You know that feeling when you finish a book and just have to discuss it with someone? That's a great book club book. We looked through our favorite books of 2025, and pulled out 20 titles that are sure to get the conversation started. If your club reads fast — we've got you! NPR's Books We Love archive has more than 1,300 book club recommendations going back 13 years. Now all you need to figure out is: Who's hosting next month?
Audition, by Katie Kitamura
I guess I could explain the plot to you: An actress meets up with a man who is convinced she's his mother. It turns out she's not. I think? Maybe she is? Or, maybe she's not but actually kind of is? What is a mother? The most impressive thing about this Booker Prize finalist is how Katie Kitamura plays with the narrative and toys with the reader without being overly clever about it all. She's stingy with details and answers, but generous with intrigue and depth. — Andrew Limbong, correspondent, Culture Desk and host, Book of the Day
Buckeye, by Patrick Ryan
Where else would a novel called Buckeye be set but in Ohio? Its title, however, is the only expected thing about this moving historical narrative, which follows the lives of two intertwined couples in the fictional small town of Bonhomie from pre-World War II to the close of the 20th century. Patrick Ryan, whose previous books include the standout 2016 short story collection The Dream Life of Astronauts, aims to write an American epic and he has the chops to do so, even channeling Herman Wouk to take readers into the thick of naval battles in the Pacific. — Maureen Corrigan, book critic, Fresh Air
Cursed Daughters, by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Cursed Daughters, by bestselling author Oyinkan Braithwaite (My Sister, the Serial Killer), is another genre-bending novel that offers family insights, multigenerational curses and surprises. Cursed Daughters follows three women of the Falodun family – Monife, Ebun and Eniiyi – who are bound by a long-standing curse that "no man will call your house his home." Infused with Nigerian culture and magical realism, the novel showcases Braithwaite's rich characterizations, atmospheric settings and a daring premise. It also offers a multilayered story that makes Cursed Daughters a captivating, immersive read. — Denny S. Bryce, book critic and author of Where the False Gods Dwell
Death of the Author, by Nnedi Okorafor
This book will keep you guessing until the last chapter. The plot jumps back and forth between two connected stories: one about a human author and one about a robot obsessed with human stories. The book tackles some big themes, including fame and immigrant identity. But one of my favorite things about it is that the robot storyline is absolutely gripping. I couldn't put this book down, and thank goodness I didn't, or I would have missed the final twist! — Rebecca Hersher, correspondent, Climate Desk
The Emperor of Gladness, by Ocean Vuong
The banal sentence, "This is the best novel I've read in years," captures what I've told friends about The Emperor of Gladness – which is that Ocean Vuong's gorgeous prose makes every line I've ever written seem wan by comparison. "Best novel I've read in years"? How insipid! This book tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a college dropout and an elderly woman with dementia. It paints a picture of the bond that forms among workers at a fast-food restaurant in a small New England town. And writing these sentences, all I can think is – Vuong would phrase it so much more beautifully. — Ari Shapiro, former host, All Things Considered
The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne, by Chris Sweeney
Forensic ornithology is real, and Roxie Laybourne made it happen. This painstaking biography traces the ornithologist's Smithsonian career from early days restoring samples to being the world's best bird identifier, assisting with everything from poaching investigations to NASA flights. Though not always comfortable under the pressure of working with law enforcement, Laybourne was an indomitable force, and her passion for birds – through investigation, teaching and conservation – is evident on every page. For those who love niche stories of nature, science and social history, The Feather Detective offers a timely account of a fascinating – and peculiar – ecosystem: one woman, and lots and lots of birds. — Genevieve Valentine, book critic and author of Two Graves
Flashlight, by Susan Choi
Susan Choi took home the National Book Award for her previous novel, 2019's slim, slippery Trust Exercise, a formally inventive portrait of adolescence that the prize jury described as "timely, mesmerizing, and, in the end, unsettling." This time, Choi broadens her scope, with a story that draws on geopolitics even as it obsessively returns to a single family catastrophe that's as formative as it is mysterious. Both books share an affinity for shocking twists, as well as the happy tendency to twist reviewers into knots just trying to come up with a spoiler-free synopsis. Flashlight was nominated for both the Booker Prize and the National Book Award. — Colin Dwyer, contributor to NPR's weekly Book Ahead
Heart the Lover, by Lily King
