Choosing 10 fiction titles and 10 nonfiction titles to represent the best books of the year is a daunting task. But it also gives us the opportunity to reflect on the reading experiences that left indelible marks on our souls. Through mounting glee and terror, fits of rage and laughter, these 20 works of literature emerged as our favorites of 2025. Click through to read our reviews. (And don't miss our Best Children's and YA Books, announced next week!) --Dave Wheeler, senior editor, Shelf Awareness
Fiction
Audition by Katie Kitamura (Riverhead)
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga Press)
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab (Tor)
The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis (Holt)
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Europa Editions)
Mutual Interest by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith (Bloomsbury)
An Oral History of Atlantis by Ed Park (Random House)
Oxford Soju Club by Jinwoo Park (Dundurn Press)
The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (And His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine (Grove)
When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén, transl. by Alice Menzies (Vintage)
Nonfiction
Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty Year Trail to Overnight Success by Jeff Hiller (Simon & Schuster)
Clam Down: A Metamorphosis by Anelise Chen (One World)
Lullaby for the Grieving by Ashley M. Jones (Hub City Press)
Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy (Scribner)
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf)
The Quiet Ear: An Investigation of Missing Sound by Raymond Antrobus (Hogarth)
Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach (Norton)
Scream with Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism (1968-1980) by Eleanor Johnson (Atria)
There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone (Crown)
Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir by Craig Mod (Random House)