As is our tradition, we ended our year in Secret Stuff with our annual No Book Book Club meeting. Instead of all reading the same book, we came with our recommendations for the best things we read this year.

These were the books we can’t stop talking about or buying for our loved ones… these were the books that went the distance in 2025.

ICYMI, we also announced the 2026 Secret Stuff Book Club selections.

For your convenience, we time-stamped this meeting so you can easily find what you may be looking for:

Announcements: 3:21

Laura’s Favorite Book Club Moments: 11:17

Fiction Recs: 16:06

Non-Fiction Recs: 58:28

BEST BOOKS OF 2025

Fiction:

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino

Still Life by Sarah Winman

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett

The Lost Journals of Sacajewea by Debra Magpie Earling

All Fours by Miranda July

We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker

The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

Miss Austen by Gill Hornby

The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O’Neill

The Lexington Letter (from the TV Show “Severance,” available for free on Apple Books)

The You You Are (from the TV Show “Severance,” also available for free on Apple Books)

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The Overstory by Richard Powers

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Non-Fiction:

The Storyteller by Dave Grohl

The Deepest Well by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris

Everything is Tuberculosi s by John Green

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

Reagan: His Life and Legend by Max Boot

The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America by Sara B. Franklin

The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis by Maria Smilios

Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad

A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern

Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum by Antonia Hylton

Challenger by Adam Higginbotham

It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People by Dr. Ramani Durvasula

Also Mentioned:

There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib

Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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