12 Books You Need to Read in 2025

With this year passing by, we decided to highlight books that we think our readers need to read. So, keep reading to find out the 12 book you need to read in 2025!

There are so many incredible books to read but finding them is not always easy. That is why lists like these are helpful. I know I am always adding books to my to-read list as I browse other lists and see what everyone else is reading. And that has led to this list amazing novels that everyone needs to read!

12 Books You Need to Read in 2025

• The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
• The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
• The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
• The Women by Kristin Hannah
• Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, Henning Koch (Translator)
• First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
• The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
• All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby
• Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
• Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
• The Café with No Name by Robert Seethaler
• The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai

The Fifth Season

I am a huge fantasy fan and I am always reading new fantasy novels and series. And even after reading all those novels, I would place The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin in my top ten, maybe even in my top five if I actually sat down and wrote the list down.

The story-telling and world building make this novel and series an epic adventure novel and a tragic tale. There is a lot of pain and Jemisin makes you feel all of it with her brilliant writing. This original story will satisfy all your reading needs and make you devour this trilogy.

And you know you are in for a treat when you learn that all three books in The Fifth Season trilogy won the Hugo Award for the best Novel for all three novels, becoming the only book to ever do so. Novels like these make me happy about where sci-fi and fantasy novels are at the moment.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

If you would rather read fiction novels or historical fiction novels, then The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride should be your next read. McBride is one of the most talented writers and storytellers alive and this novel highlights all of his amazing qualities.

This novel was one of the best novels of 2023 and one I was happy I picked it up and read it. You will laugh and cry, and your hope in humanity will increase after this book. McBride sees the good in people and that community is important and will take care of their own.

The Wager

If you prefer to read nonfiction books, then we might not have too much in common. I prefer fiction novels but I do pick a nonfiction book here and there and came across an amazing gem.

In The Wager, David Grann researches a shipwreck that occurred centuries ago. Using dairies and information he could find, Grann retells the tragic story of the wager and its occupants.

You may recognize Grann’s name because he wrote Killers of the Flower Moon which was adapted into a movie by Martin Scorsese. Somehow, Grann is still pushing the envelope and telling stories that everyone except for him seems to have forgotten. This is a book that will make you sit and read it in one sitting, wanting to know the fate of the crew of the Wager and what happens to them afterwards.

The Women

The Women by Kristin Hannah was everywhere in 2024 and if that didn’t get you to read it, then hopefully this article will get you to. The novel tells the overlooked story of women severing in Vietnam and returning only to hear everyone say that Women didn’t serve in Vietnam.

The trauma and PTSD lead the protagonist on a journey that uproots her life and having to come home to a country that is ashamed of her service. This moving novel is very powerful and I can’t wait until the movie comes out. Hannah highlights a moment in history that has barely been covered and gives women that served in Vietnam a voice after decades of going unheard.

Wandering Stars

When I saw the book covers for Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange, I knew I had to read it. This is one of my favorite book covers of all time and and the book is even better somehow.

Orange tells a harrowing tale of racism and trauma that haunts a family for generations. The book tells the story of Native Americans suffering for over a century and the importance of identity and home.

The plight of Native Americans is forgotten or neglected in this country. Their identity is constantly under attack and their history has been buried deep. But Tommy Orange’s novel brings it back into the spotlight and tells their story, while also writing one of the best novels of 2024.

A Man Called Ove

A Man called Ove by Fredrik Backman was one of the most heart-wrenching novels I read was. After most chapters, I had to take a break and let the writing sink in. That should tell you just how powerful this novel is. Trying to summarize this novel without spoiling it in not easy.

Ove is a cranky old man who has lived a full life with his wife and now plans to end his life in an orderly fashion. But before he can do that, he is interrupted by a young couple and their two daughters that have moved next to Ove. They constantly need his help and an unlikely friendship forms that changes the course of Ove’s life.

if you want to cry or take a beautiful message away from a novel, then you should read this amazing novel and see why this novel become an international phenomenon.

First Lie Wins

If you love a good thriller with a lot of plot twists, then First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston is the novel you have to read. Protagonist Evie Porter is living the perfect life but there is only problem: Evie Porter isn’t real.

She is an identity for the ongoing mission, one that Evie needs to figure out or she will be replaced. Evie’s previous mission didn’t go well and this mission and when Evie meets someone who is using her Evie’s real name, it lets her know that her time may be running out if she doesn’t deliver what her boss wants. 

I loved every second of this novel and ended up reading it in one day. There are so many plot twists and Elston does a wonderful job of not overloading the information, instead slowly letting the reader put together the pieces and realize what is going on. Good luck trying to put this novel off after reading the first page. 

The Silent Patient

I read The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides a couple of years ago after seeing it on many best thriller lists. And after reading this amazing novel, I understood why everyone thinks highly of this novel.

The protagonist Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist and he finds himself interested in Alicia Berenson’s case. She shot her husband five times in the face and never has said another word again. Theo wants to make her speak again and solve the mystery of why she shot her husband but this mystery may upend his life as well.

