Curious what NPR’s dedicated bookworms are devouring this year? Look no further! Our staffers have been hard at work reading through the latest fiction releases of 2025, and they’re excited to share their top picks with you. From gripping mysteries to thought-provoking literary works, discover the novels that have captivated our team so far.
1. All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman
Elissa Nadworny, correspondent, raves about this “very plot driven and definitely hard to put down” book that pulled her out of a reading rut. It follows a struggling mom trying to keep her life together while simultaneously unraveling the mystery of her son’s missing classmate, full of “fun twists and turns and characters who surprise you.”
2. Among Friends by Hal Ebbott
Andrew Limbong, correspondent and host of NPR’s Book of the Day podcast, describes Ebbott’s debut as an initial exploration of the complex dynamics between old friends. A birthday weekend brings two families together, stirring up old resentments and jealousies. But then, a pivotal event shifts everything, transforming those familiar feelings into “something else altogether.”
3. Animal Instinct by Amy Shearn
Sarah Handel, senior editor for All Things Considered, was so captivated by Animal Instinct that she had to text a friend: “Divorce is so HOT right now!” This story centers on Rachel, stuck in her Brooklyn apartment during the early COVID-19 shutdowns, who, post-divorce, craves connection. As she navigates dating apps, she contemplates creating the perfect AI partner, using her tech skills to bring her idea to life, only to discover that “it might take more than chat to satisfy her animal instincts.”
4. The Antidote by Karen Russell
Tayla Burney, director of Network Programming and Production, calls this historical fiction novel “both an epic and an omen.” Rooted in Dust Bowl tragedies, it transcends time and place, introducing readers to a “Prairie Witch” whose radical listening offers a unique form of proto-therapy. The novel explores collective histories we struggle to confront and their implications for our future, with Russell masterfully depicting the “strange quotidian” and imbuing the everyday with “menace or magic.”
5. Audition by Katie Kitamura
Andrew Limbong, correspondent and host of NPR’s Book of the Day podcast, muses on Kitamura’s masterful narrative play. The plot involves a woman meeting a man convinced she’s his mother, leaving the reader to question: “What is a mother?” Kitamura is “stingy with details and answers, but generous with intrigue and depth,” skillfully exploring these questions without being overly clever.
6. Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Tayla Burney, director of Network Programming and Production, highlights this twisty read. Author Grady Green believes he has a perfect marriage until his wife, Abby, goes missing after he calls her with good news. A year later, grappling with writer’s block, he’s sent to a remote Scottish island. There, he thinks he sees Abby among the inhabitants, and it becomes clear that “both they, and he, aren’t as they appear,” leading to “twisty reveals galore.”
7. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
Cory Turner, Education correspondent, praises this novel as a “clever nesting doll of narratives, a sanguine revenge thriller stitched inside the corpse of an old vampire yarn, and a fearsome accounting of America’s murderous past.” Stephen Graham Jones expertly weaves it all together with “a hero (antihero?) for the ages” – Good Stab, a Blackfeet man determined to rectify historical wrongs, even if it takes him “a few lifetimes.”
8. The Catch by Yrsa Daley-Ward
Shannon Rhoades, senior editor for Weekend Edition, notes how this novel “bends genres and time.” It opens on the 30th birthday of twin sisters Clara and Dempsey, raised separately after their mother’s death. They are drawn back together when Clara claims to see their deceased mother, alive and also 30. The first half is “riveting,” and while the story is “nearly impossible to ‘land,’… an ending is perhaps beside the point.”
9. Darkenbloom by Eva Menasse, translated by Charlotte Collins
Barrie Hardymon, senior editor, describes this novel set in 1989 Austria as a “gossipy small-town satire that’s laugh-out-loud funny” and a “historical mystery.” Residents of Darkenbloom are unsettled by East German refugees, bringing up the specter of WWII. The town harbors secrets, with “good Nazis” and bad ones, and no Jews remaining. The book exposes the complicity of characters who convince themselves “it is possible to see evil only in hindsight,” leaving the reader with the lingering message: “Pay attention.”
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10. The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
Emily Kwong, host of Short Wave and Inheriting, found The Dream Hotel “instructive for navigating a society beset by mass surveillance.” Archivist Sara T. Hussein is detained for a “high risk” dream flagged by an AI algorithm. Lalami “incisively” crafts a world where a pre-crime system meets surveillance capitalism, featuring a “compelling cast of characters and endless parallels to today,” suggesting that “the only escape can be found in shouldering risk together.”
11. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
Ari Shapiro, host of All Things Considered, admits his own words fall short when describing Ocean Vuong’s “gorgeous prose” in this novel. It tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a college dropout and an elderly woman with dementia, and the bond formed among fast-food workers in a small New England town. Shapiro acknowledges that “Vuong would phrase it so much more beautifully.”
12. Fair Play by Louise Hegarty
Melissa Gray, senior producer for Weekend Edition, describes this clever debut. Abigail hosts a New Year’s Eve murder mystery, only for her brother to die for real the next morning. The novel poses questions of culpability and sanity, as Abigail’s mind grapples with tropes of a fair play mystery to find comfort from profound loss. Gray calls it “a mystery within a mystery within the most existential of mysteries.”
13. The Garden by Nick Newman
Jennifer Vanasco, senior editor for the Culture Desk, was drawn into this “intimate, slow-burn” post-apocalyptic story about two elderly sisters. Evelyn tends their garden sanctuary, while Lily “dances.” When their life is threatened, they respond differently, raising the implicit question for Vanasco: “Is it better to focus on the daily duties of life or on its beauties? On survival or on meaning? And can you have one without the other?”
14. Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson
Tayla Burney, director of Network Programming and Production, highlights Ebby Freeman’s journey from an idyllic childhood shattered by her brother’s murder to reckoning with prejudice and secrets in adulthood. The story revolves around a stoneware jar passed down through generations, symbolizing family resilience from slavery to prosperity. This novel is a “timely reminder that values, strength and connection sustain us more deeply than falsely taken power or the worship of status or things.”
15. Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi
Diaa Hadid, International Desk correspondent, praises Heart Lamp for immersing the reader in southwest India, where Muslim women navigate a world of “casual cruelty.” Inspired by Mushtaq’s experiences as a lawyer, the book portrays “evocative and fully formed” women, like one who finds strength in her daughter despite marital abandonment, or another who describes relief at her baby’s death after being ignored. Hadid, echoing Mushtaq’s own words, felt the book was “like a thousand fireflies lighting up a single sky.”
16. Helen of Troy, 1993: Poems by Maria Zoccola
Camila Domonoske, correspondent, describes Zoccola’s collection as a clarifying thought experiment: what if Helen of Troy was a small-town beauty in Sparta, Tenn., with a “crappy washing machine”? These poems “expand, complicate and enrich,” using the golden shovel poetic form to “thread the Iliad into something wholly new.”
17. Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang
Hafsa Fathima, assistant producer for Pop Culture Happy Hour, highlights this thrilling and haunting novel. When social media influencer Chloe dies, her estranged twin Julie, who looks identical, takes on her persona. What follows is a look at the “upkeep of pretending to be someone you’re not,” as Julie goes to “brow-raising lengths to keep up the farce and maintain her newfound audience’s love,” leaving the reader to wonder if she has a limit.
18. King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby
Melissa Gray, senior producer for Weekend Edition, says family secrets “burn” in this Southern crime drama. Roman Carruthers returns home when his elderly father is incapacitated by a drug gang, aiming to protect his siblings and help with the family crematorium business. Roman is drawn deeper into taking down the gang while his sister uncovers the mystery of their long-missing mother, leading to a “dark and satisfying conclusion.”