It seems like every big-name author released a book this year, and while there isn’t enough time in a year to read them all, here are a few that you should put on your list for next year.
This year gifted readers with a lot of great fiction. Taylor Jenkins Reid’s new historical romance “Atmosphere” has stayed with me since I read an advanced reader copy earlier in the year. The novel centers around Joan Goodwin, one of the select few candidates participating in the 1980s Space Shuttle program at NASA. Set across four years, Joan must not only navigate her new responsibilities as an astronaut-in-training, but also learn how to form new relationships with her fellow candidates and nurture her existing ones with her sister and beloved niece. “Atmosphere” explores what one is willing to do for their career, for their dreams and for love.
The best voice in science fiction this year came from Nnedi Okorafor’s “Death of the Author.” Struggling author Zelu Onyenezi-Onyedele decides to write a book unlike anything she has ever written before: a space opera about Artificial Intelligence and the end of humanity. As a dual perspective story between the events of Zelu’s life after fame and the events of Zelu’s novel, “Death of the Author” blurs the lines between fiction and reality and defies the boundaries of what a novel is.
Music lovers will find a new favorite in “Deep Cuts” by Holly Brickley. Reminiscent of Reid’s “Daisy Jones & The Six” and mixed with the unique feel of author Sally Rooney, “Deep Cuts” follows Joey Morrow and Eileen Percy Marks from college and beyond. Their desire for stardom and their obsessive love of music tear them apart and pull them back together over and over again.
My favorite work of fiction from 2025 has to be “Broken Country” by Clare Leslie Hall. We follow Beth through three different eras of her life, as they intertwine to create this beautiful story of grief, love and loss. With a love triangle, a trial and a secret that could bring down life as Beth knows it, this historical romance is wrapped up in a satisfying bow of mystery that had me clinging to every word.
Nonfiction truly shined this year through women telling their stories. There are three memoirs of particular note that deserve your time and admiration. Most recently, “107 Days” by Kamala Harris chronicles her historically short campaign for President of the United States through day-by-day chapters, showing every detail that went into her bid for the presidency. It was a heartbreaking read and incredibly impactful.
Over the summer, E. Jean Carroll released her memoir “Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President,” which chronicles her legal battle against President Donald Trump regarding his sexually assaulting her in the late 1990s. I will warn you; this is an incredibly hard read to stomach. It gives the explicit details of the assault, as well as the misogynistic standards of beauty and style that Carroll had to maintain at all times throughout both of her trials in order to make her case “believable.”
If you only read one book from this article, let it be this one: “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power” by Sarah Wynn-Williams. As an ex-employee of Facebook, Wynn-Williams gives readers a look behind the curtain at how the sausage gets made, and just who’s making it. Interspersing her time at Facebook with other personal anecdotes of her life, this book left my jaw on the floor time and time again at the conduct that people are willing to overlook for the sake of money and power.
I could go on and on about these books and many others, but I think this list has a little something for everyone to pick up and bring with them into 2026.
