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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are the biggest headlines from last week.
Picking the best books of the year was no easy task, but we sure had a lot of fun doing it. This year brought us romances that left us swooning, horror that made us sleep with the lights on, and magical stories that swept us away. It gave us memoirs that moved us, nonfiction that expanded our worldview, poetry to ground us when we needed it most, and so much more. We present you with our picks for the best books of 2025!
The National Book Awards Winners
We have our winners, folks! Back in September, I made my predictions for the winners of each category based on the longlist and it looks like I got two out five right: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (one of my selections for Best Books of 2025) won in Nonfiction and The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems by Patricia Smith won in Poetry. Our big Fiction winner was The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine. I originally thought The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy would take it, and then convinced myself A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar would get it after the shortlist and other awards were announced. We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Robin Myers took Translated Literature. I was shook when We Do Not Part by Han Kang, translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, didn’t make the shortlist. The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story by Daniel Nayeri won Young People’s Literature. My pick, A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez by María Dolores Águila, didn’t make the shortlist, but I was mostly clueless about who would win in that category. Congratulations to all of the winners and all who made the prestigious long and shortlists.
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The NYPL Best Books of 2025
The New York Public Library is one of our most venerable library spaces, and it’s a tastemaker, so readers pay attention when they release their annual best books. And here we have this curated list with books selected by esteemed NYPL librarians! It’s sorted for adults, teens, and kids, and includes big, buzzy titles alongside under-the-radar reads. In Adults, we have Katie Kitamura’s latest, Audition; King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby; and The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy; with Dead Girl Cameo: A Love Song in Poems, a docupoetic debut by m. mick powell; Drome, a graphic fiction by Jesse Lonergan; and The Jamaica Kollection of the Shante Dream Arkive: being dreamity, algoriddims, chants & riffs, part of a “speculative ancestral project” by Marcia Douglas. This is one of the most interesting Best Of lists I’ve seen yet. *Chef’s kiss*
The Best Audiobooks of the Year
Audiobooks have changed my reading life for the better, between surviving long commutes when I lived in L.A. to making sure I got reading done for podcasting without neglecting a million chores. So I anticipate lists of the year’s best audiobooks as much as I do the overall roundups, and Libro.fm and Audible have released those lists! Libro.fm’s list compiles the year’s big hits based on sales while Audible’s list is a curated selection of editor and listener favorites. That said, it’s a bit like comparing apples to oranges, but the big crossover titles are Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, which got Audible’s top spot and placed fifth on Libro’s list; Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins; and My Friends by Fredrik Backman. It came as no surprise to see some of this year’s all-around greats on Audible’s list, including King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby, The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy (my current read, which I’m thoroughly enjoying), Black in Blues by Imani Perry, Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy, and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. Libro.fm lists my wildest-ride read of the year, Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. Google Play is releasing their list today, and we’ve got a writeup at the Book Riot Newsletter.
Rest in Power, Alice Wong
Renowned disability rights activist and author Alice Wong died at the age of 51 on November 14. I join so many others in grieving the loss of this MacArthur Fellow, Disability Visibility Project founder, and incredible human being who did so much to make this world a better place. Many readers were introduced to Wong’s work through Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century, the excellent collection of writing about the modern disability experience she edited. In a social media post, Wong’s family wrote:
As we mourn the incomprehensible loss of Alice, we share the words she gifted us with from her memoir, Year of the Tiger. “The real gift any person can give is a web of connective tissue. If we love fiercely, our ancestors live among and speak to us through these incandescent filaments glowing from the warmth of memories.”
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