Kickstart Your 2025 Reading List With the Books We Are Reading Right Now

After falling in love with the audiobook The Martian, I wanted to try one of Andy Weir's other offerings. Project Hail Mary takes the stranded astronaut setting and levels it up with much higher stakes and a lot of interesting twists.
The narration, read by Ray Porter, is engaging and makes you feel the immediacy of the peril in which they find themselves. It's like listening to an old friend tell you a story they were a part of.

James Bricknell

Evvy's new book, 100 Effed Facts About The Gender Health Gap is a thought-provoking read that gives back to Women’s Health Access Matters (WHAM) and makes a meaningful addition to any coffee table. This book features 100 shocking truths about gender disparities in healthcare research, access and treatment.

Nasha Addarich Martínez

After Magos and Joseph lose their 11-year-old son Santiago, Magos cuts out a piece of his lung. Taking a page from a folk tale she hears, Magos begins to feed the lung and it soon turns into a carnivorous creature. What results is a heartbreaking story about grief, acceptance, family and love. 

Anna Gragert

The “Blacktongue” series had an incredibly strong start, following a young rogue unwillingly recruited into a world-traveling band attempting to unravel a magical plot. It sounds like classic fare – but the approach is wonderfully unique, combining charming writing and characters with a world where humans have nearly been destroyed by a myriad of threats. Wizards are truly terrifying, goblins are a world-ending force, and thieves’ guilds are more powerful than kings.

This sequel goes back in time to the Daughter’s War, an infamous period of conflict against goblins when most men in the world have been killed, and women step up to lead a new battle. I’m not sure about the details and I can’t wait to go in blind. Fans of Prince of Thorns or The Name of the Wind will find a lot to love here.

Tyler Lacoma

The second book in author Marcie Rendon's Cash Blackbear series. I devoured the first one and I am delighted there are third and fourth installments. Set in the post-Vietnam War, and centered around a crime-solving young Indigenous woman. 

Amber Guetebier

In my opinion, the master of horror is at his best with short stories. He has the ability to haunt you not just with what he includes, but with what he withholds and leaves to your own imagination. I've been reading this latest short story collection very slowly, not because it is difficult to read, but because I am savoring every terrifying moment. Having said that, I am sure as soon as I get an afternoon to myself, I will read this down to the last drop.

Amber Guetebier

In this compelling and slightly disturbing collection of folklore, author Jeff Belanger invokes the many monsters of wintertime including Krampus, Gryla, the terrifying Yule cat and more. Witches, goblins, ghouls, gnomes, trolls... they are all out there lurking and if you take Belanger's advice, you just might survive the winter intact. Well-researched and wonderfully written, you'll laugh while locking your doors. This book is hardcover, full color and even has a red ribbon, so it also makes a gorgeous gift.

Amber Guetebier

There are audiobooks, and there are Graphic Audio audiobooks. The biggest difference in quality is the cast. While the original audiobook for Iron Flame (and Fourth Wing before it) was beautifully narrated by Rebecca Soler and Teddy Hamilton, the difference a full cast makes is remarkable. And the music filling the background of this story is a great way to really feel like you are a part of the story. I wouldn't go so far as to say Graphic Audio has ruined normal audiobooks for me, but it's great to see there's an option for folks who want something a little more dramatic. 

Russell Holly

A colorful, free-flowing collection of loosely connected stories that take place on a plot of land first settled by a Puritan couple escaping their colony. It spans many seasons and centuries, with dozens of delightful and complex characters and stories finding their way onto the pages. A wholly unique experience and a great pick for more experimental readers. 

Max McHone

Nora Seed is unhappy and an unfortunate life choice lets her experience the lives she could have led if she'd chosen differently. She's 35, and her wish to have lived differently might resonate with some people who feel it might be too late to make changes. The Midnight Library is a reminder that we're all where we should be. And if you enjoy Haig's style of writing, there's also The Life Impossible.

Ingrid Cruz

Even if you’re familiar with William Gibson’s work, you’ll probably be a little confused when you pick up The Peripheral -- but the mystery is part of the fun.
The story alternates between the world of Flynne Fisher’s near-future rural America and Wilf Netherton’s far-future London. Through what at first appears to be an advanced VR rig, the two are able to interact and solve a murder case, as well as explain why 80% of the population disappeared in the decades between their timelines. The Peripheral is an elegant time travel narrative that could only have been dreamed up by the man who coined the word "cyberspace." It’s also been adapted into a Prime Video show starring Chloë Grace Moretz.

Jason Chun

In this fantasy novella, Zen Cho describes an engaging group of “roving contractors” in a futuristic (dystopian?) society, who are disrupted by the introduction of their first "female" member, a former nun of the Temple of the Pure Moon.
There's more than meets the eye to all of the characters in this short tale. The straightforward story takes place at a good clip that manages to entertain and surprise at nearly every turn. 

Peter Butler

My days are better when they start with Mary Oliver’s words. During a particularly tough period of my life, a woman I had long admired recommended Oliver’s poetry and I’ve kept it close ever since. The words are simple, easy to digest and serve as a constant reminder to be grateful for each moment. Oliver’s love of nature is inspiring and nudges readers to pay attention and find the awe life has to offer. Devotions is a great place to start.

If you want even more poetry, you can’t go wrong with Nikki Giovanni’s A Good Cry: What We Learn From Tears and Laughter.

Stephanie Barnes

Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age was a hit for me, so I wasted no time grabbing her 2024 novel, Come and Get It. Reid introduces us to well-developed characters: a group of undergrads, an odd RA and a writing professor who is fascinated by the bunch. The story is a little slow but if you enjoy campus tales and books that make you question your own choices, you’ll enjoy this one.

Stephanie Barnes

Sometimes the smallest towns hold the biggest secrets. The official synopsis of James McBride’s latest novel reads:

“In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.”

This was one of those books I just couldn’t put down until I got to the end.

Stephanie Barnes