Top Five Books of 2025

LibraryThing's Top Five Books of the Year is back! Please see our new blog post for each staff member's list of favorite reads from this past year: https://blog.librarything.com/2025/12/top-five-books-of-2025/

What were your top five books for the year? We'd love to hear about them here, and also invite you to share them in our December List of the Month: Top Five Books of 2025.

Eine afrikanische Geschichte Afrikas
Myself and Other Animals
The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo
The Weaver and the Witch Queen
Ocean : Earth's last wilderness
Welcome to Glorious Tuga
and I'm still reading Finding My Way which is bound to belong in there, too.
Can I have 8 best books?

Several of my favorite reads this year only make sense in the context of my reading project. I couldn't possibly choose which Lizzie W. Champney book was my favorite, when it's the whole 20 in conversation with each other and other books from the period... that said, as much as I understand why Champney's popularity died away, and as much as I would never recommend her to the general public... what a fun ride it was to read those 20 books, and I'm looking forward to reading more from her next year.

I'm also only halfway through America, América, so I don't want to add it to the list yet, but it's a bit contender for my top 5. It's filling in so many gaps in my understanding of history, and adding plenty of context for things I wondered about in Champney's books.

Adding my definite favourite for the year: The Incandescant by Emily Tesh. I will think for a bit about the other 4.

>4 Aquila: That's a good one. I was so happy to finally read a book set in a magic school where they actually, you know, teach students.

>5 amanda4242: Yes, I thought the way the author slowly layered all the background information into the rounds of her teaching and administrative duties was excellent, until it reached the point where we could see her mistakes. My absolute favourite point was near the end; and it felt like a "here is another reason this book isn't written as YA"; the decision the students make to go and get help instead of trying to save the day.

I'm not particularly keen on a lot of what has been coalescing into the "dark academia" subgenre but I wound up with two in my top five, the other being Kings of This World by Elizabeth Knox, also set in a private school that takes magic users alongside normal students and so gets a similar subcohort of scholarship students who may have used magic in uncontrolled ways before they were old enough to understand repercussions. It's also very different: student pov, the magic is far more about control and perceptions, it's set in an alternate New Zealand - the Southland - that Knox has used before, and like her The Absolute Book it moves between fantasy and quite realistic thriller tropes in ways I haven't seen elsewhere. But the similarities have continued to itch at me.

My other 4, in no particular order:
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
The Witch Roads Kate Elliott
Kings of This World Elizabeth Knox
The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal

This was tough! I added my top 5 to the list, but I had to omit these, which I’m listing here as honorable mentions:

‪The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, Walter Mosley
‪Observatory Mansions, ‪Edward Carey
‪Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver
‪Martyr! Kaveh Akbar
‪A History of Hazardous Objects, Yxta Maya Murray
‪The Book Censor's Library, Buthaynah ʻĪsá
‪White Is for Witching, Helen Oyeyemi

I enjoyed the LT staff’s top 5 and found several books to add to my TBR!

>6 Aquila: That part at the end was really satisfying.

I'll have to check out Kings of This World; The Vintner's Luck is on my best of the year list, and I've been wanting to try another of Knox's books.

>7 Aquila: I'm reading The Ministry of Time right now and loving it! If only I had time to finish it, it would probably be in my Top 5 for this year. :)

>6 Aquila: Ooh! Years ago I read and loved Elizabeth Knox's Dreamhunter Duet, which appears to be set in the same fictional New Zealand (Southland) as Kings of This World. I had no idea she'd written other books related to the Dreamhunter ones. Is Kings of This World also YA?

>7 Aquila:
Oh I LOVED The Vintner's Luck. Adding Kings of this World and The Absolute Book both to my list of library holds. (I'm also a big fan of Mary Robinette Kowal)...

I ended up with:

Promise of a dream by Sheila Rowbotham
Greek lessons by Han Kang
The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk
Who’s afraid of gender by Judith Butler
Los pazos de Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazán

I would have liked to add James and Our evenings, but it turns out that I read both of those shortly before the end of last year, so they don’t count…

>13 thorold: I would have liked to add James and Our evenings, but it turns out that I read both of those shortly before the end of last year, so they don’t count…

But when did you read them? Remember that this annual survey is performed in early to mid December, so it should cover the period from when you filled out last year's survey until you fill out this one. Make sure that books read in late December aren't always excluded.

>11 AbigailAdams26: Yes, I think so?

>14 anglemark: Just because the list is posted in mid-December doesn't mean it needs to be filled before the end of the year (and items can be removed or changes can be made at any time)

>14 anglemark: >16 norabelle414: Neither was in December, and I’m pretty sure I put at least one of them on last year’s list — the reason I noticed them is that other people have included them in this year’s.

In no particular order:

A Different Darkness and Other Abominations by Luigi Musolino

Some dark Italian modern horror tales based on old folk stories. Very good. An Adam Nevill recommendation and you can see certain similarities.

Prison Noir (Akashic Noir) by Joyce Carol Oates

Not from JCU herself but she has edited this anthology where each contribution was from prisoners serving time and written I believe during their incarceration. To say I only thought one was particularly weak shows the impressive levels of skills on offer. Not all as grim as you would think.

Provinces of Night by William Gay

Possibly the slowest I've ever taken to read a novel due to the prose. Although it's not Cormac Mccarthy slowness, with his one sentence adjective heavy paragraphs there was just something slow about the whole reading process. Not a criticism just an observation.
The story is Southern Gothic with themes of time and change, wrapped around a tale of the wandering patriarch returning to the place of birth and his interactions with his family. Alongside this is the patriarch's grandson who is slowly coming of age. A recommended read but put time aside - and it's only a short book as well.

Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown by Paul Theroux

One of the best travel books I've ever read. Even slightly dated, it paints a damning picture of NGO's in Africa....especially the religious ones, with one particular encounter standing out. NGO's (inadvertent) link to keeping dictators in power is something that I had never considered before, but it's a logical conclusion (of sorts) in certain contexts.

He Died with His Eyes Open by Derek Raymond

I don't read much crime fiction so this was another new author I found out about thanks to LT. and glad I did .... blown away to a degree - this is the first in a series with an unnamed protagonist who works in a unglamorous dept in the London Police force - dealing with unsolved murders. It's bleak though - everything is bleak - the lives of everyone involved, the actions, the dialogue, the lot. It's set in the 80's so the backdrop of unemployment in the UK and everything else linked adds to this feeling.

Honourable mentions:

Paperbacks from Hell: A History of Horror Fiction from the '70s and '80s: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction by Grady Hendrix

Don't write 'em like they used to do (sadly)

Mr Fox by Barbara Comyns

My respect for her as an author increases with each new book I read - this is a slighty tricky one to track down from a small pressing I believe, and has her own (autobiographical?) story through WW2 - with her quirky and dry humoured voice at times as the narrator. Very good.

Nuclear War: The bestselling non-fiction thriller, shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2024 by Annie Jacobsen

Up there with the 'legendary' film/documentary 'Threads' as one of the bleakest explorations of a global nuclear war. Unflinching and harrowing - possibly a bit illogical in some reactions - but being brought up throughout the 80's when WW3 was seemingly only days away at times; not necessarily implausible. Overall it's a deep dive into the most illogical waste of money for no gain whatsoever - the amount of warheads in the 60's is breath-taking - that the human race has even created.

Hm. I don't know if 2025 has been a bad reading year, exactly, but there's not too many candidates that jump out immediately. Exercising the old grey matter a bit, a top five in rough descending order might be:

Vattenvarelser
Orden och evigheten
The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades
Planetary Geology
The Last Frontier

>19 AndreasJ: I like the sound of both Vattenvarelser and Orden och evigheten - I'll have to keep an eye out for them.

Have you been to Medelhavsmuseet and seen the Cypriot exhibition they have there?

>20 PawsforThought:

I've been to Medelhavsmuseet, but it's years ago and I don't remember there being a specific Cypriot exhibition there.

