To close out 2025, Everyone Should Read co-hosts Kate Watters and Drew Sylva share their best books of 2025 in an extra-long bonus episode. We’re breaking down our top picks across longform fiction, longform nonfiction, shortform fiction, and shortform nonfiction—plus the most surprising reads, our favorite discoveries, and the single best thing we read all year. Expect lively book recommendations, hot takes, and tangents that take us all over the literary map.

Drew's Best of 2025 Book Picks:

Longform Fiction: Home to Harlem by Claude McKay / The Antidote by Karen Russel

Longform NonFiction: The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein

Short-form Fiction: The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke

Short-form NonFiction: The Race to Innocence by Mary Louise Fellows and Sherene Razack

Book that Surprised: Yellowface by R.F. Huang

Book to Build a Class Around: Making History by KJ Parker

Best thing Drew Read in 2025: The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

Kate's Best of 2025 Book Picks:

Longform Fiction: The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig

Longform NonFiction: In Open Contempt by Irvin Weathersby Jr

Short-form Fiction: Galatea by Madeline Miller / Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu

Short-form NonFiction: Superfine by Monica L. Miller

Book that Surprised: I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jannette McCurdy

Book to Build a Class Around: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Best thing Kate Read in 2025: Hand written notes