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Books

Thu Dec 11 2025

Clare Mulroy | Books Reporter

Happy Thursday, booklovers!

Our best books of 2025 list is finally here, and I've spent a year going through more than 100 titles to bring you a ranking of the Top 15.

As I explained on this morning's episode of The Excerpt , curating a best books list takes time and care. I step outside my personal reading tastes to choose the most influential books of the year that speak to all different kinds of readers, from both a literary and storytelling standpoint. From narrative nonfiction to romance to horror, we're proud to bring you a list chock-full of diverse genres and perspectives.

USA TODAY reveals its best books of 2025.

Clare Mulroy, covers courtesy of Penguin Random House, Grove Atlantic, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster

You can read about all our 2025 best books here, but I wanted to bring you behind the scenes at my experience reading some of them:

🦇"Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng" by Kylie Lee Baker: A horror novel that kept me up at night in all the best ways. I read this with goosebumps down my arms for all 304 pages, both from the haunting plot and Baker's gorgeous, addictive prose.

🃏"Heart the Lover" by Lily King: This one should come with a warning label on the cover – don't read unless you are prepared to have your heart shattered (gloriously) into a million pieces. Apologies to my fellow subway riders who saw me crying on the train while finishing this.

🍃"Things in Nature Merely Grow" by Yiyun Li: A book I read in a single sitting, both because it was a short read and an engrossing one. Yiyun Li doesn't promise a tidy ending to her memoir, and I appreciated the quiet meditation on grief and loss all the more for that.

How many books have you read on our top 15 list? Tell me at cmulroy@usatoday.com or by reaching out on Instagram. Thanks for checking out USA TODAY Books this week!