>19 AndreasJ:

I also found this a disappointing year for new reads -- but I don't often read newly-released books. (Especially this year, when horrible political books seem to be the order of the day.) Still, the one area where I do try to read new books is science, and it seemed to be a bit of an off year even in that regard. None of the BBC science recommendations appealed to me, e.g.

Maybe we're just all depressed by the state of the world. :-)

>22 waltzmn:

None of the books I listed is new (ranging from 1983-2021 in OPD), though I read the updated 2025 edition of Planetary Geology.

>21 AndreasJ: A large part of the museum's collection is based on the Swedish Cyrpus expedition in the late 1920s.

>24 PawsforThought:

I should evidently go there again to refresh my memory.

I’m not precisely sure of everything I read this year (rather than, say, December of 2024) so here’s my guess at a list in no particular order:

Half-Life of a Stolen Sister by Rachel Cantor — if you’re into the Brontes & know their lives a bit, you might love this like I did.

James by Percival Everett

Ithaca by Claire North — I taught The Odyssey every year for twelve years so this feminist retelling was like the richest of chocolate cakes for me.

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden — I could hardly breathe through the last fifty pages.

The Scapegoat: the Brilliant, Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

I only have a top four so far (not that all the other books I read were bad, but none stand out for me like these do). The year isn't over yet, though...

Utopia Avenue
Brilliant portrait of the British and international music scene at the end of the sixties. Must be so much richer still for readers who are old enough to remember – I know this only as my father’s music.

The Cracked Mirror
A little old lady sleuth and a hardboiled homicide cop get entangled in each others cases. I was impressed, not least because Brookmyre is perfectly in command of both genres, and never lets his premise descend to the level of a gimmick.

The Mars House
I always feel at home in Pulley’s style, so I enjoy her books even when the setting does not really appeal to me. She is also a very linguistically aware writer, and this would have been worth it for the mammoth language alone.

The Rachel Incident
Intelligent and funny young woman looks back on the time when she was a stupid and funny young woman. I enjoyed O’Donoghue’s voice so much that I went on to read her YA books, which is usually rather outside my territory.

ETA December 21:

The Book of Fallen Trees
Thoughtful, many-layered fantasy set in England in the aftermath of WWI.

So hard to narrow it down to five! Here are mine in no particular order:

Mailman by Stephen Starring Grant
Time of the Child by Niall Williams
Highway Thirteen by Fiona McFarlane
The Names by Florence Knapp
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

>28 IrishSue:
Mailman, Grant by Stephen Starring Grant
Time of the Child by Niall Williams
Highway Thirteen by Fiona McFarlane
The Names by Florence Knapp
Katabasis

>2 MarthaJeanne: Yes, Finding My Way Belongs right at the top. Malala is not only an amazing person, but also a very gifted writer.

>27 Edward528:

I only just barely excluded from my top 5 the one David Mitchell novel I read this year: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. I noted in my review: "the structure and ductus of the novel are more restrained and conventional than other notable works by the author, such as Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks. It is perhaps most comparable to his more recent Utopia Avenue in occupying a discrete historical window with a fairly narrow central cast of characters all in a shared milieu."

>31 paradoxosalpha: You're right, apart from being connected to the larger narrative of the horologists, Utopia Avenue has a more circumscribed environment and story. I wonder if that is why I like it best of all his novels - I always admired the writing, but in this one I felt closest to the characters. But it has admittedly been some time since I read his earlier work - I know my edition of The Thousand Autumns is a review copy, so I must have read it shortly before publication 15 years ago...

>32 Edward528:
De Zoet is horological in about the same measure as Utopia Avenue. I think the more limited scenes and casts make them more accessible, but I enjoy the bravura of Mitchell's century-spanning fictions, and I think I might like The Bone Clocks best.

I've added 3 to the list. Most of this year has been comfort re-reads. I need to decide which of those might make the top 5 reads of this year, if any. There is still time left this year to discover another great read.

I added four so far to the list
Piranesi is even better than Clarke's first novel and that one was already a marvel
Ishiguro managed to enchant me again, this time in Buried Giant
I've been reading the Hainish novels still unread and City of Illusions stood out among the first 3
Conrad's Nostromo

All in all, a year in which my favorite authors delivered once again, others less so. Among new ones, the only truly excellent read was the Terra Ignota series. I'll probably add one of those as the 5th unless something sweeps me off my feet in time remaining.

