By Washington Put up ebook critic Ron Charles
2025 provided a feast of nice books. To assist construct your endless studying record, listed here are 5 titles we significantly loved over the previous 12 months:
Simon & Schuster
Lucas Schaefer’s debut novel, “The Slip” (Simon & Schuster), gained this yr’s Kirkus Prize for Fiction. The story takes place in and round a boxing gymnasium in Austin, Texas, the place two lonely youngsters are desirous to remake their identities wherever that may lead them.
This sweaty comedian masterpiece tackles our most urgent social debates, and delivers a knockout.
Learn an excerpt: “The Slip” by Lucas Schaefer
“The Slip” by Lucas Schaefer (Simon & Schuster), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio codecs, out there by way of Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
Sourcebooks Landmark 
Susie Dent’s debut novel, “Responsible by Definition” (Sourcebooks Landmark), introduces a dictionary editor in Oxford who begins receiving unusual messages about her sister’s long-ago disappearance.
As she follows these clues, she is led into literary puzzles and unresolved elements of her previous. Readers who savor wordplay as a lot as suspense ought to search for this intelligent thriller.
Learn an excerpt: “Responsible by Definition” by Susie Dent
“Responsible by Definition” by Susie Dent (Sourcebooks Landmark), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio codecs, out there by way of Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
Riverhead Books 
“Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Battle for a Black State” (Riverhead Books), by Caleb Gayle, traces the rise of Edward McCabe by means of Kansas and the Oklahoma Territory as Black migrants pursued land, security and energy within the Jim Crow period.
Confronting hostile politics and violent resistance, McCabe fought for group and self-determination, and Gayle lays out this charged panorama to disclose a vital however long-obscured chapter within the battle for freedom.
Learn an excerpt: “Black Moses” by Caleb Gayle
“Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Battle for a Black State” by Caleb Gayle (Riverhead Books), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio codecs, out there by way of Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
calebgayle.com (Official website)
Knopf 
Karen Russell’s “The Antidote” (Knopf) is a dazzlingly unique novel that hovers between fable and historical past.
This wild tempest of a story set in Melancholy-era Nebraska follows a prairie witch and a highschool woman swept up right into a tumultuous western epic in regards to the tragedies and ambitions of Manifest Future.
Learn an excerpt: “The Antidote” by Karen Russell
“The Antidote” by Karen Russell (Knopf), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio codecs, out there by way of Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
Crown 
Rick Atkinson’s “The Destiny of the Day: The Conflict for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780” (Crown), the second ebook in his deliberate trilogy, delivers a chronicle of the American Revolution with irresistible narrative drive.
Shifting between battles and diplomacy, he brings Washington, Franklin and their rivals to life whereas tracing the nation’s struggle for independence. The result’s an immersive work of historical past simply in time for America’s 250th anniversary.
Learn an excerpt: “The Destiny of the Day” by Rick Atkinson
“The Destiny of the Day: The Conflict for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 (Quantity Two of the Revolution Trilogy)” by Rick Atkinson (Crown), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio codecs, out there by way of Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
Historian Rick Atkinson (Official website)
Rick Atkinson on how the U.S. Military was born – and a free nation realized (“Sunday Morning”)
That is it for the Guide Report. It has been nice enjoyable to speak to you about good books over the previous yr. This is to many extra in 2026.
I am Ron Charles. Till subsequent time, learn on!
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For extra studying suggestions, take a look at our library of earlier Guide Report options from Ron Charles:
