The 10 best books of 2025

There are layers upon layers of mystery in American novelist Katie Kitamura’s Booker Prize-shortlised Audition. The prose is stark and minimalist, and the narrator remains unnamed. What we do know is that it is a novel entirely and deeply concerned with the nature of performance, built around the relationship between an older actress and a younger man, Xavier, who claims to be her son. With a narrative switch halfway through, the book constantly keeps you on your toes. I finished it wanting to read it all over again.

I picked up Keith McNally’s memoir expecting an interesting but predictable account of the rise of one of New York City’s most prolific restaurateurs. What I found instead was a bold, fascinating life story about a working-class kid from London’s East End turned child actor, who becomes the partner of a famed West End playwright before moving to NYC and making himself a fixture of the city’s cultural scene. The Balthazar and Minetta Tavern founder takes you right to the heart of ’70s and ’80s New York City, from the glamour of the Odeon and One Fifth and clashes with Patti Smith, to burgers with John Belushi, and trips with Anna Wintour. And it’s all told with the candour, humility and self-awareness of a man who has never forgotten his roots, reflecting on a fascinating life as he recovers from a debilitating stroke. 

Queer culture writer Jeremy Atherton Lin delivers another installment of insightful social commentary and colourful personal essay in this follow-up to his bestselling 2021 memoir Gay Bar. Redirecting his attention from queer nightlife and the fight for gay marriage, the American writer crams a whole bunch of legal history into the book’s 320 pages without ever getting bogged down in facts. Deep House compassionately teases out the human stories behind several landmark legal cases on the meandering road to equal marriage, while also telling the story of Atherton Lin’s star-crossed transatlantic romance with his now-husband, a British artist he met at a London clubnight while backpacking through Europe after college. It’s just as sexy, witty, poignant and vividly realised as Atherton Lin’s debut, and cements his status as one of the contemporary queer canon’s biggest talents. 

Don’t be fooled by the length of this book. Christian Kracht, Swiss journalist and author of other works Faserland and Imperium, packs what feels like a painfully arduous and emotionally strained journey through the Alps between a middle aged son (Christian – it’s autofiction) and elderly mother into a neat 192 pages, which is awkward, sad, bizarre and genuinely funny. The 2025 International Booker Prize-nominated novella sees us follow Christian and his 80-year old mother through – wait for it – a vegetarian commune, an abandoned airport runway and a hazardous ski lift, bickering, uniting, dipping into a dark and abusive family history and grappling with the inevitability of ageing, all with the unexpected but highly effective use of a colostomy bag as a device to diffuse the tension.

Fresh from being named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2023, Saba Sams followed up her acclaimed story collection Send Nudes with debut novel Gunk this year. The plot revolves around the grubby world of the titular student nightclub and its long-suffering yet indefatigable manager, a woman a couple of decades older than the punters she serves, who is grappling with her yearning for (and failure to achieve) motherhood. Gunk isn’t nearly as outlandish as Sams’ short stories, but it’s a perfectly entertaining exploration of unconventional love and family, with the fleshy descriptions of pregnancy and birth showcasing Sams’ writing chops.

Who knew a book about ISIS brides could be such a laugh? That’s precisely what Nussaibah Younis’ properly side-splitting, Women’s Prize-shortlisted debut Fundamentally is. Nadia, a lecturer at UCL, finds her life abruptly transformed when a paper she has written attracts global attention and lands her a role at the UN, where she heads up a deradicalisation programme. At the same time, she is reeling from heartbreak after being dumped by her long-term girlfriend, Rosy. Written from Nadia’s perspective, it is stuffed full of naughty, wry observations about politics, religion and relationships. You’d have to be a real misery guts not to get chuckling.

For a book that details serious drug addiction, harrowing public shaming and the messy breakdown of various relationships, Rumors of My Demise is a whole lot of fun. Evan Dando was privileged in background as well as looks, but quickly became one of 1990s indie’s most famous frontmen. Like every writer of a decent rock’n’roll memoir, he’s adept at spinning an excellent yarn and rattles through his time as frontman of the pop-leaning Lemonheads at a page-turning clip. Come for the droll cameos from Courtney Love and Noel Gallagher et al, and stay for the endless charm. Evan Dando is a man who never took anything too seriously, and he’s not about to start now.

Set in Paris, Cécile Tlili’s Just a Little Dinner follows two couples in crisis as they meet for what can only be described as a truly disastrous dinner party. Throughout the evening, the foursome’s secrets weigh almost as heavy as the suffocating August heat, and over a – genuinely quite delicious-sounding – meal of fragrant curry and indulgent chocolate mousse, relationship curdle and true feelings surface. Tlili’s prose is observant, quietly confident in its ability to capture the tension of a dinner table full of people who would rather be anywhere else. I wouldn’t describe reading it as a relaxing experience. I would, however, say it left me craving an excellent French dessert – preferably eaten alone.

An Inconvenience of Penguins is about penguins – quite literally all of the penguins, retelling Jamie Lafferty’s attempt to see, photograph and understand all 18 species – but it touches on so much more than flightless seabirds. Lafferty wittily, wisely lays bare the machinations of the Antarctic and birding tourism industries, the oft-humiliating toils of being a traveller and travel writer, the heroic efforts of exhausted conservationists and the extreme reality of visiting some of the planet’s most remote places. You’ll finish the last page knowing your northern and southern rockhoppers from your magellanics and humboldts, sure, but you’ll have also gotten caught up in a rollicking tale of obsession and pursuit, as poignant and thoughtful as it is joyful, entertaining and, in places, a bit mad. 

My book of the year is this non-fiction thriller from British investigative journalist Matt Blake. The concept is enough to send a chill down the spine of just about anyone: what if it turned out that your home had a disturbingly dark history? When Blake moves into his new Walthamstow digs he’s fresh from a divorce and worried about how his young daughter’s going to cope with the upheaval. What he’s not counting on is the essence of the house’s previous, deeply evil inhabitant seeping into his life. Supernatural forces, simple paranoia or is there something more complicated at work? Fear and confusion hang over this book like a cloud, but in the end it’s Blake’s masterful conveying of emotional truths and familial love that makes the biggest impression.