An intimate novel about formative first love, friendship and the relationships that never leave us. This time-hopping story (of the perfect length, if you ask me!) sweeps you into the narrator's point of view with such visceral immediacy that it's easy to lose yourself in her memories. I canceled my plans to finish this gorgeous book, and I felt welcomely emo for a few days afterward. Heart the Lover is both a prequel and a sequel to Lily King's beloved novel Writers & Lovers, published in 2020, but it absolutely stands on its own. — Beck Harlan, visuals editor, Life Kit
Katabasis, by R.F. Kuang
Let's get two things out of the way first: Katabasis is the Greek term for stories recounting journeys to the underworld, and the real hell is grad school. R.F. Kuang's dense novel follows two rival doctoral students (of magic!) who follow their adviser into literal hell. Following the threads of tales like Dante's Inferno, Alice Law and Peter Murdoch journey through each circle of the damned, which for them mirrors the college campus from whence they came. Though they face some genuine fire and brimstone demons, their real challenge is confronting their own notions of success and sacrifice and acknowledging the ways they've each been damaged by academia. — Jason Grosman, senior software engineer
Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America, by Bridget Read
At the start, this book sounds like it's overselling the evils of multilevel marketing. Surely LuLaRoe and Mary Kay cosmetics aren't part of "a radical ideological plot to reorganize everything about how we work, survive and take care of one another"?! At the end, you'll say, "Wow, capitalism is the biggest MLM scheme of all." In between, Bridget Read explains why few people understand how MLM organizations function; how MLM heavyweight Amway has tentacles in the Heritage Foundation (of Project 2025 fame) and the Republican Party; and why these cult-esque operations are still allowed to flourish – all over the world. — Holly J. Morris, digital trainer
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, by Kiran Desai
It took Kiran Desai almost 20 years to write this near-700-page novel – her first since The Inheritance of Loss – and, boy, was it worth the wait. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny explores themes of exile and displacement – not only from one's home country, family and culture, but also from one's own sense of self. At heart, though, this Booker Prize finalist is a great love story, abundant with coincidences, misunderstandings and one bona fide art monster. — Maureen Corrigan, book critic, Fresh Air
Mother Mary Comes to Me, by Arundhati Roy
When your mother is your anchor, your icon and your tormentor, how do you deal with her death? That's what celebrated writer Arundhati Roy grapples with in her searing memoir. It's a raw look at the feminist force that shaped her as an award-winning novelist and essayist. The story begins in Roy's childhood in Kerala, India, as her mother, Mary, strikes out on her own and founds a school. As a single mother, Mary is constantly fighting for a space for women like herself and her daughter, but the fight creates resentment that she takes out on her two children. So when Roy loses her in 2022, she is surprised by the intensity of her grief over a woman she writes was "my shelter and my storm." What shape is she without the mother she ran from at 18 to survive? What shape is she without the woman who taught her never to shrink in the face of injustice, without her "gangster"? It's a story of turbulent love and of liberation that is beautiful, witty and at times uncomfortable to read. — Leila Fadel, host, Morning Edition and Up First
Only Son, by Kevin Moffett
Kevin Moffett's debut novel follows the arc of his narrator – an only son, natch – from the childhood loss of his father, to an adulthood as the father of an only son himself. Of course, that plot summary does little justice to this slim suburban Buddha of a book, which is composed of a series of short vignettes that are so simple, subtle and sweetly melancholy, they almost resemble Zen koans — though no koan I've encountered has, like this book, gotten me giggling enough to alarm passersby. — Colin Dwyer, contributor to NPR's weekly Book Ahead
The Rest of Our Lives, by Ben Markovits
If you're here from the future hoping to find your next read, some quick context for you – there was a lot of ink spilled about men and literature in 2025. This year, we were very curious to answer questions such as: Are men reading? Why don't men read literature? If they are reading, is it honest or performative? If men read more, would they stop acting like that? Which brings us to this Booker Prize finalist novel that, yes, is about and by a man. And it teasingly approaches male anxieties about aging, masculinity and sex (it's about a guy whose wife cheated on him, and now he's on an indefinite road trip). But Benjamin Markovits instead veers away from trying to answer the big questions plaguing men, and instead offers up a quiet story that's funny, tender and intimate. — Andrew Limbong, correspondent, Culture Desk and host, Book of the Day
She's Under Here: A Memoir, by Karen Palmer
