The Best Books of 2025

THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER & ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025 ALSO NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY NPR, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, AND MORE “This is nonfiction that reads like fiction – the best kind. Elmhirst’s retelling is a triumph, second only to the seemingly impossible feat of Maurice and Maralyn themselves. You won’t be able to put it down.” – USA Today “Remarkable… I found myself, alternately, holding my breath as I read at top speed, wandering rooms in search of someone to read aloud to, and placing the book facedown, arrested by quiet statements that left me reeling with their depth.” – The New York Times “Such an emotionally vivid portrait of a couple in isolation that I was shocked it wasn’t fiction. How could a writer get so deeply into the minds of two real people in such extraordinary circumstances? … So brilliantly depicted.” – Elle “A beautiful meditation on endurance, codependence, and the power of love. A dazzling book.” – Patrick Radden Keefe “An enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit.” —Bill Bryson An instant New York Times bestseller, this is the electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits. Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she’s charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream – as we all dream – of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away? Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But in June 1972, Maurice and Maralyn set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves. What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests. Although they could run away from the world, they can’t run away from themselves. Taut, propulsive, and dazzling, A Marriage at Sea pairs an adrenaline-fueled high seas adventure with a gutting love story that asks why we love difficult people, and who we become under the most extreme conditions imaginable.

"Revelatory." --New York Times Book Review "Essential reading. A companion for turbulent times." --Laura van den Berg "Nothing short of a masterpiece.” --The San Francisco Chronicle Named a Must-Read Book of the Summer by The Los Angeles Times, People Magazine, and Town & Country Internationally bestselling author Miriam Toews' memoir of the will to write--a work of disobedient memory, humor, and exquisite craft set against a content-hungry, prose-stuffed society.
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In this breathtaking memoir of stunning emotional force and electrifying honesty, one of Canada's most iconic writers tells her own story for the first time. “Why do you write?” the organizer of a literary event in Mexico City asks Miriam Toews. Each attempt at an answer from Toews—all unsatisfactory to the organizer—surfaces new layers of grief, guilt, and futility connected to her sister’s suicide more than fifteen years ago. She has been keeping up, she realizes, an internal correspondence with her beloved sibling, attempting to fill a silence she can barely comprehend. As Toews turns to face that silence, we come to see that the question “why I write” is as impossible to answer as deciding whether to live life as a comedy or a tragedy. A masterwork of non-fiction, A Truce That Is Not Peace explores the uneasy pact every creative person makes with memory. Wildly original yet intimately, powerfully precise; momentous, hilarious, wrenching, and joyful—this is Miriam Toews at her dazzling best, remaking her personal world and inventing a brilliant literary form to hold it.

“A magnificent achievement—a long, gripping, and enthralling account of the life of America’s premier conservative polemicist of the twentieth century.”—Max Boot, author of Reagan: His Life and Legend “A rich, immersive biography exposes the roots of the modern conservative movement through the life of the firebrand writer and commentator who shaped it.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Economist, The Financial Times, Telegraph (UK), Christian Science Monitor, Air Mail, Prospect Magazine LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD In 1951, with the publication of God and Man at Yale, a scathing attack on his alma mater, twenty-five-year-old William F. Buckley, Jr., seized the public stage—and commanded it for the next half century as he led a new generation of conservative activists and ideologues to the peak of political power and cultural influence. Ten years before his death in 2008, Buckley chose prize-winning biographer Sam Tanenhaus to tell the full, uncensored story of his life and times, granting him extensive interviews and exclusive access to his most private papers. Thus began a deep investigation into the vast and often hidden universe of Bill Buckley and the modern conservative revolution. Buckley vividly captures its subject in all his facets and phases: founding editor of National Review, the twentieth century’s most influential political journal; syndicated columnist, Emmy-winning TV debater, and bestselling spy novelist; ally of Joseph McCarthy and Barry Goldwater; mentor to Ronald Reagan; game-changing candidate for mayor of New York. Tanenhaus also has uncovered the darker trail of Bill Buckley’s secret exploits, including CIA missions in Latin America, dark collusions with Watergate felon Howard Hunt, and Buckley’s struggle in his last years to hold together a movement coming apart over the AIDS epidemic, culture wars, and the invasion of Iraq—even as his own media empire was unraveling. At a crucial moment in American history, Buckley offers a gripping and powerfully relevant story about the birth of modern politics and those who shaped it.

A profound and unparalleled literary voice, Zadie Smith returns with a resounding collection of essays In the past two decades, few writers have been able to master the craft and art of the essay in the way that Zadie Smith has. Her discerning eye and singularly intimate perspective emblazon Smith as a preeminent critic of our generation, society, and culture. In her inimitable honesty and poignant voice, Smith studies the fault lines that divide us and consistently finds within them grounds for solidarity and compassion. This eagerly awaited new collection brings Zadie Smith's unique skills as an essayist to bear on a range of subjects that have captured her attention in recent years. Organized in five sections--eyeballing, considering, reconsidering, mourning, and confessing--she unspools personal dialogues with various sources of inspiration. She takes an exhilaratingly close look at artists Toyin Ojih Odutola and Kara Walker. She invites us along to the movies in her review of Tár, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and to her desk when researching the Tichborne trial and writing her New York Times bestselling novel The Fraud. She asks us to look at the young Michael Jackson and to mourn with her the passing of writers Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel, Philip Roth and Toni Morrison. And she shows us once again in Dead and Alive her unrivalled ability to think through critically and humanely some of the most urgent preoccupations and tendencies of our troubled times. A master of perception always in search of a lesser-known reality, Smith continually assesses, and reassesses, what it means to identify with the contemporary world, and how we choose to remember the history that brought us here.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER One of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2025 “Probably the most gripping, memorable, eye-opening book I’ve read in months.” —David Wallace-Wells, The New York Times “Propulsive.” —The Washington Post “Engrossing. . . . Truly shocking.” —The New Republic “The Fort Bragg Cartel opens like a nonfiction thriller and never lets up. A page-turning investigation into the dark side of our forever wars.” —Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars and Directorate S A groundbreaking investigation into a string of unsolved murders at America’s premier special operations base, and what the crimes reveal about drug trafficking and impunity among elite soldiers in today’s military In December 2020, a deer hunter discovered two dead bodies that had been riddled with bullets and dumped in a forested corner of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. One of the dead men, Master Sergeant William “Billy” Lavigne, was a member of Delta Force, the most secretive “black ops” unit in the military. A deeply traumatized veteran of America’s classified assassination program, Lavigne had done more than a dozen deployments in his lengthy career, was addicted to crack cocaine, dealt drugs on base, and had committed a series of violent crimes before he was mysteriously killed. The other victim, Chief Warrant Officer Timothy Dumas, was a quartermaster attached to the Special Forces who used his proximity to clandestine missions to steal guns and traffic drugs into the United States from abroad, and had written a blackmail letter threatening to expose criminality in the special operations task force in Afghanistan. As soon as Seth Harp, an Iraq war veteran and investigative reporter, begins looking into the double murder, he learns that there have been many more unexplained deaths at Fort Bragg recently, other murders connected to drug trafficking in elite units, and dozens of fatal overdoses. Drawing on declassified documents, trial transcripts, police records, and hundreds of interviews, Harp tells a scathing story of narco-trafficking in the Special Forces, drug conspiracies abetted by corrupt police, blatant military cover-ups, American complicity in the Afghan heroin trade, and the pernicious consequences of continuous war.

