The Los Angeles Public Library’s 2025 Book Recommendation List

The Los Angeles Public Library is the latest library to release a list of book recommendations for readers in 2025. We have a list of their picks and we can’t wait to dive in and see how their list holds up!

I love lists like these from public libraries because they are going to get many people to read. The hardest part of reading for many people is to find a good book to read. That shouldn’t be a problem because the Los Angeles Public Library has an extensive list with a bunch of books to choose from.

This list was compiled by the amazing staff members that work at the LAPL and we can’t thank them enough! All of the books chosen for this list received a 7 rating or higher. There are books from all genres and it is incredible how many books made this list.

We will be sharing of them here because it is just too long. These are the books that stood out at first glance. You can see the full list below!

The Los Angeles Public Library’s Books Recommendations: Fiction

• Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
• Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab
• The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
• Isola by Allegra Goodman
• Katabasis by R.F. Kuang 
• King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby
• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

The Los Angeles Public Library’s Books Recommendations: Nonfiction

• Air-Borne by Carl Zimmer
• Dinner With King Tut by Sam Kean
• Crescent Dawn by Si Sheppard
• Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green
• Mark Twain by Ron Chernow
• Paper Girl by Beth Macy 

Atmosphere

One of the biggest novels of the year had to be Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. When an author releases multiple must read novels, you have to check out anything they right afterwards. It is no wonder Reid’s novels are already considered for adaptations before she even releases them.

Joan Goodwin is happy with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy. But that all changes when she sees an advertisement looking for the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program.

Now, she is determined to go to space and is selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in 1980. Joan meets other candidates and learns all there is to being an astronaut. As she plans for her first flight, she discovers new truths about her and the world. 

Things take a sudden turn in December of 1984. And it is up to Joan to showcase her abilities and why she became an astronaut.

The Emperor of Gladness

The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong was one of my favorite books that I read this year. It is no surprise that it has made multiple end of year lists and I do hope it wins awards many awards next year. This novel does a wonderful job of tackling heavy themes and you will likely cry a few times.

The story is about a nineteen-year-old teenager named Hai who is about to jump off a bridge. But before he can, an old woman named Grazina tells him to come down and he suddenly finds himself living with her as her caregiver.

The novel does a great job of making everything feel natural. The Emperor of Gladness is easily one of my favorite books of 2025. Few authors tend to understand trauma and mental health but in this novel, you can tell Ocean Young knows what he’s writing about.

Novels that make you feel emotions such as this one are rare and don’t come around often. Vuong is also a poet and you can see that influence his witting styles. There are many quotables in the book and it is a story that few authors could have told it with as much care as Voung.

Katabasis

There aren’t many authors that I can get excited about but one of them that I am a big fan of is R.F. Kuang. When I saw that she was going to releases Katabasis in 2025, I was ready to binge read it as soon as possible. And it was everything I could have hoped for and more.

Alice Law is a postgraduate student at Cambridge who is practicing magic. She wants to land a great job after she finished school but knows that her only chance to do so is with a recommendation from her former professor and advisor Jacob Grimes.

But because of a simple mistake by Alice, Jacob died while doing a magic spell and now is in Hell. And Alice plans to go to Hell to bring him back to life.

Just as Alice is about to create a magic circle to go down to Hell, her colleague and rival Peter Murdoch walks in and tells her that he is going to join her to bring back Grimes. They both descend to Hell and what follows is an adventure unlike any other.

Kuang has slowly established herself as a fantastic fantasy writer. Her world building is great and while it isn’t anything like a Brandon Sanderson novel, it has its own appeal. What makes her standout besides her writing is her magic systems that are uniquely her own and a lot of fun. Especially if you love history and writing.

Conclusion

I loved all the books from this list that I have read so far. Katabasis and The Emperor of Gladness were two of my favorite reads of 2025 easily. That should tell you how good these lists tend to be. In a few months, I will be reading a ton more of these books and hopefully many of my readers do too.

Over the past year, I have been reading more nonfiction books and I have enjoyed the ones I have selected. A great nonfiction book is just as good as a great fiction book.

The research that the author has done is impressive and I don’t take ti for granted. I will be reading a bunch more nonfiction books and some of them will be from this list.

That is all for the The Los Angeles Public Library’s 2025 book recommendations list. They have even more books on their list that is worth checking out. You can choose by genre and find the perfect books to read to start the next year. Until next time, happy reading!

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