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It’s been a whirlwind few weeks in the book world. In addition to some of the biggest book award announcements–see the National Book Award and the Booker–we’ve been in the midst of a flurry of “best books of 2025” lists. “Best of” lists began to grace screens in early October, several months before the end of the year, not to mention several weeks before folks were likely beginning to purchase books for the holiday gifting season.
Since then, numerous other outlets have released their picks for the best books of 2025 so far. Among them are outlets known for their books–see Amazon and Barnes & Noble–and outlets that lean more into pop culture and cover books with less fervor than the retailers.
Given how many “best of 2025 so far” book lists have dropped, what books are emerging as among the most popular books picked for these lists? Are these titles different from or aligned with the “best books of 2025 so far” lists? Are they titles which got plenty of splashy promotion and thus, were most likely to rise to the top of TBRs from editors? Are these just damn good books that more people need to pick up? What the hell does “best” even mean, anyway?
The only way to really know is to take an inventory of as many as possible.
To build this list of the most popular books among the best of 2025 lists, I had to set some evaluation criteria. First, I selected lists published between the first week of October and the last week of November. These were all lists specifically designated as best of the year so far, distinguishing them from monthly “best of” lists. Only wide-ranging lists were included, rather than genre-specific ones. In other words, if a publication had a separate fiction and nonfiction list, that was fine; if they had a general fiction list and then separate lists for sci-fi, romance, and mystery, only the general fiction list made the cut, so long as they had a range of genres (in other words, they weren’t just “literary fiction”). If the outlet had a “Top 10” list, as well as more granular lists, only the “Top” list made the cut. Audiobook-only “best of” lists, like the one from Audible, were not included.
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The lists included had as broad a range of topics as possible, so outlets that only covered specific categories of books–i.e., business books–were out. I also elected to leave out thesprawlinglistof “favorites” of the year put out by NPR. It’s an awesome one, but it’s also over 380 titles. Just for fun, I did note whether or not the titles achieving “best of the best of”s below also appeared on that NPR guide. The books here are all published for adults, though you may see a YA title or two appear because they were given recognition on the evaluated “best of”s.
These criteria left a total of 15 unique outlet lists to explore. The lists included Amazon (“Top Books,” which included fiction and nonfiction), Barnes & Noble (“Fiction” list only, as their nonfiction was spread out into several categories), Book Page (“The 10 Best Books of 2025,” which includes fiction, nonfiction, adult, and youth titles), Book Riot (“The Best Books of 2025“), Bookshop.org (“Top Fiction” and “Top Nonfiction“), Electric Literature (“Best Novels” and “Best Nonfiction,” limited to both lists designated 5 best), Esquire (“The 27 Best Books of 2025“), Google Play (“Best Books“), Indigo (“Best Books of 2025“), Kirkus (“Best Fiction of 2025” and “Best Nonfiction of 2025“), Publishers Weekly (“Top 10 Best Books of 2025“), The New York Times (“100 Notable Books of 2025“), TIME Magazine (“100 Must Read Books of 2025“), The Washington Post (“The 10 Best Books of 2025“), and Waterstones (“Waterstones Book of the Year Shortlist“).
There were 669 total titles across all of those lists.
So what books are the most popular titles on the best books of 2025 lists? Find below those landing on anywhere between four and eight of the “best of” lists.
Titles On Eight Lists
- Audition by Katie Kitamura (also on NPR’s list)
Titles On Seven Lists
Titles On Six Lists
Titles On Five Lists
Titles On Four Lists
One of the things we know about “best of so far” lists that hit between May and July is that they only account for books published in the first half of a give year. But how many of those books continue to be nominated as among the best of the year when it comes to a close?
Just for fun, here’s the roundup of the top-listed “best book of 2025 so far” in July. The data came from a total of 10 lists and 150 title options (“best of so far” lists are not as common across outlets).
At the midway point in 2025, the following books were on between two and four lists; four was the highest number of lists any titles achieved. The first number in parentheses after the author’s name is the number of times that book appeared on the “best of so far” midway point lists, while the second represents how many times the title appeared on the end-of-year giant “best books of 2025” list of lists:
- One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against Thisby Omar El Akkad (4, 4)
- The Buffalo Hunter Hunterby Stephen Graham Jones (4, 6)
- The Emperor of Gladnessby Ocean Vuong (4, 6)
- We Do Not Partby Han Kang (4, 7)
- Auditionby Katie Kitamura (4, 8)
- Mark Twainby Ron Chernow (3, 4)
- Sunrise on the Reapingby Suzanne Collins (3, 2)
- Things in Nature Merely Growby Yiyun Li (3, 4)
- Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2, 4)
- Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams (2, 3)
- Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2, 2)
- Flesh by David Szalay (2, 4)
- Heartwood by Amity Gaige (2, 2)
- King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby (2, 4)
- My Documents by Kevin Nguyen (2, 2)
- One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune (2, 1)
- Sky Daddy by Kate Folk (2, 2)
- Stag Dance by Torrey Peters (2, 0)
- The Antidote by Karen Russell (2, 4)
- The Devils by Joe Abercrombie (2, 0)
- The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami (2, 4)
- The Names by Florence Knapp (2, 0)
- The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (2, 2)
- Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah (2, 2)
- Trauma Plot by Jamie Hood (2, 0)
- Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (2, 6)
- Wild Side by Elsie Silver (2, 0)
Some of the titles that went from being on the mid-year “so far” lists that appear to have fallen off at the end of the year likely did so as they were moved from a general “so far” list to a genre or category-specific “of the year” list.
Much like was noted at the mid-year point, if there’s any real take away from this data, it’s that there weren’t runaway “best of” books this year. Certainly, many worthy titles were honored in multiple outlets. But with 669 “best of” nominees, only 141 appeared on four or more lists.
Perhaps this is a sign that these “best of” lists are becoming more diverse in what they include. We’re seeing more books that could have previously been written off as “too genre,” or “book club” material being taken more seriously as among the strongest books of the year. Popular book club leaders like Reese and Jenna are highlighting more books that are seeing “best of” attention, and we’re seeing a rise in romance and romance-adjacent titles finally being taken more seriously.
There’s one thing for sure, though, in 2025 and it’s this: we’ve had a pile of great books hit shelves, and given how varied they are, there’s something here for every type of reader.