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Best Books of the Year season is officially upon us! Barnes & Noble kicked it off with their picks for the best books of 2025, and now Publishers Weekly has put out its own top ten list.
Some of these titles will look familiar, because they’ve been getting a ton of buzz leading up to this point. There are likely books you haven’t read—and possibly haven’t even heard of—here as well, though. The Publishers Weekly picks skew more literary than the bestseller list does.
Included in the top ten is Indigenous horror, a history of capitalism, “the gayest love story ever told,” a time loop novel, autofiction, a Bruce Lee biography, and more. Publishers Weekly also has a list of their top 50 children’s and young adult books of 2025, separated into Picture Books, Middle Grade, and Young Adult.
Here are the Publishers Weekly picks for the best books of 2025.
Audition by Katie Kitamura
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The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
Capitalism and Its Critics: A History, from the Industrial Revolution to AI by John Cassidy
Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told by Jeremy Atherton Lin