Shelf Awareness Announces Its Best Books of 2025

Audio By Carbonatix

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 5, 2025--

Shelf Awareness, the trusted publication of the indie bookselling community, proudly announces their Best Adult Books of 2025 from more than 1,000 titles reviewed this year. This list of 10 works of fiction and 10 works of nonfiction reflects the newsletter's pride in championing commendable writing, books with striking prose, distinctive premises, and captivating author voices. With close to one million subscribers who include booksellers, librarians, publishing industry professionals, and consumer book lovers, Shelf Awareness's mission is to support independent booksellers and help them thrive. Shelf Awareness partners with more than 400 independent bookstores to provide expert and effective marketing services on their behalf--all free to the stores.

Fiction 


Audition by Katie Kitamura (Riverhead)


The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga Press)


Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab (Tor)


The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis (Holt)


The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Europa Editions)


Mutual Interest by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith (Bloomsbury)


An Oral History of Atlantis by Ed Park (Random House)

Oxford Soju Club by Jinwoo Park (Dundurn Press)


The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (And His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine (Grove)


When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén, transl. by Alice Menzies (Vintage)

Nonfiction


Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success by Jeff Hiller (Simon & Schuster)


Clam Down: A Metamorphosis by Anelise Chen (One World)


Lullaby for the Grieving by Ashley M. Jones (Hub City Press)


Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy (Scribner)


One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf)


The Quiet Ear: An Investigation of Missing Sound by Raymond Antrobus (Hogarth)

Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach (Norton)


Scream with Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism (1968-1980) by Eleanor Johnson (Atria)


There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone (Crown)


Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir by Craig Mod (Random House)

The Shelf Awareness Best Children's and YA Books of 2025 will be announced on December 12, 2025.

Subscribe to Shelf Awareness

View source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251205345152/en/

[email protected]

KEYWORD: WASHINGTON UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA

INDUSTRY KEYWORD: MARKETING ENTERTAINMENT RETAIL COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALTY BOOKS PUBLISHING

SOURCE: Shelf Awareness

Copyright Business Wire 2025.

PUB: 12/05/2025 10:00 AM/DISC: 12/05/2025 10:01 AM

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251205345152/en