Michaelides is an amazing storyteller and I loved everything about this thriller. There are clues throughout the novel that will only make sense once you reach the climax. And if you want to see just how talented Michaelides is, then reread the novel and you’ll be reading another book. 

All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby

When I picked up All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby, I didn’t expect a fantastic thriller and mystery at hand. Throughout the novel, you are playing detective and trying to figure out what is going on as you see the world through Titus Crown’s lenses, Virginia’s first black sheriff, and many people aren’t happy that he is the new sheriff.

When a former student kills a beloved schoolteacher in broad daylight, it is up to Crown to solve the mystery and ease the resident’s concerns. But when Crown learns that the schoolteacher was hiding a darker side, he has to solve the mystery at hand that will turn the town upside down if they knew the truth.

This novel tackles heavy subjects and isn’t for everyone. But the writing by Crosby and tackling these subjects made this novel a must read and one that will stay with

Knife

2024 was a great year for books because every book on this list so far was released in 2024. Unlike the previous books, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie is a memoir about an attack that took place a few years ago.

Salman Rushdie was attacked while on stage on August 12, 2022 while preparing to give a speech on about keeping writers safe from harm. A man in all black rushed the stage and started stabbing Rushdie with a knife as he tried to protect himself with only his hands.

In this book, Rushdie shares his horrific experience and his recovery and the trauma he lives with every day as a result. He knows he is lucky to be alive and opens up with the audience, showcasing the power of writing and reaffirming the saying that the pen is mightier than the sword. 

The Terror by Dan Simmons

Unfortunately, I had to break the pattern of choosing books released in 2024, even if it wasn’t intentional. But a reason I chose The Terror by Dan Simmons is that is has something in common with one of the novels previously mentioned.

Both The Ministry of Time and The Terror focus on the 1845 expedition of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror in different ways. In the Terror, Simmons tells a horror story and imagines that a ferocious monster is the reason that the expedition failed and disappeared.

The Ministry of Time was inspired by the AMC series The Terror and instead goes the sci-fi direction and it brilliant. Whether you like horror novels or sci-fi novels, both these novels will keep you entertained.

Demon Copperhead

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction. And after reading this novel, I think it should have won even more awards. Kingslover loosely adapts the classic novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens with a modern take.

The novel follows protagonist Demon Copperhead who lives in the south of the Appalachia with a single mother. Demon goes through a lot of hardships including going through foster care, abandonment issues, child labor and addiction. The story will break your heart, make you laugh, and make you question how something like this could happen in modern times and why.

Babel

Babel is a historical fiction and fantasy novel by R.F. Huang that takes readers back to the 1800s. Robin Swift is an orphan from Canton and is raised by Professor Lovell who trains Robin in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese in preparation of enrolling to Oxford University’s Royal Institute of Translation, which is also known as Babel.

The novel combines etymology and magic and Huang brings it all together at Oxford. But if you know anything about Huang, just know that she will call out wrongdoing throughout history and she does just that as she comments about imperialism and what she thinks of it. Her attention to history and using Oxford as the setting will take you back to the 1800s and is the perfect backdrop for her commentary.

Martyr! 

Cyrus Shams is a recovering alcoholic and a former addict trying to change his life around. But he can’t seem to escape his traumatic past. His mother died when he was a baby and after he made it to college, his dead passed away. Now, Cyrus wants to become a martyr and decided to study other martyrs for his book.

But when Cyrus finds out that there is a woman dying of cancer living at the Brooklyn Museum, he decided to fly out and meet her. What he thought he knew flips upside down as he tries to existence and what truly matters to him and whether or not he wants to continue living or become a martyr.

Kaveh Akbar is a brilliant storyteller and Martyr! is an all-around fantastic book. It is funny, tragic, poetic, and impossible to put down. There is a lot of messages to be grasped from this book but above all that, it is a story about love and identity.

The Café with No Name 

I haven’t read much German novels and didn’t know what to expect when I started reading The Café with No Name by Robert Seethaler. The novel takes place in 1966 in a market in Vienna. Robert Simon has made his dream of opening his own café a reality but knows nothing about how to run a café or when to even name it. 

Soon after opening, Robert gets a bunch of regulars and attends to his new life. And he hires Mila, a barmaid to help him run the café as it becomes too much for just one person to run. The novel dives into the stories of Simon, Mila, and some of the regulars and follows their stories and the importance of the café in all their lives. 

This is a beautiful story about everyday people and Seethaler makes them all feel like the protagonist of the novel. His storytelling makes this the perfect book to read by the fireside on a chilly day. 

The Restaurant of Lost Recipes

Rounding out this list is another Japanese novel, one that will want you to fly to Japan and try every dish in the book. The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai is a food detective novel and the second novel in the Kamogawa Food Detectives series.

I have come to love this series and always look forward to reading the next book because it is a feel good story. Novels like these are why I keep reading Japanese novels, new and old, because they are unlike anything else. This is a great novel for food lovers and showcases the author’s love for his home country. 

Conclusion

These are the 12 books that you need to read in 2025. All of these books have been amazing reads and I can’t wait to read even more books and share them with everyone. Until then, these should hold you over. Happy reading!

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook