reading list 2025
Old School by Tobias Wolff
White Noise by Don Delilo
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth
Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald
The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle
The Dog by Joseph O’Neill
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner
Emergency by Kathleen Alcott
A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness by Jai Chakrabarti
On Writing by Stephen King
Goddess Complex by Sanjena Sathian
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
American Estrangement by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett
Pastoral by André Alexis
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Exhibit by R.O. Kwon
Family Life by Akhil Sharma
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Fulfillment by Lee Cole
Milkman by Anna Burns
Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky
The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller
Family Planning by Karan Mahajan
A Blessed Child by Linn Ullmann
The Dry Season by Melissa Febos
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Discontent by Beatriz Serrano
Flesh by David Szalay
Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
Pan by Michael Clune
The Slip by Lucas Schaefer
Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa
The Best Short Stories 2025 edited by Edward P. Jones
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
Women Talking by Miriam Toews
Audition by Katie Kitamura
James by Percival Everett
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers
Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Wayfinder by Adam Johnson
10:04 by Ben Lerner
The Art of Time in Fiction by Joan Silber
Sololand by Hassan Blasim
The Art of Mystery by Maud Casey
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
A Burning by Megha Majumdar
The World According to Garp by John Irving
The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns
The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