A New York Times Bestseller A #1 Sunday Times (UK) Bestseller Finalist for the 2025 Banff Mountain Book Competition in Environmental Literature A New York Times "New Nonfiction to Read This Spring" Recommendation • A Financial Times "Best Summer Book of 2025" • A Guardian "Nonfiction to Look Forward To in 2025" Pick • A Washington Post "Book to Watch For" in 2025 From the best-selling author of Underland and "the great nature writer…of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), a revelatory book that transforms how we imagine rivers—and life itself. Hailed in the New York Times as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler,” Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada—imperiled respectively by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, a stream who flows through his own years and days. Powered by dazzling prose and lit throughout by other minds and voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers—and always has.
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From the celebrated writer, observer and naturalist Robert Macfarlane comes a brilliant, perspective-shifting new book, which answers a resounding "yes" to the question of its title. At the heart of Is a River Alive? is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings, who should be recognized as such in both imagination and law. Macfarlane takes the reader on a mind-expanding global journey into the history, futures, people and places of the ancient, urgent concept. Around the world, rivers are dying from pollution, drought and damming. But a powerful movement is also underway to recognize the lives and the rights of rivers, and to re-animate our relationships with these vast, mysterious presences whose landscapes we share. The young "rights of nature" movement has lit up activists, artists, law-makers and politicians across six continents—and become the focus for revolutionary thinking about rivers in particular. The book flows like water, from the mountains to the sea, over three major journeys. The first is to northern Ecuador, where a miraculous cloud-forest and its rivers are threatened with destruction by Canadian gold-mining. The second is to the wounded rivers, creeks and lagoons of southern India, where a desperate battle to save the lives of these waterbodies is underway. The third is to northeastern Quebec, where a spectacular wild river—the Mutehekau or Magpie—is being defended from death by damming in a river-rights campaign led by an extraordinary Innu poet and leader called Rita Mestokosho. Is A River Alive? is at once a literary work of art, a rallying cry and a catalyst for change. It is a book that will open hearts, spark debates and challenge perspectives. A clarion call to re-centre rivers in our stories, law and politics, it invites us to radically re-imagine not only rivers but life itself. At the heart of this vital, beautiful book is the recognition that our fate flows with that of rivers—and always has.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The definitive biography of Lorne Michaels, the man behind America’s most beloved comedy show “The kind of biographical monument usually consecrated to founding fathers, canonical authors and world-historical scientific geniuses.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice) “Readers are treated to the Holy Grail for any journalist hoping to crack the show: a warts-and-all week in the life of SNL, where Morrison gets to see the real process of putting the thing together.”—Variety Over the fifty years that Lorne Michaels has been at the helm of Saturday Night Live, he has become a revered and inimitable presence in the entertainment world. He’s a tastemaker, a mogul, a withholding father figure, a genius spotter of talent, a shrewd businessman, a name-dropper, a raconteur, the inspiration for Dr. Evil, the winner of more than a hundred Emmys—and, essentially, a mystery. Generations of writers and performers have spent their lives trying to figure him out, by turns demonizing and lionizing him. He’s “Obi-Wan Kenobi” (Tracy Morgan), the “great and powerful Oz” (Kate McKinnon), “some kind of very distant, strange comedy god” (Bob Odenkirk). Lorne will introduce you to him, in full, for the first time. With unprecedented access to Michaels and the entire SNL apparatus, Susan Morrison takes readers behind the curtain for the lively, up-and-down, definitive story of how Michaels created and maintained the institution that changed comedy forever. Drawn from hundreds of interviews—with Michaels, his friends, and SNL’s iconic stars and writers, from Will Ferrell to Tina Fey to John Mulaney to Chris Rock to Dan Aykroyd—Lorne is a deeply reported, wildly entertaining account of a man singularly obsessed with the show that would define his life and have a profound impact on American culture.

Longlisted for the 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction A New York Times Most Anticipated Book "Fabulous . . . One gets a thrilling sense of history unfolding in real time." —Matthew Reisz, The Guardian This dazzling, innovative family memoir tells the story of a long-lost plan to create a Jewish state in Texas. On June 7, 1907, a ship packed with Russian Jews sets sail not to Jerusalem or New York, as many on board have dreamed, but to Texas. The man who persuades the passengers to go is David Jochelmann, Rachel Cockerell’s great-grandfather. The journey marks the beginning of the Galveston Movement, a forgotten moment in history when ten thousand Jews fled to Texas in the leadup to World War I. The charismatic leader of the movement is Jochelmann’s closest friend, Israel Zangwill, whose novels have made him famous across Europe and America. As Eastern Europe becomes infected by antisemitic violence, Zangwill embarks on a desperate search for a temporary homeland—from Australia to Canada, Angola to Antarctica—before reluctantly settling on Galveston. He fears the Jewish people will be absorbed into the great American melting pot, but there is no other hope. In a highly inventive style, Cockerell captures history as it unfolds, weaving together letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, and interviews into a vivid account. Melting Point follows Zangwill and the Jochelmann family through two world wars, to London, New York, and Jerusalem—as their lives intertwine with some of the most memorable figures of the twentieth century, and each chooses whether to cling to their history or melt into their new surroundings. It is a story that asks what it means to belong, and what can be salvaged from the past.

From New Yorker editor and writer Michael Luo, a vivid, urgent history of two centuries of Chinese exclusion and the birth of anti-Asian feeling in America. In 1889, when the Supreme Court upheld the Chinese Exclusion Act—a measure barring Chinese laborers from entering the United States that remained in effect for more than fifty years—Justice Stephen Johnson Field characterized the Chinese as a people “residing apart by themselves.” They were, Field concluded, “strangers in the land.” Today, there are more than twenty-two million people of Asian descent in the United States, yet this label still hovers over Asian Americans. In Strangers in the Land, Luo traces anti-Asian feeling in America to the first wave of immigrants from China in the mid-nineteenth-century: laborers who traveled to California in search of gold and railroad work. Their communities almost immediately faced mobs of white vigilantes who drove them from their workplaces and homes. In his rich, character-driven history, Luo tells stories like that of Denis Kearney, the sandlot demagogue who became the face of the anti-Chinese movement, and of activists who fought back, like Massachusetts Senator George Frisbie Hoar and newspaperman Wong Chin Foo. After the halt on immigration in 1889, the Chinese-American community who remained struggled to survive and thrive on the margins of American life. In 1965, when LBJ's Immigration and Nationality Act forbade discrimination by national origin, America opened its doors wide to families like those of Luo's parents, but he finds that the centuries of exclusion of Chinese-Americans left a legacy: many Asians are still treated, and feel, like outsiders today. Strangers in the Land is a sweeping narrative of a forgotten chapter in American history, and a reminder that America’s present reflects its exclusionary past.

Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Short-listed for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Long-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography One of the New York Times Notable Books of the Year Yiyun Li’s remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance as she considers the loss of her son James. “There is no good way to say this,” Yiyun Li writes at the beginning of this book. “There is no good way to state these facts, which must be acknowledged . . . My husband and I had two children and lost them both: Vincent in 2017, at sixteen, James in 2024, at nineteen. Both chose suicide, and both died not far from home.” There is no good way to say this—because words fall short. It takes only an instant for death to become fact, “a single point in a time line.” Living now on this single point, Li turns to thinking and reasoning and searching for words that might hold a place for James. Li does what she can: doing “things that work,” including not just writing but gardening, reading Camus and Wittgenstein, learning the piano, and living thinkingly alongside death. This is a book for James, but it is not a book about grieving or mourning. As Li writes, “The verb that does not die is ‘to be.’ Vincent was and is and will always be Vincent. James was and is and will always be James. We were and are and will always be their parents. There is no now and then, now and later; only now and now and now and now.” Things in Nature Merely Grow is a testament to Li’s indomitable spirit.

ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, New Yorker, Smithsonian, Bookpage, and the Chicago Public Library Longlisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction "[Lepore's] 15th book, We the People, a history of the U.S. Constitution, may be her best yet, a capacious work that lands at the right moment, like a life buoy, as our ship of state takes on water." —Hamilton Cain, Los Angeles Times From the best-selling author of These Truths comes We the People, a stunning new history of the U.S. Constitution, for a troubling new era. The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world but also one of the most difficult to amend. Jill Lepore, Harvard professor of history and law, explains why in We the People, the most original history of the Constitution in decades—and an essential companion to her landmark history of the United States, These Truths. Published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding—the anniversary, too, of the first state constitutions—We the People offers a wholly new history of the Constitution. “One of the Constitution’s founding purposes was to prevent change,” Lepore writes. “Another was to allow for change without violence.” Relying on the extraordinary database she has assembled at the Amendments Project, Lepore recounts centuries of attempts, mostly by ordinary Americans, to realize the promise of the Constitution. Yet nearly all those efforts have failed. Although nearly twelve thousand amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789, and thousands more have been proposed outside its doors, only twenty-seven have ever been ratified. More troubling, the Constitution has not been meaningfully amended since 1971. Without recourse to amendment, she argues, the risk of political violence rises. So does the risk of constitutional change by presidential or judicial fiat. Challenging both the Supreme Court’s monopoly on constitutional interpretation and the flawed theory of “originalism,” Lepore contends in this “gripping and unfamiliar story of our own past” that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. The framers never intended for the Constitution to be preserved, like a butterfly, under glass, Lepore argues, but expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, hoping to mend America by amending its Constitution through an orderly deliberative and democratic process. Lepore’s remarkable history seeks, too, to rekindle a sense of constitutional possibility. Congressman Jamie Raskin writes that Lepore “has thrown us a lifeline, a way of seeing the Constitution neither as an authoritarian straitjacket nor a foolproof magic amulet but as the arena of fierce, logical, passionate, and often deadly struggle for a more perfect union.” At a time when the Constitution’s vulnerability is all too evident, and the risk of political violence all too real, We the People, with its shimmering prose and pioneering research, hints at the prospects for a better constitutional future, an amended America.
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THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER On the 250th anniversary of America's founding - a landmark history of the US Constitution for a troubling new era. The US Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world - and one of the most difficult to amend. Although nearly twelve thousand amendments have been proposed since 1789, only twenty-seven have ever been ratified. Tellingly, the Constitution has not been meaningfully amended since 1971. Without amendment, the risk of political violence rises. So does the risk of constitutional change by presidential power. Leading Harvard historian Jill Lepore captures the stories of generations of ordinary people who have attempted everything from abolishing the Electoral College to guaranteeing environmental rights, hoping to mend their nation. Recounting the history of America through centuries of efforts to realize the promise of the Constitution, we witness how nearly all those bids have failed. We the People is the sweeping account of a struggle, arguing that the Constitution was never intended to be preserved, but was expected to be gradually altered. At a time when the risk of political violence is all too real, it hints at the prospects for a better, amended America.

The Zorg is the most consequential slave ship of the 18th century whose voyage changed the course of history, yet the story remains largely unknown. Drawing on a trove of archival materials, New York Times bestselling author Siddharth Kara uncovers new details of the Zorg's voyage and takes the reader on a gripping journey from the Netherlands to Africa's Gold Coast where it was captured by a British privateer before loading its human cargo and heading onto Jamaica on its ill-fated journey to fuel the lucrative sugar trade. A series of unpredictable weather events and mistakes in navigation left the ship drastically off course, running out of food and water. To save the crew and the most valuable of the slaves, the captain decided to throw 140 slaves, mostly women and children, overboard. What followed is a fascinating legal drama in England's highest court that turned the brutal business of slavery into front page news. For the first time, concepts such as human rights and morality entered the discourse on slavery, in a notorious case that boiled down to a simple but profound question: were the Africans on board the Zorg people or cargo? The case of the Zorg catapulted the nascent anti-slavery movement to one of the most consequential moral campaigns that changed the course of history.
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"A book of great importance and one that will likely become a classic." - New York Times Book Review A Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2025 From the Pulitzer Finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives Perfect for fans of David Grann’s The Wager and The Wide, Wide Sea by Hampton Sides In late October 1780, a slave ship set sail from the Netherlands, bound for Africa’s Windward and Gold Coasts, where it would take on its human cargo. The Zorg (a Dutch word meaning “care”) was one of thousands of such ships, but the harrowing events that ensued on its doomed journey were unique. By the time its journey ends, the Zorg would become the first undeniable argument against slavery. When a series of unpredictable weather events and navigational errors led to the Zorg sailing off course and running low on supplies, the ship's captain threw more than a hundred slaves overboard in order to save the crew and the most valuable slaves. The ship's owners then claimed their loss on insurance, a first for slaves who had not been killed due to insurrection or died of natural causes. The insurers refused to pay due to the higher than usual mortality rate of the slaves on board, leading to a trial which initially found in their favor, in which the Chief Justice compared the slaves to horses. Thanks to the outrage of one man present in court that day, a retrial was held. For the first time, concepts such as human rights and morality entered the discourse on slavery in a courtroom case that boiled down to a simple yet profound question: Were the Africans on board people or cargo? What followed was a fascinating legal drama in England’s highest court that turned the brutal calculus of slavery into front-page news. The case of the Zorg catapulted the nascent anti-slavery movement from a minor evangelical cause to one of the most consequential moral campaigns in history―sparking the abolitionist movement in both England and the young United States. The Zorg is the astonishing yet little-known true story of the most consequential ship that ever crossed the Atlantic.
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'A horrific tale of the slave trade, destined to become a classic' New York Times From the New York Times bestselling author of Cobalt Red, discover the incredible true story and page-turning account of the 18th century slave ship, often known as the Zong yet actually named the Zorg - ironically meaning 'care' - that sparked the human rights campaign to end the slave trade. Perfect for fans of David Grann’s The Wager and The Wide, Wide Sea by Hampton Sides. ‘Remarkable, riveting’, Adam Hochschild, historian and bestselling author of King Leopold's Ghost and Bury the Chains In 1781, the Zorg set off from The Netherlands to West Africa and from there onto the Caribbean. The fateful voyage would alter the course of history forever. By the time its journey ends, the Zorg would become the first undeniable argument against slavery. When a series of unpredictable weather events and navigational errors led to the Zorg sailing off course and running low on supplies, the ship's captain threw more than a hundred slaves overboard in order to save the crew and the most valuable slaves. The ship's owners then claimed their loss on insurance, a first for slaves who had not been killed due to insurrection or died of natural causes. The insurers refused to pay due to the higher than usual mortality rate of the slaves on board, leading to a trial which initially found in their favour, in which Chief Justice Mansfield compared the slaves to horses. Thanks to the outrage of one man present in court that day, a retrial was held. For the first time, concepts such as human rights and morality entered the discourse on slavery in a courtroom case that boiled down to a simple yet profound question: Were the Africans on board people or cargo? In his riveting new book, bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Siddharth Kara brings history to life, showcasing how the Zorg’s fateful voyage exposed the harsh reality of the slave trade. The case catapulted the emerging anti-slavery movement to one of the most consequential moral campaigns that changed the course of history. The Zorg is the astonishing yet little-known true story of one of the most consequential ships that ever crossed the Atlantic.

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME MAGAZINE, MARIE CLAIRE, BOOK RIOT, ESQUIRE, KIRKUS, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AND MORE! ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 BOOKER PRIZE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER “A tightly wound family drama that reads like a psychological thriller."—NPR “Bold, stark, genre-bending, Audition will haunt your dreams.”—The Boston Globe One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love. Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.
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**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025** A GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, FINANCIAL TIMES, BBC, TIME, VOGUE, MARIE CLAIRE, ESQUIRE and ROLLING STONE BOOK TO READ IN 2025 'Slick, sharp, strange and singular . . . You’ll gulp this novel down in one in-breath' SAMANTHA HARVEY, Booker Prize-winning author of Orbital 'A lightning bolt of a novel' FINANCIAL TIMES 'I’m not sure there’s anyone better writing in America today' ALEX PRESTON, Observer One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilising novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young – young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.

Short-listed for the Booker Prize Long-listed for the National Book Award “The first major American novel to be published this year.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal “Gorgeous . . . Almost impossibly heartbreaking.” —Sam Worley, New York Magazine A Must-Read: The New York Times, New York Magazine, Time, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, The Chicago Review of Books, Forbes, Literary Hub, and Town & Country “A major world writer . . . Choi is in thrilling command.” ―Dwight Garner, The New York Times “Devastating.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post “Ranks among her best work.” —Hamilton Cain, Los Angeles Times A Dakota Johnson x TeaTime Book Club Pick A novel tracing a father’s disappearance across time, nations, and memory, from the author of Trust Exercise. One summer night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the breakwater. Her father is carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found on the beach, soaked to the skin, barely alive. Her father is gone. She is ten years old. Louisa is an only child of parents who have severed themselves from the past. Her father, Serk, is Korean, but was born and raised in Japan; he lost touch with his family when they bought into the promises of postwar Pyongyang and relocated to North Korea. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her Midwestern family after a reckless adventure in her youth. And then there is Tobias, Anne’s illegitimate son, whose reappearance in their lives will have astonishing consequences. But now it is just Anne and Louisa, Louisa and Anne, adrift and facing the challenges of ordinary life in the wake of great loss. United, separated, and also repelled by their mutual grief, they attempt to move on. But they cannot escape the echoes of that night. What really happened to Louisa’s father? Shifting perspectives across time and character and turning back again and again to that night by the sea, Flashlight chases the shock waves of one family’s catastrophe, even as they are swept up in the invisible currents of history. A monumental new novel from the National Book Award winner Susan Choi, Flashlight spans decades and continents in a spellbinding, heart-gripping investigation of family, loss, memory, and the ways in which we are shaped by what we cannot see.
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**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025** 'Ferociously smart and full of surprises' Eleanor Catton 'Instantly bewitching' Jennifer Egan 'A rich generational saga that teems with intelligence' Financial Times The astonishing story of one family swept up in the tides of the twentieth century, ranging from post-war Japan to suburban America and the North Korean regime One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town while her father Serk, a Korean émigré, completes an academic secondment from his American university. When Louisa wakes hours later, she has washed up on the beach and her father is missing, probably drowned. The disappearance of Louisa’s father shatters their small family unit. As Louisa and her American mother Anne return to the US, this traumatic event reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened to Serk slowly unravels. 'Big, bold and surprising' Guardian ‘Engrossing... Choi is an astute, convincing writer’ Sunday Telegraph 'Susan Choi is a master of rendering relationships with utter particularity' Raven Leilani, author of Luster 'I couldn’t put it down, and once I finished, I couldn’t stop thinking about it' Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy

"Teenaged Istvâan lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and new in town, he is a stranger to the social rituals practiced by his classmates and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbor--a married woman close to his mother's age, whom he begrudgingly helps with errands--as his only companion. But as these periodical encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that Istvâan himself can barely understand, his life soon spirals out of control, ending in a violent accident thatleaves a man dead. What follows is a rocky trajectory that sees Istvâan emigrate from Hungary to London, where he moves from job to job before finding steady work as a driver for London's billionaire class. At each juncture, his life is affected by the goodwill or self-interest of strangers. Through it all, Istvâan is a calm, detached observer of his own life, and through his eyes we experience a tragic twist on an immigrant "success story," brightened by moments of sensitivity, softness, and Szalay's keen observation"--
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**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025** 'A masterpiece, told with virtuosic economy... Pure brilliance from the first to the (devastating) last sentence’ India Knight 'Brilliance on every page' Samantha Harvey 'Spare, visceral, urgent, compelling. This book doesn't f**k around' Gary Stevenson ‘So brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money' David Nicholls Through chance, luck and choice, one man’s life takes him from a modest apartment in Hungary to the elite society of London – in this captivating new novel about the forces that make and break our lives Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour – a married woman close to his mother’s age – as his only companion. As these encounters shift into a clandestine relationship, István’s life spirals out of control. Years later, rising through the ranks from the army to the elite circles of London's super-rich, he navigates the twenty-first century's tides of money and power. Torn between love, intimacy, status, and wealth, his newfound riches threaten to undo him completely. ‘How do I get out of a reading slump? This is the book to do that’ Rhianna Dhillon, BBC Radio 4 'A revelatory novel' Sunday Times 'So much searing insight into the way we live now' Observer ‘Refreshing, illuminating and true’ Financial Times 'Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant' Tessa Hadley 'One of the year’s best novels to date' Daily Mail ‘Utterly engrossing and I read it all in a day’ 5* reader review ‘I was hooked and tried to read this book with any spare moment that I had' 5* reader review A ‘Best Book of 2025’ in the Guardian, Observer, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail
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From Booker Prize-winning author David Szalay, comes a propulsive, hypnotic novel about a man who is unravelled by a series of events beyond his grasp. Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour—a married woman close to his mother’s age—as his only companion. These encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that István himself can barely understand, and his life soon spirals out of control. As the years pass, he is carried gradually upwards on the currents of the twenty-first century’s tides of money and power, moving from the army to the company of London’s super-rich, with his own competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth winning him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely. Spare and penetrating, Flesh is the finest novel yet by a master of realism, asking profound questions about what drives a life: what makes it worth living, and what breaks it.

Hilarious, moving, and accessible, the poems in this extraordinary debut interrogate patriotism in a deeply flawed country. In her best imitation of a historian, poet Sasha Debevec-McKenney combs through the past. Joy Is My Middle Name is about crawling through your twenties and emerging into your thirties. Walking uneasily through cities and rural towns, talking about sex, race, womanhood, addiction, sobriety, consumerism, and pop culture, these poems pull at the edges of the performed self with ease. This remarkable debut collection showcases Debevec-McKenney’s intimate, assured, conversational voice. Full of stories, character, awkward silences, and actual jokes, Joy Is My Middle Name seamlessly traces the author’s search for herself and examines how she gets in her own way, brings humor and lightness to rock-bottom moments, and considers the shamelessly girly as a serious cultural artifact. All the while, Debevec-McKenney uses her own life to get revenge on the version of American history we’re taught in school. She brilliantly weaves together the political and the personal, maps the interior onto the exterior, and vice versa. Humble, giddy, ridiculous, bold, deep, empathetic, difficult, ragged, strange, erratic, and lithe, Joy Is My Middle Name is the most open conversation with your greatest friend, over the best dinner, the buzz of life’s perfect—and not-so-perfect—moments funneled onto the page. “My life changed when I found out what I could do with my mouth. I licked it all up, thirsty as any lifelong learner, any other lover of the last drop, swallowing everything but what I had to say.” —from “WHEN I MET SHARON OLDS SHE TOLD ME TO WRITE A POEM ABOUT LBJ’S PENIS”

BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLIST • KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years—an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize–winning author of The Inheritance of Loss “A transcendent triumph . . . not so much a novel as a marvel.”—The New York Times Book Review “A spectacular literary achievement. I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever.”—Ann Patchett “Devastating, lyrical, and deeply romantic . . . an unmitigated joy to read.”—Khaled Hosseini One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Fall: The New York Times, Oprah Daily, Time, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, Book Riot, Publishers Weekly, and more When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive Sonia and Sunny apart. Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.
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Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025 A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years—an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Inheritance of Loss When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated, yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that only served to drive Sonia and Sunny apart. Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India, fearing she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists. ‘I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever’ Ann Patchett Profound, sparkling, funny, exquisitely written, [The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny] teaches us how to live in full-throated exultation for the astonishments of this world’ Lauren Groff
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ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW’S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF PEOPLE’S TOP 5 BOOKS OF THE YEAR BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLIST KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NPR, Time, Oprah Daily, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Economist, Harper’s Bazaar, The Globe and Mail, BBC, New York Post, Kirkus Reviews, Elle, Library Journal, Libby, Chicago Public Library, Lit Hub ONE OF BOOKPAGE’S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years—an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize–winning author of The Inheritance of Loss “A transcendent triumph . . . not so much a novel as a marvel.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) “A magnificent saga.”—Washington Post “Lavish, funny, smart, and wise, this is a novel that will last.”—The Boston Globe “A spectacular literary achievement. I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever.”—Ann Patchett “A novel so wonderful, when I got to the last page, I turned to the first and began again.”—Sandra Cisneros “Devastating, lyrical, and deeply romantic . . . an unmitigated joy to read.”—Khaled Hosseini “A masterpiece.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review “A sweeping page-turner, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a kind of Romeo and Juliet story for a modern, globalized age.”—Publishers Weekly (Top 10 New Fall Books) When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive Sonia and Sunny apart. Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.

In his fourth book of poems, award-winning poet Garrett Hongo sees coastlines and waters, skylines and ancestral lines for what they inspire and teach. In a surpassingly beautiful collection of poems, with his characteristic long-lined, rolling music, Hongo is alert to the possibilities of individual moments of perception and grace in the landscapes of his life, whether waiting for a ferry in Balboa after a writing workshop (“An oil slick from a yacht . . . / Spread rainbows on the water, an aleph / curving toward us”) or hanging out and playing LPs with the late, great poet Michael Harper, or watching his daughter in the sun with a halo of messy twelve-year-old’s hair, or listening to the sea, which speaks to him in so many places: at the Wai‘ōpae Tidepools, at Cassis, at Divi Bay in Saint Martin, where, he tells us, “I thought of writing to the soul of Nâzim Hikmet, / saying loving a woman was like writing a book— / . . . it is love’s body on which you write a page of kisses . . .” These poems of cloudy moons and sandstone cliffsides, the black glass of lava shattered into sands, waves surging, and stories of a poet’s gratitude for the journey he has made, come together to make a paean against forgetting.
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"In a surpassingly beautiful collection of poems, with his characteristic long-lined, rolling music, Hongo is alert to the possibilities of individual moments of perception and grace in the landscapes of his life, whether waiting for a ferry in Balboa after a writing workshop ("an oil slick from a yacht . . . /Spread rainbows on the water, an aleph / curving towards us") or hanging out and playing LPs with the late great poet Michael Harper, or watching his daughter in the sun with a halo of messy 12-year-old hair, or listening to the sea, which speaks to him in so many places: at the Wai'opae Tidepools, at Anzio, at Divi Bay in Saint Martin, where, he tells us, "I thought of writing to the soul of Nazim himet, / saying loving a woman was like writing a book-/ that you must do it every day and not forget." These poems of cloudy moons and sandstones cliffsides, black glass shattered onto sands, waves surging, and stories of a poet's gratitude for the journey he has made, come together to make a paean against forgetting"--

A New York Times Notable Book of 2025 A 2025 International Booker Prize Shortlist Nominee Longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature Winner of AIRMAIL's Inaugural Tom Wolfe Literary Prize for Fiction A scathing, provocative novel about contemporary existence by a rising star in Italian literature. Anna and Tom, an expat couple, have fashioned a dream life for themselves in Berlin. They are young digital "creatives" exploring the excitements of the city, freelancers without too many constraints, who spend their free time cultivating house plants and their images online. At first, they reasonably deduce that they've turned their passion for aesthetics into a viable, even enviable career, but the years go by, and Anna and Tom grow bored. As their friends move back home or move on, so their own work and sex life—and the life of Berlin itself—begin to lose their luster. An attempt to put their politics into action fizzles in embarrassed self-doubt. Edging closer to forty, they try living as digital nomads only to discover that, wherever they go, "the brand of oat milk in their flat whites was the same." Perfection—Vincenzo Latronico's first book to be translated into English—is a scathing novel about contemporary existence, a tale of two people gradually waking up to find themselves in various traps, wondering how it all came to be. Was it a lack of foresight, or were they just born too late?

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR One of The New Yorker's 24 Essential Reads of the Year Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction One of Publishers Weekly's Ten Best Books of the Year Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize and the Andrew Carnegie Medal One of the BBC’s 10 Best Books of the Summer | A Times (London) Best Book of the Year “One gawps . . . at its breadth and ambition. [The Sisters is] a transnational tour de force.” —Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times Book Review “One of this summer’s most buzzed-about novels.” —Nilanjana Roy, Financial Times “A classic story about sibling rivalry . . . One of the best novels I've ever read about the complexities of mixed heritage.” —Fredrik Backman, The New Yorker “[The Sisters] generates every kind of heat . . . If you welcome this novel into your mind, it will warm and transform you.” —Tess Gunty, National Book Award–winning author of The Rabbit Hutch “Astonishing . . . Every character—every sentence—is startlingly, indubitably alive.” —Katie Kitamura, author of Audition and Intimacies An addictively entertaining family saga by a National Book Award finalist. Meet the Mikkola sisters: Ina, Evelyn, and Anastasia. Their mother is a Tunisian carpet seller, their father a mysterious Swede who left them when they were young. Ina is tall, serious, a compulsive organizer. Evelyn is dreamy, magnetic, a smooth talker. And Anastasia is moody, chaotic, a shape-shifting presence, quick to anger. Ina meets her future husband when she’s dragged to a New Year’s rave by her sisters, only to suffer the ultimate betrayal. Evelyn drifts through life before embarking on a wild career as an actress. And Anastasia runs off to Tunisia, where she falls in love with a woman who, years later, will transform her life. Following the sisters from afar is Jonas, the son of a Swedish mother and a Tunisian father. Over the course of three decades, his life intersects with the sisters, from a chance encounter in Tunis to the scene of a fighter jet crash in Stockholm. When Evelyn disappears on a trip to New York, Jonas manages to track her down—and helps her to break the curse that has been looming over the Mikkolas for decades. In the process, a shocking revelation changes everything about who they think they are. Narrated in six parts, each spanning a period ranging from a year to a day to a single minute, Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s The Sisters is a big, vivid family saga of the highest order—an addictively entertaining tour de force.
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'It's ambitious, it's full of life, it's a triumph' The Times SELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE SUMMER BY THE TIMES, NEW YORK TIMES, VULTURE, BOSTON GLOBE, AND BBC 'Astonishing . . . every character - every sentence - is startlingly, indubitably alive' Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies 'A triumph' Irish Times 'One of the best novels I've ever read about the complexities of mixed heritage' New Yorker 'I really loved this book . . . a novel to sink into' New York Times 'One of the most enjoyable books I've read so far in 2025 . . . a page turner' The Gloss 'Superb . . . one of those books you live inside and miss when it's over' Isabella Hammad, author of Enter Ghost 'A moving appraisal of family, language, and the spiritual developments that accrue over a life' Raven Leilani, author of Luster 'A thoroughly fascinating story about sibling rivalry, loyalty, and love' Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove 'If you welcome this novel into your mind, it will warm and transform you' Tess Gunty, author of the Rabbit Hutch 'His masterpiece . . . life overflows its pages' Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing MEET THE MIKKOLA SISTERS: INA, EVELYN, AND ANASTASIA. Their mother is a Tunisian saleswoman, their father a mysterious Swede who left them when they were young. Ina is tall, serious, a compulsive organizer. Evelyn is dreamy, magnetic, a smooth talker. And Anastasia is moody, chaotic, quick to anger. Ina meets her future husband when she's dragged to a New Year's party by her sisters, only to suffer the ultimate betrayal. Evelyn drifts through life before embarking on a wild career as an actress. And Anastasia runs off to Tunisia, where she falls in love with a woman who, years later, will transform her life. Following them from afar is Jonas, the son of a Swedish mother and a Tunisian father. His life intersects with the sisters across decades and continents, from Stockholm to Tunis and New York. When Evelyn disappears, it's Jonas who tracks her down - and helps her to break a curse that has been looming over the Mikkolas for years. But in the process, a shocking revelation changes everything. Narrated in six parts, each spanning a period ranging from a year to a day to a single minute, The Sisters is a vivid, epic family saga of the highest order - an addictively entertaining tour de force.

A woman embarks on an odyssey through the afterlife to help her son, who is literally and figuratively lost at sea: a hilarious and deeply moving voyage of the body and the mind. Sandra dies suddenly at a death conference in Nepal attended by academics and mystics. Days later, back in America, her teenage son, Trip, runs away with a man who picks him up on the side of a road. Sandra tries to get a message back to Trip through the mystics, but the mystics are distracted, and her son and the strange man set out to sea. Amie Barrodale’s first novel features restless souls, Buddhist deities, divorcees in recovery programs, arguing academics, uncomprehending school principals, and treatment centers for troubled teenagers. It journeys from body to body, through life and death and back again. It tells the story of a mother and son who find other people hard to understand and who are themselves misunderstood. Guiding this wild, unpredictable journey is deep devotion: the desire to save a child and to be a good mother despite it all. Wide-eyed with wonder, blazingly funny and achingly moving, Trip brings us the deeper meaning of The Tibetan Book of the Dead: the past is a memory, the future is a projection, the present is gone before we can see it.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION • Named a Best Book of 2025 by The Globe and Mail • New York Times • The New Yorker • The Washington Post • NPR • Barnes & Noble • Kirkus • Audible From the Booker prize–winning, bestselling author of Atonement and Saturday, a genre-bending new novel full of secrets and surprises; an immersive exploration, across time and history, of what can ever be truly known. 2014: At a dinner for close friends and colleagues, renowned poet Francis Blundy honors his wife’s birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, ‘A Corona for Vivien’. Much wine is drunk as the guests listen, and a delicious meal consumed. Little does anyone gathered around the candlelit table know that for generations to come people will speculate about the message of this poem, a copy of which has never been found, and which remains an enduring mystery. 2119: Just over one hundred years in the future, much of the western world has been submerged by rising seas following a catastrophic nuclear accident. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost. In the water-logged south of what used to be England, Thomas Metcalfe, a lonely scholar and researcher, longs for the early twenty-first century as he chases the ghost of one poem, ‘A Corona for Vivian’. How wild and full of risk their lives were, thinks Thomas, as he pores over the archives of that distant era, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the elusive poem’s discovery, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a brutal crime that destroy his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well. What We Can Know is a masterpiece, a fictional tour de force, a love story about both people and the words they leave behind, a literary detective story which reclaims the present from our sense of looming catastrophe and imagines a future world where all is not quite lost.
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'One of the finest writers alive' Sunday Times 2014- A great poem is read aloud and never heard again. For generations, people speculate about its message, but no copy has yet been found. 2119- The lowlands of the UK have been submerged by rising seas. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost. Tom Metcalfe, a scholar at the University of the South Downs, part of Britain's remaining archipelagos, pores over the archives of the early twenty-first century, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the great lost poem, revelations of entangled love and a brutal crime emerge, destroying his assumptions about a story he thought he knew intimately. A quest, a literary thriller and a love story, What We Can Know is a masterpiece that reclaims the present from our sense of looming catastrophe, and imagines a future world where all is not quite lost. 'A true master' Daily Telegraph 'McEwan is one of the most accomplished craftsmen of plot and prose' New York Times