>35 SandraArdnas:

Piranesi was an honorable mention for me this year, even though I was confident that if I picked it, others would have done so too.

I can't begin to say how much I like Terra Ignota (which I read a few years back). I am planning to re-read it circa 2030.

My list:
1. The Age of Insurrection by David Niewert (current events)
2. The Reefs of Earth by R. A. Lafferty (science fiction)
3. The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and Modern Oblivion by Leo Steinberg (art history)
4. Darkness Weaves by Karl Edward Wagner (fantasy)
5. Going for a Beer: Selected Short Fictions by Robert Coover (literary fiction)

Bonus titles, some of them better known than my top picks:
Welcome to Mars by Ken Hollings (cultural history)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (literary fiction)
Temple and Contemplation by Henry Corbin (religion)
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (fantasy)
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (science fiction)

What This Cruel War Was Over by Chandra Manning was, by a wide margin, the best book I read this year: A concise, deeply researched study of what motivated soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War. I've been a professional historian for 40 years now, and this is one of the best history books I've ever read.

After that, in no particular order:

Born to Win by John Bertrand, the story of Australia's historic victory in the 1983 America's Cup races, by the skipper of the winning boat. Riveting even though you know the punchline, and unexpectedly insightful about the psychology of elite-level sailboat racing.

Fire Weather by John Vaillant, which uses a you-are-there account of a catastrophic wildfire threatening Fort McMurray, Alberta as a lens through which to explore the climate destabilization wrought by the petroleum industry on which Fort McMurray's economy depended. Terrifying on multiple levels.

Sacred Vessels by Robert L. O'Connell, a cultural history of how, in the half-century between the 1890s and the early 1940s, the US Navy ceased to view the battleship as a tool for waging war and came to regard it as symbol of national power and prestige.

Small Wonder by Robert Zimmerman, a meticulous survey of the complex history of the "little red schoolhouse" (not always "little" and often not red) and the multiple meanings with it has come to be imbued. A small masterpiece of writing about the interplay of history and memory.

>36 paradoxosalpha: I can't begin to say how much I like Terra Ignota

Yeah, there some magic going on there that comes from having both a profound knowledge of history and literary talent to match. I'll be picking up her nonfiction books too

>35 SandraArdnas: Buried Giant might be my favorite of his & that’s saying something. What a powerful gut-punch of a read!

I have two top favorites, one for children of all ages, and one for adults:

>1 AbigailAdams26: ARBUCKLE AND SLOAN by Greg Trine
a hilarious children's book (age 6 and up) that is also for adults. A cat encourages the neighboring dog to become more catlike. Will it work? It has a favorable Kirkus Review. Share this book with every kid you know!

>2 MarthaJeanne: NEW DAWN FADES by Kevin Rattan
a SF mystery featuring many points of view and world and civilization(s) building. The heretical descendants of Nullists (anti-natalists) have developed a unique culture. Who has the right to drag a child into the world unasked? What if the child, upon reaching adulthood, objects? Two empires want to take them under their wings and change them. If you are sharp enough, you can figure out who did it, although none of the POV characters did.

>41 Wordwizardw:
ARBUCKLE AND SLOAN
NEW DAWN FADES

Oops, somehow I ended up on the 2024 topic. Moving what I'd posted there to here:

Still need to add them to this list, but (unless something else comes up in the next 11 days), this is my top 5:

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands / Kate Beaton
The Haunting of Ashburn House / Darcy Coates
The Marriage Pact / Michelle Richmond
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow / Zoulfa Katouh
The Crisis of Canadian Democracy / Andrew Coyne

Carnality: A Novel by Lina Wolff.
Under the Glacier by Halldór Laxness.
The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and The Stories by Nella Larsen.
Little Blue Encyclopedia: (for Vivian) by Hazel Jane Plante.
Twelve Angry Men: A Play in Three Acts by Reginald Rose.