchildren.
Sky Daddy, by Kate Folk. 5 mentions.
Another debut, Sky Daddy, tells an offbeat story of a woman who is sexually obsessed with planes and hopes to marry one. Reviews use words like “zany” “crazy” and “breathtakingly audacious.”
The Slip, by Lucas Schaefer. 5 mentions.
Winner of the Kirkus Prize, The Slip is another debut that chronicles a 16-year-old boxer who suddenly vanishes after training at a Texas gym.
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