I’m hyperlexic, so when I say, “I like to read,” I mean, “I read the way other people breathe.” Hence, there are many contenders for 2025 best books (around 250); to make this list is kind of a big deal.
Best book nominees are divided into six categories: perspective altering non-fiction, compelling memoirs/biographies, fiction that tells a good story, fiction that tells a story well, stayed with me for months, and short story/essay collections.
The Best Books I Read in 2025
I’m listing these without context or summation. If you’d like to learn more about the subjects/plots of these books, check out the Bite Size Book Reviews (featured on Ish Mom).
Best Perspective Altering Non-Fiction of 2025
These books made me think: about systems, about the times I live in and the context surrounding them, about my own responsibility/autonomy, and more.
- Don’t Believe Everything You Think
- How To Be A Citizen
- Starting From Scratch: A Different Kind of Writing Manual
- Man’s Search For Meaning
- Jane Austen’s Bookshelf
- Confederates in the Attic
- Age of Revolutions
- Millennium
- Warning To The West
- Kind and Usual Punishment
- Everything Is Tuberculosis
- The Haves and Have-Yachts
- The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Best Compelling Memoirs/Biographies of 2025
These memoirs/biography prompted rabbit hole-ing and hyperfixations about the subject’s life, social circle, and times. I don’t regret one minute of fevered Wikipedia scrolling, book hoarding, or video essay perusal.
- Kingmaker (Pamela Harriman)
- Cher: The Memoir Part 1
- The King in Love
- Barracoon
- West With The Night
- Counting My Chickens
- Wait For Me!
- From Here To The Great Unknown
- The Glitter and the Gold
- Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
- Diana Mitford
Best Fiction That Tells a Good Story of 2025
For decades I’ve divided literary fiction into two categories: those that tell a good story and those that tell a story well. Meaning: those I enjoy more due to plot (fantastical, historical, unusual and/or life-defining experiences) devices or “writerly” (metaphors, symbolism, vocabulary, etc) ones.
Like, “ooh, I can’t wait to see what happens next!” vs “I have to read that incandescent sentence again, what was that??” This category involves the former reaction.
(Some authors and works do both, but it’s rare. It’s usually more one or the other.)
- Familiaris
- Parable of the Sower
- Gliff
- The River Is Waiting
- Ferber Novel Collection
- >rekt
- Judgment Day
Best Fiction That Tells A Story Well of 2025
These books impressed me more with their literary wiles than psychological jump scares or exciting circumstances.
Stayed With Me For Months of 2025
While these books (fiction or non-fiction) could have been dispersed throughout earlier categories, they have an extra dimension of…stickiness that deserves its own category.
They carved space in my brain, for often inexplicable reasons (something to do with the skill of the writer), that make me think of them often, many months and books read later.
- The Well of Loneliness
- Private Rites
- Reporting Civil Rights
- All The Way To The River
- Three Women
- Nuclear War
- The Immortal King Rao
- Quicksand
- The Unbiased Self
Best Short Story/Essay Collection
Hot take: short story collections are a dime a dozen. Even the ones I like I can’t name weeks later. These, however? Chef’s kiss.
- The Pugilist At Rest
- Sonny Liston Was A Friend of Mine
- Joan Didion: The 1980’s and ‘90’s
- A Talent To Annoy
- There’s Always This Year
- Poison Penmanship
- Searches: Self-hood in the Digital Age
Conclusion
While I read to escape, I mostly read to be impressed. These books entertained, informed, and shifted paradigms.
If you’re New Year’s resolution is to read more books, start here. (Then let me know what you think.)
Want More?
Check out more bookish articles here:
- Excuse Me, Mr. Murakami? I Have A Few Questions About Killing Commendatore
- June 2025 Bite Size Book Review
- 12 Best Parenting Books of All Time (2022 Edition)
Happy reading!
Love,