In 1974, Karen Palmer, then 17, fell in love with Gil, a 36-year-old in the midst of a divorce; she writes that he seemed like the answer to "How do I escape my unhappy home?" Yet over 14 years of marriage, Gil tormented Palmer with his alcohol and drug binges, illegal schemes, and violence, jealousy and control that only escalated when she filed for divorce. In a bid for safety, Palmer remarried and fled with her daughters to Colorado, where they all assumed new identities. Told with cinematic, heart-thumping detail, She's Under Here offers haunting meditations on how fear lingers long after we reach safe shores and on what disappearing cost Palmer's family. — Kristen Martin, book critic and author of The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood
Tilt, by Emma Pattee
An extremely pregnant woman has to go to Ikea – and yet her day somehow gets worse from there when an earthquake hits. In a lot of ways, Emma Pattee's debut is a lean, action-adventure novel about a woman who has to overcome obstacles to get from Point A to Point B. But the book is tender in its approach to the singular will to survive, while also making time to poke fun at the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses of modern-day motherhood. — Andrew Limbong, correspondent, Culture Desk and host, Book of the Day
Vulture, by Phoebe Greenwood
I grew up in Gaza and covered it until I left in 2017. This novel reminded me that fiction can reveal more about the people who bring us the news than reportage ever can. It shows the relentless stress of the work, the creeping numbness, and the small moments of humanity that survive in spite of everything. I was struck by how accurately it captures the younger version of myself: ambitious, chasing the biggest and riskiest stories, never stopping long enough to understand what that drive was doing to me. Vulture grasps the moral and personal cost of that pursuit with remarkable clarity. Its emotional center is the relationship between the Western correspondent and the local journalist, two people trying to report honestly in a place sealed off and constantly in danger. The novel also exposes the gendered hierarchy of war reporting, where young women are taken seriously only when catastrophe surrounds them. By the end, it reminded me what it meant to live that life and why I stepped outside it. — Majd Al-Waheidi, editor, Morning Edition
What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan
The year is 2119, and catastrophes (climatic, nuclear) have reshaped the world entirely. On the archipelago that is now Britain, literature scholar Tom Metcalfe is engaged in a 21st century pursuit: hunting for the missing masterpiece of poet Francis Blundy, a birthday poem written in 2014 for his wife, Vivien, and heard only by the six guests at her birthday dinner. In the first half, Tom narrates his search, speculating on the Blundys' marriage and other shifting alliances. In the second half, the reader is poignantly reminded of the limits of scholarship. The book is egalitarian about genre; it's a romance, a mystery and a post-apocalyptic domestic drama that makes the stakes of our own precarious epoch deeply personal. And it demonstrates a hopeful counterweight to anxiety about the future – perhaps our epistemic limitations are merely an opportunity for our most tender and human artistic endeavors. — Barrie Hardymon, senior editor, Investigations Unit
The Wilderness, by Angela Flournoy
The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy was longlisted for the National Book Award and is the author's second novel, after The Turner House, which was also a finalist. Flournoy's new work follows five Black women – two sisters, Desiree and Danielle, and their three friends, January, Monique and Nakia – beginning in their early 20s and spanning decades as they navigate relationships, motherhood, careers, lovers and friendship. A nonlinear, complex story that is loving, tragic, funny and thought-provoking, The Wilderness showcases Flournoy as a fearless writer who creates richly nuanced characters, revealing their raw emotional lives and the deep bonds that connect them. It's a must-read. — Denny S. Bryce, book critic and author of Where the False Gods Dwell
Wreck, by Catherine Newman
If you haven't yet reached that stage of life when your body starts falling apart, it may sound terrifying. Wreck reveals the truth: Sure, it can be, but it can also be filled with warmth – a time to lean into your people and throw your hands up as each new indignity presents itself. That's how Rocky (who you may remember from Catherine Newman's prior novel, Sandwich) deals with it, anyway, and she makes a good case. Obsessed with news of a terrible accident in her community, navigating the byzantine medical system, Rocky lingers in beauty, too, from the fragrance of her grown daughter's hair, to the (smug?) satisfaction of turning foraged grapes into sparkling jars of jelly. As a whole, Wreck is both a balm and wry smile – it's only life, after all (with full credit to the Indigo Girls). — Sarah Handel, senior editor, All Things Considered
This is just a fraction of the 380+ titles we included in Books We Love this year. Click here to check out this year's titles, or browse nearly 4,000 books from the last 13 years.
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