Desiree, Danielle, January, Monique and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning. Of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood and of big-city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness, that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood - overwhelming, mysterious and full of freedom and consequences - swoops in and stays. Desiree and Danielle, sisters whose shared history has done little to prevent their estrangement, nurse bitter family wounds in different ways. January's got a relationship with a 'good' man she feels ambivalent about, even after her surprise pregnancy. Monique, a librarian and aspiring blogger, finds unexpected online fame after calling out the university where she works for its plans to whitewash fraught history. And Nakia is trying to get her restaurant off the ground, without relying on the largesse of her upper middle-class family who wonder aloud if she should be doing something better with her life. As these friends move from the late 2000s into the late 2020s, from young adults to grown women, they must figure out what they mean to one another - amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability and the increasing volatility of modern life. The Wilderness is Angela Flournoy's masterful and kaleidoscopic follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut The Turner House. A generational talent, she captures with disarming wit and electric language how the most profound connections over a lifetime can lie in the tangled, uncertain thicket of friendship.
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE Named one of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year One of Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of the Year" Named a Best of the Year by The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly, Vogue, Elle, Time, Kirkus Reviews, Electric Literature, Town & Country, Alta Journal, NPR, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Book Riot, Audible "Flournoy has delivered a future classic--the kind of novel that generations to come will read to understand the nuances and peculiarities of this time." -- Harper's Bazaar An era-defining novel about five Black women over the course of their twenty-year friendship, as they move through the dizzying and sometimes precarious period between young adulthood and midlife--in the much-anticipated second book from National Book Award finalist Angela Flournoy. Desiree, January, Monique, and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning. Of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood, and of big-city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness, that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood--overwhelming, mysterious, and full of freedom and consequences--swoops in and stays. Desiree is estranged from her sister Danielle, and the two nurse bitter family wounds in different ways. January's got a relationship with a "good" man she feels ambivalent about, even after her surprise pregnancy. Monique, a librarian and aspiring blogger, finds unexpected online fame after calling out the university where she works for its plans to whitewash fraught history. And Nakia is trying to get her restaurant off the ground, without relying on the largesse of her upper middle-class family who wonder aloud if she should be doing something better with her life. As these friends move from the late 2000's into the late 2020's, from young adults to grown women, they must figure out what they mean to one another--amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability, and the increasing volatility of modern American life. The Wilderness is Angela Flournoy's masterful and kaleidoscopic follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut The Turner House. A generational talent, she captures with disarming wit and electric language how the most profound connections over a lifetime can lie in the tangled, uncertain thicket of friendship.
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* ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2025 * ‘Humorous yet devastating... I loved this book' - BRIT BENNETT ‘Flournoy is singular' - RAVEN LEILANI 'Flournoy has a long-lens talent' - ELEANOR CATTON 'A triumphant whirlwind of a novel' - NAMWALI SERPELL 'One of the wisest, most talented authors working today' - JUSTIN TORRES In 2008, Desiree, January, Monique and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning. Of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood and of big city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness, that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood – overwhelming, mysterious and full of freedom and consequences – swoops in and stays. Desiree is estranged from her sister Danielle, and the two nurse bitter family wounds in different ways. January's got a relationship with a 'good' man she feels ambivalent about, even after her surprise pregnancy. Monique, a librarian and aspiring blogger, finds unexpected online fame after calling out the university where she works for its plans to whitewash fraught history. And Nakia is trying to get her restaurant off the ground, without relying on the largesse of her upper middle-class family who wonder aloud if she should be doing something better with her life. As these friends transition from young adults to grown women, they must figure out what they mean to one another – amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability and the increasing volatility of modern life. In The Wilderness, Angela Flournoy captures with disarming wit and electric language how life's most profound connections can lie in the tangled, uncertain thicket of friendship. It's The Vanishing Half meets The Most Fun We Ever Had, with notes of Girl, Woman, Other. 'A future classic' - HARPER'S BAZAAR 'Flournoy inhabits a quartet of shifting perspectives with wit, tenderness and exquisite grace... Evokes the hushed, disconsolate quality of [Toni] Morrison' - NEW YORK TIMES 'A fascinating look at lasting friendships... Vivid' - WASHINGTON POST 'A triumph' - LA TIMES 'Flournoy beautifully renders how love - though at times thorny and confusing - is the one thing that keeps us connected' - TIME (The 100 Must-Read Books of 2025) ***** 5-STAR READER REVIEWS FOR THE WILDERNESS ***** 'Every heartbreak, triumph and turn of the text I actually felt in my body' 'Wow, this book... So real and raw' 'If you believe in the power of sisterhood, this is an unforgettable must-read' 'Will make you laugh, ache and long for your own family and friends' 'Captures the complexities of lifelong friendships with remarkable depth' 'One of my best books of the year, hands down' This novel contains references to assisted dying and drug use, and depictions of violence, death, and police brutality.

“Lockwood has written a roving chronicle of the madness of illness and the frightening porousness of what it means to be yourself in the hilariously profound way that only she could.” – Vulture “Bonkers.” – The New York Times “Reliably brilliant.” – The Washington Post “A wild, devilishly curious, often hallucinatory ride that’s worth its weight in insights.” – The San Francisco Chronicle From the Booker Prize finalist and “formidably gifted writer” (The New York Times), a vertiginous novel about a woman’s descent into illness and insanity. Amid a global pandemic, one young woman is trying to keep the pieces together – of her family, stunned by a devastating loss, and of her mind, left mangled and misfiring from a mystifying disease. She’s afraid of her own floorboards, and “WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON’T HURT ME” plays over and over in her ears. She hates her friends, or more accurately, she doesn’t know who they are. Has the illness stolen her old mind and given her a new one? Does it mean she’ll get to start over from scratch, a chance afforded to very few people? The very weave of herself seems to have loosened: time and memories pass straight through her body. “I’m sorry not to respond to your email,” she writes, “but I live completely in the present now." Will There Ever Be Another You is the brain-shredding, phosphorescent story of one woman’s dissolution and her attempt to create a new way of thinking, as well as a profound investigation into what keeps us alive in times of unprecedented disorientation and loss, from one of our most original writers. Praise for Will There Ever Be Another You “Patricia Lockwood… writes with the impish verve and provocative guilelessness of a peeing cupid.” – The New Yorker “Completely singular… Patricia Lockwood’s body of work is like this: a hymn—or ode, depending on the day—to the painful project of being human.” – The New Republic “The author’s fans will find her trademark humor, originality, and depth on full display. This is a knockout.” – starred Publishers Weekly Praise for No One Is Talking About This “A book that reads like a prose poem, at once sublime, profane, intimate, philosophical, witty and, eventually, deeply moving.” —The New York Times “Reading Patricia Lockwood raises questions. Questions such as, How can a person understand both herself and the world with such clarity? How does a person experience things so intensely and express them so buoyantly? Am I laughing or am I crying? Lockwood’s first novel is as crystalline, witty, and brain-shredding as her poetry and criticism.” —Vulture “Wow. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book. What an inventive and startling writer…I’m so glad I read this. I really think this book is remarkable.” —David Sedaris “God, is she funny!” —The New Yorker