New Books To Read in 2025

Tuberculosis has been entwined with hu­manity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it. John Green, a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

The origin story of one of the most influential and transformative business leaders and philanthropists of the modern age. In Source Code Bill Gates tells his own story, for the first time: Wise, warm, revealing, it’s a fascinating portrait of an American life.

A searing, exquisite new story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires. A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations of the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power.

Hope is the first autobiography in history ever to be published by a Pope. Written over six years, this complete autobiography starts in the early years of the 20th century, with Pope Francis’s Italian roots and his ancestors’ courageous migration to Latin America, continuing through his childhood, the enthusiasms and preoccupations of his youth, his vocation, adult life, and the whole of his papacy up to the present day.

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, Mark Twain.

Learn to cook, host, and eat like a private chef with 100 recipes from Meredith Hayden of Wishbone Kitchen. With sharp, witty commentary, themed menus, and gorgeous imagery, The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook will inspire you to rediscover the joy of cooking, romanticize your grocery hauls, and find any excuse to celebrate with friends and family.

A funny, fiercely intelligent, and moving collection exploring marriage, friendship, fame, and artistic ambition — including a story that revisits the main character from Curtis Sittenfeld’s iconic novel Prep.

In San Francisco in 1866, an Irish nun, abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman. A riveting tale of self-discovery and love from one of the most masterful storytellers of our time, My Name Is Emilia del Valle introduces a character who will never let hold of your heart.

Two women haunted by their sisters’ unsolved disappearances band together in this captivating mystery from the host of the #1 true crime podcast Crime Junkie.

In this dazzling debut, Stegner Fellow Jemimah Wei explores the formation and dissolution of family bonds in a story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

A beautifully designed, profoundly insightful exploration of life’s 20 Questions, featuring original writing by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle and the wisest, most life-changing answers shared with the beloved podcast hosts over hundreds of intimate conversations.

In the second volume of the landmark American Revolution trilogy, George Washington’s army fights on the knife edge between victory and defeat. Timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the Revolution, Atkinson’s brilliant account of the lethal conflict between the Americans and the British offers not only deeply researched and spectacularly dramatic history, but also a new perspective on the demands that a democracy makes on its citizens.

From New Yorker Executive Editor and writer Michael Luo, an urgent, deeply felt history of the Chinese in America and their more than century-long struggle to belong. Strangers in the Land is an epic history of exclusion, belonging, and the complications of America’s multiracial democracy.

A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: A socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter’s wedding. Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer at the height of her powers.

This graphic novel follows Craig Thompson and his siblings, who spent the summers of their youth weeding and harvesting rows of coveted American ginseng on rural Wisconsin farms for one dollar an hour. In his trademark breathtaking pen-and-ink work, Craig interweaves this lost youth with the 300-year-old history of the global ginseng trade and the many lives it has tied together — from ginseng hunters in ancient China, to industrial farmers and migrant harvesters in the American Midwest, to his own family still grappling with the aftershocks of the bitter past.

Join B. Dylan Hollis on a cross-country culinary journey with 100 uniquely American recipes. You’ll be hitting the pavement in vintage style as Dylan leads you on a journey through the culture capitals of America to bring you the very best bakes the country has to offer. His retro recipes span the decades from the 1850s to the 1990s and feature famous (and infamous!) desserts from every state.

Tina Knowles, the mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Solange Knowles, and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland, is known the world over as a Matriarch with a capital M: A determined, self-possessed, self-aware, and wise woman who raised and inspired some of the great artists of our time. But this story is about so much more than that. A glorious chronicle of a life like none other — enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering — and a testament to the world-changing power of Black motherhood.

Culinary icon, founder of the Kogi food truck and star of Netflix’s The Chef Show shares 100 flavor-packed recipes that empower you to eat healthy — or, at least, healthier — without ditching your go-to favorites.

From the beloved TODAY show host Sheinelle Jones comes an inspiring collection of heartfelt life-lessons from hard working moms who raised some of our favorite celebrities. By combining behind-the-scenes insights from top celebrity mothers with her own tales from the trenches of modern parenting, Sheinelle reveals how to make it through the hard parts of motherhood and still tap into the joys of it with empathy, generosity, and solidarity.

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is … complicated. So when her real dad — a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago — suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you: About love, and what it actually means to be family.

When a daring art heist takes place at the Regency Grand, Molly’s life is threatened. The question is who’s out to get her, and why? Long-buried secrets will be revealed in this intriguing and heartwarming novel.

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young — young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day — partner, parent, creator, muse — and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.

A woman learns the astonishing truth of her family’s ties to a vanished American Kingdom in this riveting new novel. Inspired by true events, Happy Land is a transporting multi-generational novel about the stories that shape up and the dazzling courage it takes to dream.

From a renowned National Book Award-winning scholar, an extraordinary new account of the life of Jesus that explores the mystery of how a poor young man inspired a religion that reshaped the world. In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels sheds light on Jesus’s enduring power to inspire and attract.

In this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she’s willing to risk for the life of a stranger. A vivid and sweeping story of two people navigating the boundaries of love and humanity in a landscape of brutal violence, The Jackal’s Mistress is a heart-stopping new novel, based on a largely unknown piece of American history, from one of our greatest storytellers.

Yung Pueblo offers a blueprint for deepening your compassion, kindness, and gratitude so you can truly grow in harmony with another person and build stronger connections in all your relationships.

Discover the Italian approach to healthful eating — where nothing is off the menu — with 100 delicious, superfood-packed recipes from New York Times bestselling author Giada De Laurentiis.

An unforgettable story of hardship and hope, courage and resilience, that follows one young woman’s journey through war-torn Italy. A remarkable tale of friendship, motherhood, and survival, One Good Thing is a tender reminder that love for another person, even amidst darkness and uncertainty, can be reason to keep going.

In hilarious and tender essays, #1 New York Times bestselling author Chelsea Handler shares her unforgettable story of becoming the woman she always wanted to be. Surprisingly vulnerable and always outrageous, Chelsea Handler captures the antic-filled, exhilarating, and joyful life she’s built — a life that makes the rest of us think, I’ll have what she’s having.

The fascinating, untold story of the air we breathe, the hidden life it contains, and invisible dangers that can turn the world upside down. Weaving together gripping history with the latest reporting on Covid and other threats to global health, Air-Borne surprises us on every page as it reveals the hidden world of the air.

In 1919, a high school teacher from Washington, D.C arrives in Harlem excited to realize her lifelong dream. Jessie Redmon Fauset has been named the literary editor of The Crisis. The first Black woman to hold this position at a preeminent Negro magazine, Jessie is poised to achieve literary greatness. But she holds a secret that jeopardizes it all. Discover the extraordinary story of the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance.

A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.

From one of our foremost psychologists, a trailblazing book that turns the idea of a good life on its head and urges us to embrace the transformative power of variety and experience.

The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom. In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present.