The Best Books of 2025 (So Far!), According to Real Simple Editors
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Every year, we select the new novels, memoirs, and short story collections we enjoyed most. Here are the books that moved us, made us think, made us laugh, and reminded us why reading is so good for us. Keep checking this list as we update it throughout the year! You’re sure to find something great for your book club—or just a cozy night in.
Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett
Amazon
Peter is a 40-year-old asylum lawyer in Manhattan who devotes all his time to work. His mother, Ann, runs a women’s retreat center in Vermont. The two have barely spoken since a pivotal event tore them apart some 20 years ago. But when Peter takes on the case of a young, gay Albanian man, it stirs up emotions he can no longer ignore. With characters so real you’ll be invested from page one, Mothers and Sons by Pulitzer Prize finalist Adam Haslett (Imagine Me Gone) explores how we grow estranged from our families and ourselves.
Homeseeking by Karissa Chen
Amazon
Homeseeking, the debut novel by Karissa Chen, features Haiwen, an elderly Chinese immigrant living in Los Angeles. Out grocery shopping one day, he encounters Suchi, his first love, who he hasn’t seen in 60 years. Teenage sweethearts in Shanghai, they were pulled apart in 1947, when Haiwen joined the army during China’s civil war. Now widowed, he’s eager to reconnect, but Suchi believes in keeping the past behind her. This epic novel is both the sweeping story of one country’s fraught history and an intimate look at a couple’s enduring bond.
People of Means by Nancy Johnson
Amazon
At the center of People of Means, the latest by Nancy Johnson (The Kindest Lie), are mother and daughter Freda and Tulip. In 1959, Freda is an upper-middle-class Chicagoan who goes to Nashville to attend Fisk University, where she gets drawn into the Civil Rights Movement. In 1992, Tulip is a PR professional whose career is threatened when she can’t sit quietly by after the Rodney King verdict. As each woman weighs her personal goals against her duty to her community, this dual-timeline story will get you thinking about the ebb and flow of our country’s ongoing fight for racial justice.
Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld
Amazon
Show Don’t Tell, a book of short stories by Curtis Sittenfeld, celebrates regular, flawed, complicated people—in other words, all of us. Each story features a woman trudging through life: In one, the narrator sees old friends for the first time after her divorce. In another, a grad student waits to hear whether she’s received a competitive fellowship. And in another, Sittenfeld revisits Lee Fiora, the main character from her bestselling novel Prep, who’s now attending a reunion at her exclusive boarding school. You’ll want to get this poignant and hilarious collection into the hands of everyone you know.
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Amazon
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney (Rock Paper Scissors) opens with Grady Green, an author, receiving career news he can’t wait to share with his wife. They talk on the phone as she’s driving home, but suddenly he hears her car stop, and then…silence. He finds her unscathed car, but she’s nowhere to be found. A year later, still distraught, he goes to a remote Scottish island to attempt to write again, where he discovers, among the eccentric, mysterious inhabitants, a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife. It’s impossible to know who to believe in this suspenseful page-turner; the twists will give you whiplash.
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