These are TIME’s 100 Best Books of 2025!

Every year, TIME releases its highly anticipated list of the best books of the year, and with so many incredible releases in 2025, readers were eager to see which titles would make the cut. Today, we’re taking a closer look at TIME’s 100 Best Books of 2025 and the standout novels that critics believe defined the year in literature.

I’ve always loved end-of-year book lists. They’re one of the best ways to discover amazing titles that might have slipped under your radar during the year. And like most readers, there’s also something satisfying about seeing some of your favorite books show up on these lists.

TIME’s list is packed with incredible novels across multiple genres, from literary fiction and thrillers to fantasy and nonfiction. The only problem is that the list is so big that it might take years to even make a dent in it.

Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Having a long reading list just means there are plenty of great books waiting to be discovered.

One of the reasons lists like this are so valuable is because organizations like TIME and NPR spend the entire year reviewing and reading new releases. With hundreds of books published every month, it would be nearly impossible for most readers to keep up with everything on their own.

That’s why it’s nice to have trusted publications highlight the books they believe are truly worth checking out.

If you’re looking for new books to add to your reading list, this is a great place to start. Check out the full list of TIME’s 100 Best Books of 2025 below

• All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu
• The Antidote by Karen Russell
• Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Audition by Katie Kitamura
• Baldwin by Nicholas Boggs
• Black in Blues by Imani Perry
• Boleyn Traitor by Philippa Gregory
• Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood
• The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
• Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
• The Catch by Yrsa Daley-Ward
• Claire McCardell by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson 
• The Colonel and the King by Peter Guralnick
• Crush by Ada Calhoun 
• Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite
• Dead and Alive by Zadie Smith
• Dead Money by Jakob Kerr
• Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
• The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami 
• The Dry Season by Melissa Febos
• The Edge of Water by Olufunke Grace Bankole
• The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
• Flashlight by Susan Choi
• A Flower Traveled in My Blood by Haley Cohen Gilliland
• Forest Euphoria by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian 
• Gemini by Jeffrey Kluger
• Gingko Season by Naomi Xu Elegant
• Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert
• Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson
• Good Girl by Aria Aber
• Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin
• A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar
• Gwyneth by Amy Odell 
• Heart the Lover by Lily King
• Hostage by Eli Sharabi
• The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis
• The Idea of an Entire Life by Billy-Ray Belcourt
• I’ll Tell You When I’m Home by Hala Alyan
• Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane
• Isola by Allegra Goodman
• I Want to Burn This Place Down
• Joyride by Susan Orlean
• Katabasis by R.F. Kuang 
• King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby
• A Language of Limbs by Dylin Hardcastle
• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
• Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu
• Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar by Katie Yee
• Mark Twain by Ron Chernow
• A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst
• The Martians by David Baron
• Mercy by Joan Silber
• Moderation by Elaine Castillo
• Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
• My Documents by Kevin Nguyen
• Nothing More of This Land by Joseph Lee
• One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
• An Oral History of Atlantis by Ed Park
• O Sinners! by Nicole Cuffy
• Other People’s Houses by Clare Mackintosh
• Palaver by Bryan Washington
• Pan by Michael W. Clune
• People Like Us by Jason Mott
• Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa
• Primordial by Mai Der Vang
• The Quiet Ear by Raymond Antrobus
• Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
• Replaceable You by Mary Roach
• Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson
• Saving Five by Amanda Nguyen
• Scorched Earth by Tiana Clark
• Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon
• Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
• Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave by Mariana Enriquez
• The South by Tash Aw
• Stay Dead by Natalie Shapero
• Strangers in the Land by Michael Luo
• Sweet Heat by Bolu Babalola
• The Tell by Amy Griffin
• Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
• These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean
• Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
• The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan
• Tilt by Emma Pattee
• To Smithereens by Rosalyn Drexler
• The Trouble of Color by Martha S. Jones
• A Truce That Is Not Peace by  Miriam Toews
• The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine 
• Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart
• Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito 
• We Do Not Part by Han Kang, e. yaewon  (Translator), Paige Aniyah Morris (Translator)
• Where Are You Really From by  Elaine Hsieh Chou
• Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
• The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
• The Zorg by Siddharth Kara
• 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Katabasis

An author that I am a big fan of is R.F. Kuang. And when I saw that she was going to release 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. 

Wild Dark Shore

I enjoy reading thrillers and the best one I read this year was Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy. As the reader, you don’t know all the information and don’t really know who to trust. And that leads to an amazing story and a thriller novel that will be on many thriller lists for years to come.

Rowan washes ashore on an island that is occupied by four people. Dominic Salt and his three children. Dominic and his family tend to Rowan’s wounds but don’t know what to make of her. Neither party full trusts each other and as they spend more time together, they realize that secrets hang in the air between them. 

Why did Rowan wash ashore to this remote island and what is her goal? On the other end, Rowan can feel that something is wrong. Why isn’t there anyone else on the island? 

But as they live together, they can’t help but feel like one big family. But the secrets between them may tear them apart. The writing, plot, and storytelling make this novel an amazing read and easily one of the best books I read in 2025!

The Emperor of Gladness

The Emperor of Gladness 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 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.

This list has a bunch o f books I loved and from that, I can say this list was definitely tuned into what people were reading and enjoyed. We will know in a few months which book from this list will be winning major awards. Which books from this list made your end of year list? Let us know in the comments below. Happy reading!

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