As we approach 2025, book reviewers have begun publishing their “best of the quarter century” lists, an effort that spawns versions of what to read this year — right now before it disappears from the lists! Worry not, readers, for bookstores and libraries far and wide stock everything new and then just move titles along the shelves for the next batch. And wouldn’t you love this problem: Michaela says that so many kids are borrowing books that, in order to keep the shelves looking full, she just has to keep purchasing more books!

Memoirs are flooding the reading public right now: Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, cookbook author (but so much more) Ina Garten, and former Russian dissident Alexei Navalny top the lists. 

Why We Love Football by Joe Posnanski explains American joy in the game, and Malcolm Gladwell extends his tipping points in a new release. The Boys of Riverside follows a New York Times reporter’s exploration of a successful football team in which all involved are deaf. I have to toss in Women in the Valley of Kings for those fans of Amelia Peabody; this is the real-life story of women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age.

There’s no shortage of new fiction, most by familiar authors. Morgan Talty’s Fire Exit reviews right up there with The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich, both novels focused on Native American communities. Elizabeth Strout’s Tell Me Everything reveals more community secrets. 

One reviewer from The Chicago Tribune said of the latter two: “Nothing much happens in these novels, except everything happens.” Finally, Richard Powers shares his environmental take on the ocean in his new novel, Playground.